Bring the Outside into Your Living Room With Spring Green Shades

Feeling like your living space needs refreshing? Be inspired by nature and celebrate the season by adding luscious layers of green

Rachel Ogden 22 May 2014

I’m a UK-based freelance journalist with more than 14 years experience of writing, editing and sub-editing. For the last six years, I’ve worked exclusively in interiors, writing about everything from extending your home to kitchen worktops, flooring, storage and more. I'm also a keen blogger.

I’m a UK-based freelance journalist with more than 14 years experience of writing,... More

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With spring in the air and the great outdoors looking at its most lush, there is no better time to introduce some green tones to your home. Whether you choose the shade of a crisp apple, a zesty lime or a clump of spongy moss, you can’t beat green for transforming a tired living space. This fresh-from-nature colour looks at is best as a juicy accent, bringing a shot of invigorating natural colour to soft furnishings, accessories and feature walls. Isn’t it time you went green?

amorybrown.co.uk

Look to the floor
It’s the fifth wall of your room, but the floor can easily be forgotten. Treat it as an ideal place to add some green colour, especially if a feature wall is not an option. Try using a vibrantly patterned carpet, a textured rug or even luxury vinyl tiles. There are plenty of statement options available and many can be laid DIY on top of existing floors for a super-quick update. Just make sure the sub-floor is smooth and level first.

Explore rugs that add character to your room

Diligence International

Add an edge
Including green in unexpected places, such as architraves, panelling or chunky skirting is a clever way to bring this colour into your home, while keeping it subtle. You can then continue the green theme on accessories. Floor cushions, storage baskets and plants can contribute more fresh accents and are easy to update or move.

Imagine Living

Pipe it in
Green and zesty yellow can be used as pops of colour to liven up a grey scheme. Sofas tend to be upholstered in neutral tones, but the simple addition of some bright green piping gives the cushions on this classic piece real definition. A couple of green cushions pick up on the shade, which is used again, in a more zesty yellow tone, to highlight the shelving.

Think Contemporary

Make it a feature
A painted feature wall in a deep green makes a strong style statement in your living room, or go one better, and choose a green wallpaper instead. This deep green paper has a subtle horizontal stripe in it, which is a great way to give a sense of width to the room. And don’t imagine that a feature wall has to stand on its own. Feel free to hang pictures against it. Here, a pink and white print makes a playful contrast.

Tobi Fairley Interior Design

Get some balance
There’s something intrinsically pleasing about symmetrical space, but rather than creating a mirror-image room with identical pieces of furniture on either side, make colour the driver. Here, green is the shade that pops up on both sides of the space, uniting a mix of fabrics and furniture. The result is a balanced room that doesn’t feel to rigidly symmetrical. Remember to include a striking item as your central focal point — clocks, mirrors and large-scale pictures work well — and keep the background neutral so the green notes sing out.

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Bring it inside
A large piece of furniture painted in a deep green shade could dominate your living space, so instead add the colour on the inside of the piece. Paint the interior and doors of a cupboard, or the space behind shelves, in your accent shade. Then, when you open the doors, you see a flash of colour. Echo the same green hue on patterned upholstery or soft furnishings, to bring it into the rest of the room.

Gacek Design Group, Inc.

Take the green theme further
Bring green into your scheme with one of the latest botanical-influenced patterns, as a nice reminder of nature’s abundance of green tones. This rug, with its floral design, adds welcome pattern to a very simple room and the green shade perfectly matches the feature wall.

Be inspired by 10 feature walls

LLI Design

Choose an accent
Less is often more when it comes to green, so if you want to work it in on upholstery, which can’t easily be changed, surround it with pale furniture and accessories. That way, a chair covered in mossy green fabric looks wonderfully distinct. Pairing it with a citrusy cushion adds contrast.

STEPHEN FLETCHER ARCHITECTS

Frame your windows
Period properties don’t need to be dressed with period furniture; modern pieces can work beautifully in a room crammed with architectural details, as this room demonstrates. The green curtains are a clever addition. The bold shade with its subtle pattern is a great choice that falls midway between classic and contemporary style — at once respecting the period bones of the room and working with its contemporary aesthetic.

Tracy Murdock Allied ASID

Add a natural focal point
Forget bunches of flowers or fancy bouquets, a huge green leaf makes a striking, central display in this living space. It seems to anchor the whole room, with lots of other shades of green dancing around. Cushions with lime green and moss tones, a lichen-coloured throw and a wall in a complementary apple shade expand the green theme, while still letting the leaf take centre stage.

Do you like these shades of green? How would you incorporate them into your home? Let us know in the Comments.

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Stella Michael

I love, love, love the greens here! I prefer the ones that had some contrast, like the pink and citrus cushions, the orange pots, purple sofa etc they really brought out the green and made it sing! I have always loved the idea of coloured skirting boards and the bright green ones here look great. Also the touches like the green piping ... I have a vintage armchair recovered in soft lime green linen with raspberry piping and it always makes me smile. These images and ideas have inspired me to add more zingy greens to my home.

1 Like 4 May 2015 at 7:06am