In an ideal world, you could pick every piece of furniture in your home. Unfortunately, you need to buy second-hand or get inexpensive furniture sometimes. If this means that you get a color you don’t like or aren’t sure how to work with, you have to work around it. Well, now you have a beige couch; how do you work around it? Try out some of these Beige Couch Living Room Ideas to make it work.

1) Off-White Walls

Odd as it may seem, changing your walls is less expensive than getting a brand new couch. If money is an object, try choosing a new color for your living room walls and doing the painting yourself. Off-whites like the colors in this Apartment Therapy article are excellent backdrops for beige since they make it blend into the background. That way, it’s a more effective neutral, and you can make sure people focus on the colors you want them to see.

2) Seasonal

Beige can be like a blank canvas when it comes to interior decorating. If you love the holidays and nature, your beige sofa is the perfect place to center your holiday and seasonal decorating because it can be a backdrop for any decorations. You can get fall throw pillows like these, then switch them out when winter comes around for some snowy or Christmas-themed ornaments. Then, come spring, add some flowers and natural or bright spring colors.

3) Red, Brown, or Pink Walls

Changing your wall colors may seem like a major hassle, but it’s actually one of the least expensive changes you can make to a room, and even more so if you do it yourself. Red, brown, or pink are some of the best wall colors for a beige couch because the wall takes attention from the beige couch without clashing. You can paint a whole room with these colors as they did in this video or paint an accent wall behind the sofa.

4) Teal and Brown Rug

Another way to draw the eye away from a beige couch is with an area rug. A bright or patterned area rug will instantly become the centerpiece for an area, so you can look for colors that go well with beige but also attract attention. For example, teal and brown both go well with beige, and the intense brown and teal in this rug from Amazon would attract attention. You can even combine this with dark brown painted trim or teal decorations.

5) Flowers

Pastel decorations can be incredible, but if you’re trying to decorate around a bland sofa, you’ll want something that pops more. Flowers are an excellent compromise between natural pastels and vibrant, attention-getting colors because flowers will look natural and won’t be too intense, but a bright flower like the one in this living room will take attention away from a bland piece of furniture. You can see in the photo that the bright pink flower and the coffee-colored patterns combine to make the couch more attractive.

6) Sunny Background Decor

If your sofa is a warm beige, anything yellow, orange, or with a sunny look can potentially complement it and take attention away from it at the same time. A sizeable abstract sunset painting like this is perfect because it has similar warm tones to a beige couch, but if you put it behind the sofa, everyone’s attention will be on the painting more than the furniture. Make sure you get a large piece like this 40-inch wide painting from Amazon so that it’ll be big enough to overshadow large furniture.

7) DIY Herringbone Accent Wall

An accent wall is another way to add some pizazz or hide a dull couch. Usually, a sofa would be the centerpiece of the room because it’s the biggest piece of furniture, but if it’s a neutral color, you want it to feel more like a base piece. Then, find something else for the centerpiece. A herringbone pattern is an excellent way to make your wall a centerpiece because it uses pattern instead of color. This means that you can pick a natural wood like the one in this The Created Home bedroom, and it won’t clash with your couch.

8) Striped Contemporary

Patterns and textures are an excellent way of making your couch more interesting or drawing attention away from it. Stripes will create lines drawing the eye away, and if you choose an uneven striped pattern with colors that go with beige, such as the ones in this rug from Amazon, you can make the room seem warm and cozy with a bolder look than a beige sofa creates. The uneven striping and mixed browns with other colors make it look similar to wood and create a natural look.

9) Farmhouse

Beige is the perfect couch color for a farmhouse-style living room. The nice thing about this style is that you won’t need to cover up or hide your beige couch; it’ll be a centerpiece and look terrific doing it! Your sofa is the perfect color for farmhouse-style decorating, and you can add whites and patterned tan and white decorations like these checked throw pillow covers. Try mixing in some galvanized or white- or black-painted metal decorations, too.

10) Bold Statement

Sometimes, you can distract attention from an ugly couch by making one decoration the apparent center of the room. This basically takes the sofa out of consideration because nobody will be looking at it. In fact, you’ll need a neutral-colored sofa for this. Simply choose a centerpiece like the purple rug in this image and place all the focus on it. Notice how there aren’t any other bold colors in the image to take attention from the purple rug.

