Green Living Room Decorating Ideas

From verdant forest green to softly-does-it sage, there’s no shortage of green paint colours for your living room (see our other article on ideas for using green outside of the living room). But green paint or green living room wallpaper are just the beginning.

Upholstery in opulent peacock green velvet and emerald green granite and marble used for kitchen countertops and accent tables are two of the more high-end areas to explore in your green living room decorating ideas.

Moss green wool tweed on a footstool or an olive-toned lampshade on a glass lamp are more traditional suggestions of how you might want to bring green into your sitting room. Not to mention the easiest green of all – greenery, from potted succulents to larger fiddle-leaf fig plants or olive trees.

Green, as with any colour on the spectrum, has various different hues and tints that create many versions of it. And, once you’ve decided that you’re more of a lime green person than a mint, what are the pairing successes to try?

These are some of a selection of the more traditional and contemporary variations of green to figure out which living room colour scheme is more to your taste.

One of the most understated ways to involve green is to opt for a grey and green living room. Both tones can have either a warm or a cool base in this scenario, as long as they’re soft rather than intense to result in a sophisticated, classic room design. Try to avoid lots of dark-coloured furniture in this sort of living room though. One feature piece is plenty, and then add layers of lighter textiles and varying textures so the overall tone of the room doesn’t feel flat.

Grey and green can also be interpreted in a much more contemporary way. Picture polished concrete against a jewel green sofa with crittall-style windows.

A shade of green that’s often deemed as retro or juvenile, but lime green living room accessories can provide a refreshing update if they’re used elegantly. Lime green and pale, silvered grey are a pleasing match. Darker wooden furniture and chocolatey fabrics for upholstery (such as aged leathers or nubuck suede) add some weight and a level of masculinity not always associated with lime’s inherent ‘zing’. Or, take lime to more exotic climes by teaming it with blue and red accents and oversized bursts of plant life.

Fundamentally, use lime green if you want your sitting room to feel awake more than anything else.

Out of all of the green shades, sage is arguably the easiest to live with. It’s soft without being sugary or pastel, and with enough depth to show some confidence. Just look at this sophisticated living room from architects William T. Baker’s Limestone Chateau project. Says founder and principal William Baker, who commissioned the space for his project, “The deep green colour of this room is made even more dramatic by the contrasting whites of the art and the brass finish of the light fixture.”

When it comes to sage living room ideas, it’s helpful to know that it also lives happily with most tones of wood, from pale pines to rich walnut, as well as with a host of textures, like leathers, linens, rattan and metal.

If you live in a period property, sage is a pathway to a refined use of colour.

A mint green living room falls somewhere between lime and sage. It has the invigorating nature of lime, but the fresh, calm side of sage. It’s also one of the variations of green that people often find harder to use.

Try mint if your scheme is more classic. It makes a grand statement on fully-lined curtains and a timeless one on lamps. In terms of furniture, try to add an item or two in reflective glass, such as a glass-topped side table and mirror that by featuring a glass chandelier or pendant light to play on mint’s characteristically light nature.

The Tamarama House can be found in Greg Natale’s new book The Patterned Interior, Rizzoli New York, 2018

Dark green living room ideas don’t have to mean dark all over. You can, of course, choose loden green, moss and even bottom-of-the-lake shades of green that verge on dark grey to cover your walls or one of your sofas. But, dark can also simply mean darker. Emerald green could be counted as a darker green shade too. Pair any of these tones with brass – polished or beautifully tarnished – to bring out the best in them. Polished woods are a well-suited partner to darker shades of green, either on floorboards, furniture or even wooden wall panelling.

Olive is a compelling use of green that’s viewed as being one of the bolder tones. Not because it’s necessarily loud or controversial, but because it has been used less than ideally in the past giving it the unfair label of being a dated colour. Use olive to its full potential though, and your home will feel luxe and self-assured.

Olive green living room ideas are dominated by statement upholstery pieces covered in the natural hue. It can shrink into the shadows if it’s not used overtly, so go large-scale with an olive green sofa or smaller pouffe if Art Deco is your thing. Should a sofa’s entirety in olive scare you, try olive green as a motif within your fabric’s pattern to temper it.

Olive’s also a shade that loves exposed timber, and is one of the few tones that really suits red-tinted woods like cherry.