Thank you so much. I love French country chairs but the sofa is not that comfy so I'd like to be able to just flop into soft oh-so-comfy chairs. The room is small so the sofa and 2 chairs is all I can have. No, sorry, I do have one French accent chair in cognac with small white dots. I love it but it must stay where it is. I need the 2 new ones to reside close to the fireplace.

Here are some options for you. I like all of them. With the cream, just add red pillow and they would look great with sofa. They all look super comfortable.

I'd look to the stone in your fireplace for color inspiration. Personally I'd go with cream colored chairs with a darker wood. (Keep in mind you may want to recover the sofa sometime). For now I'd add an area rug perhaps a soft sisal with beige trim? This will blend the beiges of chairs; couch;carpet and walls. I would also us solid color pillows and throw. I'd avoid mixing too many patterns.

Hi

I would think a cream/beige which tones with the background of the sofa would look great, then add a splash of color with a mohair throw blanket in one of the stronger colors in the sofa. Here's an idea, but you might like to also consider an 'Olive' throw in your room.

Thanks so much Susan, Barbara, Nancy, Mohairs. Love your ideas. Those red leather chairs are interesting. I've looked at thousands of chairs and never seen those. I'd love to have the chairs I had 20 years ago. They were so sophisticated but so comfy and went with everything....a subtle geometric white on beige. Fabric as in the West Wing. God I loved those chairs. Nothing matches up..........but getting closer thanks to you all. THANKS AGAIN AND GOOD NIGHT......I HAVE TO GIVE IT UP FOR THIS EVENING. But, I'll return to this tomorrow. I may (stress MAY) remove the carpet and put in warm dark cherry wood plank floors. Then I'll go crazy looking for the perfect area rug. Bye for now.

Hello,

I had a room that was okay but for some reason didn't quite pull together. I ended up painting it a semi-dark grey (I think it was Resene Double Stack). This made a big difference. So what I am suggesting is that perhaps you may not need to change chairs but just a lick of paint on the walls can change things? Good luck:)

I would definitely recommend red chairs in the same color and even similar pattern to throw pillows you have on the sofa. This will help to unify the furniture together and not make it too busy. You could also do a gold and cream colored stripe if the colors coordinated with the cream background of the sofa. Good luck and have fun!

I think I have the same upholstery from EA on my loveseat. The EA designer found 3 other green fabrics that work with it. She did a great job, as my LR is yellow and I wanted green (my favorite color) furniture, but there's a pony wall that opens to the red DR. The loveseat makes the perfect transition from yellow and green LR to red DR, as it is under the pony wall.

If you don't want to go back to EA for more furniture, at least get a swatch of the fabric on your sofa (they have them) and take it around when looking at other furniture.

You can work with the gold that is in the fabric (if it's the same as mine), too.

I think a match would do the trick!

gingermichelle, a match? as in burn the room?

I like Barbara's thoughts and the first chair Susan posted. Also, maybe a gold/tan like in the sofa fabric would look nice on that walls.

For new chairs, pull one of the reddish or greenish tones out of the sofa fabric in a smaller print, especially geometric, for some contrast with the sofa floral (which is VERY traditional on this traditional rolled arm sofa). That mission recliner is way out of place with that sofa.

The open arm bergere French arm chair ideas could be ideal, as they can be relatively large (comfortable) without filling up what sounds like a small space. The exterior and interior of the chairs can be upholstered in complementary, but contrasting fabrics, if you want the room to have more detail. Don't fall for the all white/pale upholstery offered by some. That's a very unexciting way out.

The fireplace stone is pretty rustic, so stay away from surfaces that are too slick, polished and refined (including the chair frames). A bit of roughness or agedness in wood and metal in the room will help them tie together. Less contrast between wall color and fireplace stone will warm up the room as well as tie the big fireplace better into the whole space. Consider a tan/taupe wall color that bridges the stone and carpet colors. Good luck

Why would you continue to attempt to decorate and design around a sofa that you do not like? You say it is not comfortable and the print is no longer attractive. The obvious solution is replace it. You can buy something that looks better and sits better. I always use ivory or white couches. When they get dirty I have them cleaned. The couch/sofa is usually the largest, most obvious piece of furniture in a room. If it is neutral it will usually not overwhelm a room and then you have more choices for paint and adding color & pattern via accessories and art work. You could use a pattern on chairs or pillows... Red leather chairs can be attractive, however, they will not go with the print you have on the sofa or the style of the coffee table. Even if you can find the right color red, the leather is not the correct texture to go with your sofa print. Your room seems to have elements of traditional(storage units, sofa), rustic(fireplace) and "fancy"(cut glass, coffee table and lamp shade) and ? (chairs). Look at all the LR you like here on Houzz & Choose the look you like best. Use that look consistently in your own LR.

