# Brown carpets and gray couches - help!



## amijay (Dec 28, 2013)

My husband and I just bought a home, and are in disagreement about the living room carpet. The previous owners installed the carpet only 18 months ago, and it is very well kept and quite expensive. But the carpet is dark brown. This works well with the former owners' log cabin decor, but clashes horribly (I think) with our dark gray couches and black living room furniture. The furniture is replaceable (it's IKEA and it's cheap) but the couches are nice and we have no intention of getting rid of them. I would love to re-carpet, but my husband doesn't want to replace new, expensive carpet, and I see his point enough that I probably won't win this one. Any ideas on wall color, furnishings, rugs, and other decor that might help gray couches actually work with dark brown carpet?


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

Buy a new house.

Joking.....any chance you can post a pic?


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

Your going to find any dark colored carpet is going to show every speck of dirt and make the whole room appear darker.


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## amijay (Dec 28, 2013)

*Pictures*

The couches are here (the color shows up better on the furniture website than with my camera), and I don't have pictures of the carpet since we are still closing on the house, but it is probably about this color, or even darker.

That's discouraging about everything showing up on the carpet, since I'm already worried about the room looking dark, and since we have both a baby and a dog


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## alexjoe (Jun 10, 2013)

Place some decoration pieces so that dark brown carpet can be enhanced.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

What's funny is as I was reading your post my girl friend was vacuuming the red rug covered in dog hair in a house were selling.
We have to vacuum the rug every day. It's just a large rug to protect the hardwood floors until we sell it.


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## amijay (Dec 28, 2013)

Haha - we have a red rug that our dog loves to lie on, too. It's in the baby's room now, but when we kept it in the main room, we had to vacuum it all the time! Until now, it hadn't occurred to me that the brown carpet will be much the same...


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

I'm surprised one of my dogs is not bald she looses so much hair.
Only has hair about 1" long and she gets brushed outside all the time but it still does no good.
I brushed all the dogs and a Husky that lives in the area one day outside and people thought I'd ran over one of them with the bush hog.


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

In all honesty, I will never have carpet in a house again. Especially with a dog. 

What is tough for the op is that when moving into a new house, there are so many expenses involved just getting it to the live able state 

My very serious advice.....move in....make do with what you have. 6 months from now, what you like and dislike will most likely change. 

Your house does not have to be perfect from day one. Some of the more enjoyable evenings will be sitting on the couch with a glass of wine (or 2) while you and the hubby plan out the changes.


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## Two Knots (Nov 12, 2011)

I had chocolate brown w to w carpeting in our LR and DR and family room,
at one time and I loved it...Do light colored window treatments and light colored
throw pillows...W to W always requires more vacuuming than
wool area rugs.

We lifted our carpeting thirteen years ago, refinished
our hardwood floors and purchased all wool oriental rugs and only vacuum 
one or twice a week now. If that's your goal, live with the chocolate brown
rugs until you can do hardwood. I wouldn't replace the carpet just cause
you don't like the color.


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## Sloan (Dec 26, 2013)

How shaggy is the carpet? Too shaggy to put an area rug down that would help unify your color scheme? If you search "area rug over carpet" on Pinterest there are lots of good ideas there. 

You could just buy an area rug in whatever color you hope your floors will eventually be (if you eventually want hardwoods then you could buy a jute or sisal or other natural-fiber rug), and choose your furniture based on that. That way if/when you do put in your desired flooring down the line, you won't have to change all your furniture.

I definitely wouldn't buy furniture just to go with carpet that you don't like. Buy furniture that you love, use an area rug to unify it all for now, then all you'll have to change in the future is the flooring.

Also, search "brown and gray living room" on Pinterest to get ideas on how to make those colors play nice with each other. It's definitely possible. I'd definitely paint the walls a light color too, to offset your dark carpet. Maybe a really light gray (like Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore?).


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## Blondesense (Sep 23, 2008)

ddawg16 said:


> My very serious advice.....move in....make do with what you have. 6 months from now, what you like and dislike will most likely change.
> 
> Your house does not have to be perfect from day one...


Ditto this advice. You may find once you get some other colors in the room (artwork, paint, pillows etc.) the brown vs. grey issue will be minimal.


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## Live_Oak (Aug 22, 2013)

Make an inexpensive slipcover for the furniture for now. It will disguise the color and let you live with the carpet without clashing with it. And when you're ready to do something with the floor, you can take off the slipcover and the furniture will be in pretty good shape.


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## Startingover (Apr 18, 2012)

Try area rugs on top of the carpet.


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## mathewanderson (Oct 31, 2013)

Thats nice. Brown color looks grea. You can make combination with it cream color. Cream and brown bedsheets and curtains of cream color.


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