Warm Chocolate Walls: Cozy Den Design
This cozy family room/den design features warm chocolate walls that create a deeply relaxing, comfortable, and beautifully sophisticated space. The inspiration for this room came from our wonderful client, who was in love with the idea of chocolate walls, and looking for guidance on how to turn it into a full room design and make it a cohesive part of her home. We were all too happy to bring this gorgeous, warm, and inviting space to life in this historic Chapel Hill house.
A Warm Chocolate Color Palette
Far from dark or dreary, a warm and rich chocolate wall color is a beautiful, versatile hue that works with nearly every color palette. This particular client loves a full range of tasteful and well-coordinated colors (which you see throughout her house). Warm chocolate is a deep tone that lends an elevated feel to any room. Just right for reading, relaxing, family time, or movie-watching, this space is the perfect cozy retreat in this home.
Complementing Colors
In this room, we wanted to complement the chocolate walls with other warm colors that tie in throughout the home, creating a cohesive and complete feel. If you’re familiar with this project on our portfolio, you might remember the living room, which sits just across an open hallway from the den. Pictured below, the living room design is a rich mix of reds, blues, and blush colors, paired with natural woods and warm metallic finishes.
This rug was a piece the client had, which she wanted to keep as part of the new home design. To tie in the rug to the chocolate den, we custom created this stunning deep red console as well as the gloriously plush blue sofa to echo the rich tones of the living room. You can see hints of blush subtly tucked into the room with the accent pillows and floral of the chairs. They add just the right amount of light and color to balance the rich chocolate walls, while making the visual flow seamless from room to room.
The view from the chocolate den to the the adjacent living room, showing the full color palette that creates a seamless flow from room to room.
Adding Warm Finishes
One of the best ways to complement and highlight warm chocolate walls is to pair it with other warm hues and warm metallic finishes. The golds in the floor lamp and console stylings bring out richness of the chocolate hue, which we also see echoed in the wood tone of the coffee table. These small details enhance the depth and character of the wall color, and allow the room feel blended and cohesive.
One of our client’s favorite things was this fun sculpture of a Blue-Footed-Booby. It fits right in with the warm chocolate color palette, bringing a little moment of joy and a personal touch to the design.
Biophilic Design
Chocolate walls are earthy and grounding in any space. Biophilic design elements like the soft, open floral in the twin armchairs and the natural texture custom shades are a natural pairing to the wall color, and provide a light balance to the rich brown. Hints of color add so much interest to the room without feeling overwhelming. All of these elements work together to create a space that’s warm and cozy, without being dark.
Warm chocolate walls are a sophisticated way to create a space that has all the coziness you love with a sophisticated, timeless finish. This room feels incredibly comfortable and approachable, but is still elegant and elevated, blending perfectly with the transitional eclectic design of this historic Chapel Hill home.
We’re so glad you came over to the CFD blog today. We’ll be back on the blog with more design behind-the-scenes and studio happenings soon. Until then, if you’re looking for more CFD design work, take a look at our Portfolio page.
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