When you’re ready to introduce color into a room, do you focus mainly on safe solids, adding maybe one color to an essentially neutral palette? In the concern to avoid a color mistake, many simply avoid it as much as possible.

Take a look at this room where color plays a major role. Strong color and pattern choices in the dining chairs bring this room to a totally new level of design. What makes this room work so well? Let’s take a look.

To start, much of the room is actually neutral in tone. The floor’s luscious ebony wood finish helps the vivid colors pop. The dark brown table supports the warm tones of the chairs in contrast to the cool flooring. The yellow-gold draperies actually serve as a neutral in this space due to their lighter tone and full coverage of the back wall. Finally, the tableware provides the light neutral required to balance the room. All of these elements set the stage for the daring color present in the chairs.

The second reason this room works so well is in the choice of color and pattern. There are two primary pattern choices here – a stripe and a patchwork of floral designs. Both patterns are proportioned to work well on the chairs, and all the chairs are the same design. Now, let’s move from chair to chair to see how they work together despite their differences. First, about five colors are in play in the striped fabric, and these colors are also reflected in the floral patchwork chair. Green, blue, orange and gold are shown in the other chairs and throw pillows. The colors in the striped fabric from chair one are reproduced in the third chair’s pillow.

It takes planning to use this many colors this well. You can spend hours mixing your patterns and colors to get the result you want, but for many people the time and effort is worth it if you end up with a room like this one.