Coordinating curtains and wall colours can be a tricky task no matter how fine your furnishings, the pieces must complement each other or you won’t have a pleasing space. That’s especially true of walls and window treatments given that they abut. For a cohesive, professionally decorated look, you have to coordinate your curtains with your wall colour.
Repeat the Wall Colour
For a colour-coordinated look with patterned curtains, make sure the pattern contains at least a bit of the wall colour. If your walls are white or ivory, choose a pattern with a white or ivory background. If you’ve opted for more colourful walls, you can repeat the color in the fabric pattern’s background or foreground design. You don’t have to hold out for an exact color match in either case. As long as the colour in the pattern is no more than two shades lighter or darker than the wall color, the eye sees it as a repeated colour.
Make It Monochromatic
For a classic look with solid-coloured curtains, choose curtain fabric in the same colour family as your wall colour, but opt for a darker or lighter version. For example, select burnt-orange curtains if you have apricot walls or vice versa. If you prefer a subtler colour difference, stay within two to three shades of the wall colour.
Choose Complementary Colours
Complementary colours sit opposite each other on a colour wheel. Though complementary colour schemes are classic, the contrast is frequently too great to use solid-coloured curtains with solid-colored walls. Instead, temper the contrast with a fabric pattern that mixes a neutral with your wall colour’s complement. If you have blue walls, the complementary colour is orange. For the curtains, you can use an orange-and-ivory stripe or an orange-and-white quarterfoil pattern. You can also use a pattern that mixes different values of the wall colour’s complement with neutrals, such as a paisley featuring ivory, tan and orange shades ranging from apricot to rust.
Keep It Neutral
If you’ve used strong colour on your walls, you can tone down the overall look by choosing curtains in a neutral colour. White curtains work with both warm and cool wall colours. For something less stark, opt for ivory, champagne or buttercream curtains with warm-coloured walls, and oyster or dove gray for walls painted with a cool colour. You can use both solids or tone-on-tone printed fabrics for the neutral look. To add visual interest, you can embellish the curtains with a contrasting band of fabric that matches your wall colour on the leading edge or hem. Appliqued ribbon in a Greek key or scrolling design also works well.
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