11) Knit Textures

If you’re okay with beige as a color but just need to find a way to make it stand out more and not seem…dull, then adding texture is the way to go. Knit textures like this pouf are some of the best options because you can find beige or natural-colored ones readily, and they look more natural in those colors. Since beige looks good on knit textures and knit textures make the beige look more exciting, they’re the perfect duo.

12) Old Fashioned

A beige couch in a modern-style living room is probably a big no-no, but what about in an old-fashioned room? The neat thing about old-fashioned rooms is that they’re not all about colors the way certain styles can be. Instead, you can add splashes of color in the form of decorative and eclectic decor, and anything you add can be a cheap flea market find. You can see in this video how people designed an old-fashioned living room in which color wasn’t the most important thing. Instead, guests notice the blanket ladder, the various textures, and the natural non-thematic look.

13) Nature

Beige is, of course, a natural color, so natural decorations will complement it. These can be an excellent way to take the focus away from the couch by making it blend in without being the brightest or most heavily textured object in the room. The nice thing about nature is that it’s textured, from rough bark to full-bodied plant life to shining water and rocks. So, something like this curtain of faux leaves would be perfect because it’ll take attention from the couch if you hang it on the wall behind your sofa.

14) Subtle Pink

Pink can go with beige, though many people don’t think to use pink in their living rooms. Subtle pink decorations like the flowers in this living room won’t clash with the couch, but you can see how everyone’s attention would be drawn to it. Even a small touch of light pink can be enough to take over a room. Think about ways to add it, whether as a vase, as a throw, or even as a light accent wall. 

15) Gray and Blue Rug

One way to deal with a beige couch that you don’t like is to distract from it heavily using decorations like this vibrant rug. Rugs cover enough area to be a strong centerpiece and take focus away from your couch, but other areas like accent walls work, too. The main thing is picking the color, and if you have a cool beige sofa, you’ll want to use cool colors. Gray and blue are an excellent choice because they’re cool, and they can be intense enough to catch the eye like they do in this area rug.

16) Vibrant Colors

While trying to match colors is an artistic and subtle way to combat the beige, you can ultimately distract with any vibrant colors. You can create a living room with no particular theme but an abundance of bright and saturated colors like the red and blue at the top of this Apartment Therapy article. By choosing a variety of bright colors, you won’t have to worry about matching them. Instead, you’ll create a tapestry of brilliant decorations, making your living room like a modern, abstract painting.

17) Lights

Light is one of the most overlooking decorations, and while it works best during times when it’s hard to see, it’s a magical and unusual decoration. A curtain of lights can be a wonderful way to distract from your beige couch because it’ll cast a new color, preferably an orange tone like the light from these. It’ll even add texture during the daytime since there’ll be a curtain of tiny light bulbs dangling like a tapestry behind the sofa.

18) Distressed Beige and Red Rug

In order to make a beige couch more tasteful, you can add some vintage or distressed furniture around it. Since beige already has a bit of a vintage/distressed look, adding more will create a theme. In vintage living rooms, red and beige are probably one of the best color options since they’re popular for vintage rugs, and distressed red and beige furnishings like this look good. The read acts as an accent color without overpowering the warm beige tone.

19) Slight Variants

Another way to keep a beige couch from becoming boring is to make the room feel more three-dimensional. As with most colors, you can make beige less dull by adding one lighter and one darker shade. In this case, you’ll be looking for beige-adjacent colors like the variants on this list. Add a tiny bit of apricot or cream in the form of accent pillows or a vase and see how the couch suddenly looks a bit less bland.

20) Colored Lights

Adding color is one of the best ways to make a beige couch blend into the background and take attention away from it, but people often overlook the use of light when it comes to adding color. We live in an era of RGB lights, and if you want your couch to be a different color, make it so! An RGB light backdrop like this acts as a curtain behind your couch and can be whichever color you prefer, casting that color onto your sofa and around the room at night.

21) Fluff

Adding texture is a good alternative to using a variety of colors since it can spruce up a neutral piece of furniture, too. Fluffy textures are often overlooked, but they make a room feel soft and comfortable, and they’re the first step to a luxurious glam room like the one in this video, too. You can see in this video how the different textures, including pillows with fur-like textures, create a cozy but glamorous look from a dull-colored sofa.

