Imagine walking into a living room. It has crisply painted walls, a clean-lined sofa with matching chairs and tasteful coffee and end tables. Yet, as you look around, you sense something is missing. Everything looks perfect, but the room feels uninspired.

As you continue to take it in, it occurs to you what’s missing. The room lacks texture! Every surface is smooth and the components exhibit a certain sameness. Without the variety that texture brings, a space risks being dull and listless!

How Can I Use Texture?

In the simplest sense, texture is the quality of anything you can touch or feel. But it’s not just about touch: texture is visual, too! In a room with texture, the rough and the smooth are blended to create an inviting warmth.

Texture is more than just throwing in a fringed pillow or some distressed wood! It’s the positioning of not only the rough and smooth but also the flat and bumpy or the muted and shiny. Texture works in partnership with color and lighting. A room with texture has depth and dimension that you can’t get any other way.

These days designers are celebrating texture in everything from plush sofas to shag area rugs to curvy wood-framed mirrors to brushed metallics! Here are some guidelines for putting texture to work in your home.

Layer Textures with Mixed Materials

Some textures are inherently vibrant and others are naturally warm. Think, for example, of a sleek modern coffee table and a woolen throw. It takes both luster and softness to make a texturally interesting room.

Some examples: a high-pile area rug atop a wood or vinyl floor. A velvet or other softly upholstered sofa fronted by a glass and metal coffee table. Shiny decor on a rustic wooden side table. Soft decor on an angular bookcase.

Metals, sleek leather upholstery and polished wood bring decorum. Coarse fabrics, stone and rough wood imply physical comfort. Together they build a room that’s delightful not only to look at but also to live in. Just as a painting needs background, foreground and balance, an interior space needs thoughtful placement of different textures to achieve an integrated whole.

Enliven Neutrals with Textures

There’s a lot of interest in whites this year as well as muted beiges and grays. A bit of texture wakes these up! A white leather sofa and a white or other neutral colored seating arrangement establish great starting points for a room. Both of them, however, call for some textural contrast to show at their best.

In some rooms, white is the oft-repeated theme, extending to furniture, curtains and carpeting or rugs. It needs something to break it up, but a contrasting color might disturb the serenity of the room. Textural contrast, in the other hand, is a subtle way to highlight the contribution each white or other neutral element makes to the whole.

Accent Natural Textures with Metallics

Metals have textures, too, and not all metallic textures are the same! Traditional metallics are shiny textures that create bold contrasts and accents that stand out. Today’s trending metallics, however, are softer. The move is more toward brass and champagne coloring than to assertive gold.

Whether you’re talking about mirrors, pendants, table sculpture, handles or even fixtures, not all your metallics need to have the same texture. However, if textures vary, it’s a good idea to stick to one color family, for example, chrome with other silverish metals such as nickel.

Use Area Rugs Creatively

A plush area rug on a hard floor and a flat one on a high-pile carpet are classic textural contrasts where you can't go wrong. Today, area rugs are used to add extra texture throughout a house! For instance, an area rug in a kitchen, especially one with a vintage or rustic look, brings coziness and style into place where warmth sometimes loses out to functionality.

Enhance Texture with Shape and Color

A rounded coffee table might have the same materials as one with squared corners, but its look and feel are different. While shape isn’t the same as texture, it works like texture in adding dimensionality. Even two items with same color and texture can provide contrast if their shapes are different. A room of rounded furniture has a different ambiance from a space with straight-lined pieces.

Often it’s best to minimize color contrast when you’re experimenting with texture, but that’s not always that case. Rough-textured furniture, for example, is agreeably set off by bright colors in cushions, lampshades and decor.

Accent with Texture

A rustic chopping board contrasts nicely with a countertop. Plants and ceramics stand out from hard surfaces in kitchen and bathrooms. Woven baskets bring textural interest to floors and tabletops. Multiple textures draw the eye to a bookcase shelf. A tasseled rug ornates an entryway or a hearth. Canvas wall art and tapestries lend depth to a wall.

Emphasize Sleek Textures for a Modern Design

A room with straight lines, glass and metallics accentuates lighting for a contemporary feel. Add some smooth leather and maybe some marble and there’s a bold and even hyperrealistic aura. Smooth surfaces dial up the modernistic look while a few soft textures tone it down.

Texture Is Everywhere

You’ll always have texture! Every material has a texture of some sort. Today’s design works from an awareness of what those textures are and can do. Texture adds its own imprint to colors and shapes. Experiment with texture in your own home and see how its variation creates a wealth of different effects.