From the initial message, I read that the owner had a sofa that was shot and that she replaced it with the one in the photo, from Ethan Allen, which makes good furniture. I guess that's why she wants to work around it. I didn't read that replacing the sofa was an option.

Ethan Allen has designers who will offer suggestions - maybe that would be worth a try.

curious4doors, would you mind deleting the photo of the sofa above. Personal reasons. Thanks so much!

I had an identical sounding dilemma except that my floors are hardwood. (I despise carpeting...and I live in Canada.).) My beautiful, darker wood rattan furniture in my 12' x 18 sunroom extension of my kitchen area, came with a floral / leafy design; an off white background with reddish and greenish flowers and leaves. I decided to make the upholstery of my lovely, dark rattan side chairs a forest green like yours. I regret it now. I should have gone lighter because the contrast of the chair as a whole and the surroundings is too great. I should have made the chairs the background colour of the sofa upholstery for a lighter, unified, more spacious look. You could bring the vibrant red in in cushions...

Buy some ugly garbage for 25 cents at a yard sale. Put it on your sofa. When your friends come by, describe it with words like victorian, bohemian, creamy, teal, rattan, leafy, earthy. Don't forget rustic. Always work that into the conversation. Say the word sophisticated at least once every 45 seconds. Emphasize that the room is now unified and the tides are now receding.

Eclectic, sleek and svelt. Bergere, soft sisal, complementary but contrasting, camel hair or braided horse tail texture. Never say Ethan Allen. Always say EA for the superiority effect, it will help your credibility and you can raise your consultant fees. Now pull it all together with a Jaime Oliver Lavender crème brûlée.

Design maven? OK, enough with the comments. Found what I need. Thank you to all who commented politely with constructive comments.

Great, can you show us the results? We love to see.

I recommend to get a new sofa as well. Or buy some simple soft grey colored upholsted chair. Even later you do get a new sofa, those chairs can still stay.

I'm not really excited about the couch, especially with the blue walls in the background, but if you are going to go with it, I would choose two chairs that match the green in the sofa. Paint the walls cream.

Wow, well that couch is not great, but if that's what you have to work with then I would not do any other colored furniture in that room. I would do neutral chairs. That room head to toe is just very, very dated. Everything would need to be touched.

Opt for medium gray -- or even slightly darker than medium gray. Even a more pale blue or a good color of tan/light brown might work if you are staying with leather of vinyl. Black would work with the blueish color of the chair pic you posted but totally black might be a bit too stark of a contrast with the carpet. If you're considering something other than leather or vinyl, then including black in the chair color would do fine.

Contrary to what another person posted and from what I can see, your room is not "dated" -- it's classic and comfortable looking. If you want to update anything, consider updating the floor lamp with a tall one that has two lights -- one to light the room and one (gooseneck) to light whatever the person in the chair is reading. You could repurpose the other floor lamp for a bedroom.

susan2494, where did you find the red leather chairs?

I think on overstock.com, can't remember if they are real leather or bonded.

Is there a photo here of the actual couch that I am missing????

capeanner: She talks about "this" sofa but doesn't show it. That doesn't stop everybody from name-dropping styles, stores, fabrics. Reality doesn't matter as long as everyone can feel good about their own self-aggrandizing posts.

Oh. Thought I was missing something...like the couch everyone is trying to match in their imaginations.

Rankewe appears to have a settee and arm chair from a parlor set, circa 1895-1908, with some vaguely Louis XV carvings. They would have been factory production pieces made for average folks. They have some, but not high antique value in the marketplace. That said, you have quite a bit of latitude with what you do with the pieces without destroying their antique/collectible value. With the organic shapes in the frame carving, you could create contrast with a bold geometric or stripe for a very modern look, or use a medium scaled organic pattern that connects with the carving forms. Quite a range of color opportunities available to you too. Colors that harmonize with the frame will appear more traditional, those that contrast with it will look more modern. Plain and minimally textured fabrics will tend to showcase the frame. More aggressively patterned/textured fabrics will tend to mute the frame. Once you change the frame finish, the antique value will drop a bunch, but the decorator value may go up.

It all boils down to how these pieces fit into the space you are decorating. Are they intended to be points of focus? or meld into the background?

Pieces such as these aren't very comfortable for sitting by modern standards (back when they were made, social customs required folks to sit upright, back not touching the chair). They can be useful in bedrooms as a place to perch while dressing, or in a hall to sit and put on shoes. Can be cute in a child's room, because of their small stature too.