How to Decorate with Neutrals

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Your home should be your happy place. Somewhere where you can be yourself, enjoy your family, and be warm and welcoming to guests. There are many different styles of home decor and finding your personal style and adding touches of it throughout your home is essential. While I have so much fun creating home decor collages that allow me to play with color and different styles, at the end of the day, I often find myself going back to the basics for our home. For me, these basics are classic and timeless neutral home decor pieces that pair well with everything. In this blog post I’m going to share what I love about neutral home decor, how you can decorate with neutrals in your home, and some of my favorite neutral home decor items.

Why I Love Neutral Home Decor

There are many reasons why I love neutral home decor. One of these being that a neutral home can easily transition from season-to-season and year-to-year without having to spend a ton of money. For example, if you decorate a living room with red and green for Christmas, but then want to decorate the same room with pink and blue for spring, you can achieve this without difficulty if it is a neutral living room (for example, a cream sofa and beige walls). I also love the fact that neutral home decor can work for all types of styles - classic, coastal, modern, or grandmillennial. It provides the perfect backdrop for you to add pops of color and make small changes or add trends each year without making major adjustments. Now that I’ve shared why I love it, let’s talk about how you can decorate with neutrals in every room of your house!

Decorating with Neutrals in your Home

I’ve found that before jumping in and decorating one room in a home, it’s nice to have a plan for each room to ensure that they all pair well together. If different rooms are filled with different color schemes and different styles all throughout a home, it can cause too much visual disturbance and simply not “flow” well. One way to make certain that your home is cohesive is by decorating with neutrals as the “base” in each room - neutral furniture, wall colors, accents, etc. Now, this isn’t to say that you can only have neutrals in every single room. I absolutely believe in pops of color and adding fun styles to a home! But, if you’re like me and enjoy the classic style of a neutral home, I’m going to break it down and share how you can decorate with neutrals in each room of your house.

Decorating with Neutrals in a Living Room

A living room is one of the rooms where time is often most spent. It is also a room that people like to change up frequently for different seasons, which I believe makes it the perfect room to add neutral home decor. You can create a neutral living room by choosing neutral colors for the “big” items such as a sofa, ottoman, or console table. Remember, neutrals don’t have to be plain or boring! A neutral striped chair or a tan textured coffee table, for example, are still neutrals. If you want to expand and create a fully neutral living room, you can also add neutrals for other items in this space such as a rattan tea tray with books on top, a white ginger jar, or a textured ivory throw pillow.

Decorating with Neutrals in a Bedroom

Creating a neutral bedroom can provide a calm, happy space for you to relax. I also love that a neutral bedroom can be made feminine with touches of pale blue or blush or made masculine with dark brown or olive green. A cane bed with white bedding is an absolutely beautiful centerpiece in a neutral bedroom. Natural wood or white dressers and nightstands also look great in bedrooms. You can decorate a neutral bedroom with rattan picture frames, a gold mirror, or a clear vase with white flowers to complete the look.

Decorating with Neutrals in a Bathroom

Unlike bedrooms, bathrooms are often used by everyone in a home along with guests. Creating a neutral bathroom provides a welcoming feeling for everyone who enters. I love adding a textured neutral shower curtain in a bathroom, as the texture adds some interest to the room, while staying neutral. Monogrammed white towels are always a bathroom favorite and I love adding cute vases, tissue box covers, and toothbrush holders as well. I recently switched to white dispensers for my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc. and even that small change adds so much elegance to a neutral bathroom!

Decorating with Neutrals in a Kitchen & Dining Room

There is typically a lot going on in a kitchen with colorful foods, appliances, packages, and if you’re like us, children’s artwork hanging on the fridge. This situation is exactly why decorating with neutrals in a kitchen and dining room is a wonderful idea! Again, neutral doesn’t mean boring and you can still incorporate patterns. Items such as a tan gingham tablecloth, a large gold mirror, and a white ginger jar with flowers look wonderful in neutral dining rooms. In the kitchen, I find a neutral KitchenAid mixer, hobnail stacking bowls, and a classic white dish set to be musts. It really is nice to tone down the chaos of a busy kitchen by adding neutral decor.

Decorating with Neutrals on Outdoor Patio

Obviously, decorating with neutrals is a good thing, so why stop with just the interior of your home! Surrounded by green grass and colorful flowers, your backyard or patio is the perfect place to add neutral home decor. There’s nothing more classic than a wicker outdoor sofa on top of a tan patterned rug with a few white planters nearby. If you have kids, I love this adorable children’s picnic table with a tan umbrella! You can complete a neutral outdoor patio with string lights and a fire pit for the ultimate space to hang out.

Decorating with Neutrals in Your Home

There are some neutral home decor items that look great in every room of a home. For example, a tan seagrass area rug is perfect for a living room or a bedroom. You could place a cream chair in your home office or use this piece in a living room. When it comes to neutral home decor, items such as furniture, lighting, rugs, and curtains are wonderful because they can be used in almost any room. I believe this can help save money because if you want a change, you can simply move the item from room to room, rather than buy something new.

Neutral Home Decor

Do you love decorating with neutrals as much as I do? In which rooms of your home do you have or hope to add neutral decor? If you’re a fan of neutral home decor like I am, I hope this has helped give you some ideas on how to decorate with neutrals in your home. If there is a room you’re struggling to find the right neutral decor piece for or have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. I’m always happy to help you find the perfect items for your home!