22) Natural Materials

If you want something interesting that’ll blend with your beige couch but aren’t looking to fully take the attention off of it, natural textures are a good option. They’ll change the way the room looks and keep it from being boring, but they’ll complement the sofa instead of drawing attention away from it. We’d suggest finding wood furniture with beige upholstery like these chairs, but make sure they match the beige tone of your couch.

23) Dark Brown

Dark brown is an excellent accent for beige. You can use it for trim, curtains, or coffee tables for little extra money. You can even paint an accent wall or paint your walls dark brown. Since brown and beige go together well and brown is a neutral color, the room will look nice, but be sure to use lighter colors on the wall if you have a small living room. In a small room, focus on painting trim and maybe your coffee table brown instead of large objects like the walls, because dark walls make a room seem smaller.

24) Pine Cones

As winter rolls around, pine cones will become a more popular decoration, but the reality is that you can walk into a pine forest any time of year and come back with plenty of cones. They have a dark color and natural texture that goes well with a beige couch, and if you use them as coffee table decorations, they and your beige couch will look like part of an all-natural living room design. You can even get scented ones or mix unscented ones like these with potpourri to add a new, often ignored aspect to your design: scent.

25) DIY Wood Crate Decor

A wood texture goes well with beige, so if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to add it to a room, wood crate decor is one option that can work well. Typically, people buy wood crates from a craft store and glue or nail them together to make shelves, but you can go a step further and create a classy and rich look for little money! Try doing something creative like building a wood crate bar or wine bar with them. We even found these instructions so that you could copy this design with some adjustments for your personal preferences.

26) Macrame

If you don’t mind beige but still want it to look a bit less flat and dull, you can use other beige or natural-colored decorations with heavy textures or a natural or homemade look. Macrame is excellent for this because it’s popular on craft sites, so you can find macrame tutorials or premade macrame decorations without much trouble. Then, you can use those kinds of decorations to add texture to the room without straying from the current color theme. We thought we’d suggest this macrame framed mirror because it’ll also add light and make the room feel more natural.

27) Texture Everything

We’ve said that adding texture is one of if not the best ways to make a beige couch look less boring, but there are different ways to add texture. Adding some texture directly onto the couch as in throw blankets is great, but you can also go all-out. You can make everything in the room textured or add patterns to everything, as the designer of this room did. This way, there isn’t a single flat surface, and the whole area looks more energetic. 

28) Warm Vs. Cool

Beige can be either warm or cool, so you’ll need to decide which one your couch is before you can move forward with your decorating. Once you’ve answered that question, you can decide whether you want a warm beige and red room or a cool gray and beige one. If you use blue with a warm beige, it won’t look right since you’re mixing cool and warm tones. This article from The Inside goes into more detail on this decision.

29) Boho Brown, Black, and White

Brown, black, and white can all go together on a beige sofa, depending on what shade of beige it is and what theme you like. For a darker beige couch or a modern theme, a set of bohemian-style brown, black, and white throw pillow covers like this would be an excellent way to cover your old throws. The crisp patterns and color choices would create a bohemian or contemporary look, even on a beige couch.

30) Bold Patterned Throw Pillows

Sometimes all you need is to go bold. Beige is the opposite of a bold statement, so if you’re trying to change things up, adding some boldly patterned decorations is a smart way to go. Throw pillows or blankets will be your best option since they’ll be right against the couch fabric and do the best job offsetting the flat beige. You can see the impact they have in this Decor Pad living room. Even beige patterned throws can work as long as they have a pattern that stands out.

31) Tree Bark Candles

This may not be the most glamorous option, but it’s certainly the cheapest and easiest if you don’t like your beige couch; buy a slipcover. You can get one like this that covers the entire couch and effectively changes its color to almost any color you like. Just make sure to measure so that you get the right size. This one from Amazon comes in a variety of colors and has a lot of stretch and pet resistance, so it would be great if they have it in the color you want.

How are you decorating around your beige couch? Did any of these ideas help you figure out how to design a living room you’re proud of? We can’t wait to see your pictures and hear about your living room in the comments below!