A forest is full of hundreds upon thousands of trees, with teeming overhead canopies of varied species lining up one right next to another. On average, three to four tree species exist per square kilometer, adding immense depth and divergence to natural surroundings. Why not create the same effect within your home’s interior?

If everything is a perfect match, then nothing will stand out at all. Instead, a space will fall completely flat. You don’t want your home’s interior to lie horizontally without variety or dimension, like fallen trees in the forest. Cultivating scope within a room is attainable with the right mixing and matching of wood tones. Wood is a neutral design category, allowing for straightforward interspacing throughout a set area. Ready to try it for yourself? Here’s a quick guide to mixing different wood tones in your home.

Consider Hues: Choose Complementary Undertones

The spectrum of woods you choose to place within a space must be somewhat consistent in scale. Mixing and matching wood pieces begins with cohesive undertones. An undertone is the base hue of the wood—cool, warm, or neutral. You can identify the undertone when you assess the wood’s color. You can choose to mix wood pieces in light, medium, and dark tones, but don't forget about those complementary colors. These underlying hues are integral to creating a balanced warm, cool, or neutral appearance.

Create Texture Continuity: Go with the Grain

Next up on our quick guide to mixing different wood tones in your home: ponder over wood textures and patterns. Each wood is unique in ways other than its color—each wood also has its own grain pattern. These visible shapes, stripes, or swirls are equally as influential to the conclusive cohesiveness of a room as color tones. Larger wood grains traditionally create a casual look, while smaller grains are customarily more formal. Implementing similar wood grains emits a sense of continuity that will flow throughout the room. If you have wood floors, begin there. Otherwise, cabinets and doors are other wood elements with which you can easily coordinate wood textures.

Embrace Contrast: A Ricocheting Room Flow

Playing with contrast is key to mixing wood tones—you can either be super subtle or strikingly dramatic about it. Think of a room similar to a pinball machine: variety certainly exists throughout the space, but you can still ricochet off passably resembling tones. Feel free to mix in textiles, décor, accessories, or painted or upholstered pieces to serve as visual buffers. This inclusion of natural transitions provides superior room flow.

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