Why doesn't she just paint all her furniture black? Cheap, no problems matching wood. She could add some more tan back into the room with curtains, pillow shams, rug, etc. Add some more natural wood tones through candlesticks, picture frames, wood bowls, etc.

Also, I know she wants to keep the green, but she should get floor length curtains. It will make her room feel bigger and more polished.

I have specifically decorating in black/brown/green (my green is jadey). The thing I've used to make them all feel happy together is copper. The black is most of the furniture pieces. The browns are chocolately (bed spread headboard chair bottom etc). The jade is accenting but rich (pillows, bedskirt, photos etc). The copper is an accent wall (the rest of the walls are a royal purple), art, chair back, and a few other places.

It is definitely not necessary to replace to make them all uniform. Too much uniform gets a little boring. Get colors that work with both and use them. You don't want to make it feel like your room is fighting itself with all one color on one side and all the other on opposite. Mix them up and use them together.

If you're okay with replacing the black furniture, you could easily get some affordable matching brown furniture at IKEA, especially since your dresser looks like it's a Malm. It looks like you have alot of space, and I think it would feel more peaceful if you make some more space around your bed, maybe a small table and lamp and move the dresser. You could bring in more green with pillows, a quilt, etc..
And I definitely longer curtains.

Black and brown can coexist very well. The reason it is not working here is because:

1) There is a lot of furniture and "stuff" in the room (3 floor lamps!), and its arrangement is somewhat haphazard.

2) The various pieces of furniture have no uniformity in style or feeling. For example, the bed and dresser are a bit rustic, the desk is sort of high tech, the nightstand is traditional, the mirror is country antique-ish, and the credenza is something else...

Edit and re-arrange with a purpose. This will go a long way toward making a space that feels calm.

Try painting the black dresser a nice moss green color with a bit of a sheen. It will stand out as an accent piece without competing with the brown pieces. Perhaps the wall behind that dresser could be wallpapered as an accent wall with a brown and green striped paper. The other walls could be a muted mocha color. The bedding could be chocolate with green and white accent pillows. Window coverings should be natural - perhaps bamboo blinds? I can also picture a nice big white shag rug. Have fun. Try not to second guess yourself too much.

I can't tell enough people if you find a picture that you like and you are not an experience decorator/designer, just copy it EXACTLY! Don't try to figure it out yourself because this is what happens.

1- EDIT, less is more. You only need one light in that small room. Why is there a highboy dresser next to a low profile bed?

2- I would buy multiple long low dressers (about the scale of the tv unit) and fill up that wall with ALL your storage, office, clothing etc. So at this point you have a bed and all storage is on one wall.

3- the desk needs closed storage, how can this be a calming space with wires and stuff all over the place? you need to conceal EVERYTHING to have a calming effect in a room.

4- Nothing should be too high in the room, like that shelf, sooooo high up there. 2 smal floating shelves next to the bed will suffice for minimal useage for nightstands.

5- PLEASE hang your curtain rod all the way at the ceiling and find curtains that go all the way to the floor.

6- one light only or 2 small low wattage lights flanking the bed.

7- try buying canvas and cover the whole back wall with canvas and try painting something the whole size of the wall, using veryy little, washed out colors of something that reminds you of a calming memory

8- good luck!

completely agree with arroyo

i also think you need better furniture placement and perhaps a coordinatingand complimentary color on the wall

Put your office in the closet even if you must move out of season clothing to a different space/room. Lose one floor lamp, keep the two that match and flank the bed with them. find a very simple pair of side tables in brown. Get longer curtains and bamboo blinds. Good idea to swap standing mirror for a wall mounted mirror. Add some browm/black textiles to bed...perhaps bed spread and euro shams, then throw in a silk pillow in green.

If you want the biggest bang for the buck, I'd replace the comforter (or buy a cover for the one you have) with one that incorporates various browns, black, and green. That will tie things together.

Best of luck to you.

The problem is that none of your textiles or accessories picks up the black OR the brown. You need decorative nonsense that combines both colors in a pattern or two, and I agree with the suggestion to add copper to the mix. Or, if you love your sage green, you need to find patterns with black-brown-green. Once you have the patterns, you can have bits of solid sage green, too. But right now, you have too many unrelated solids glaring balefully at one another.

I'd sew another panel to the curtains to drop them to the floor, and that panel would be either black or brown.

I would use that same fabric and make accent pillows for the bed, and seriously consider a duvet cover or at least an accent blanket in the green/black/brown colorscheme.

I would find larger-scale art for the walls. You can't paint, okay, time to bust out at least rasterbater and put up something BIG in the colors YOU want. Or you can frame wallpaper or fabric, but please, not little frames.

I would also get FLOR tiles in black, brown, and green, and use them, like the comforter, to bring all the colors together.

I think rearranging alone might help immensely. I think the tall dresser and desk sandwich the bed in an unbalanced way. It's all black heavy on one side with the desk, shelf, and chair. Then, it's all a mass of brown. Have you considered centering your bed under the window? Maybe the short curtains can be disguised that way. (But then again maybe not.)
I'd use use the free ike@ room planner because it already has the furniture, then you can go in 3-D mode and get a good picture of the room before you have to do any lifting.

I agree with much of what has been suggested here. The last comment is a good summary in fact. I will only add that you can whittle things down a bit and then [as an alternative to the comforter idea suggested above] add one large hanging art piece that ties in the (abbreviated) color scheme you end up with in the end. If you can't find a painting that is comprised of black, brown, copper, and a similar shade of green~you can sew fabric swatches together and stretch & staple across a large stretcher frame. Wood frame lengths are available at any art supply store..

don't worry so much about having furniture match! it doesn't have to! the black/brown thing really bothers you - like people who wear black shoes and a brown belt - just paint either all the black pieces or all the brown pieces a color! however, the best solution might be to just eliminate some of the furniture completely (like the desk and the tv and tv cabinet, perhaps) - but that might be impractical for you if you really need a desk or don't have another place in your home for a tv. good luck!

Ok. Here's what I would do...
If it fits, I would move the tall brown dresser between the door and closet so the front faces the desk and forms a sort of entryway. Move the bed over slightly and put the small table between the bed and window. It might make it feel more like a separate area from the bed/tv area. If the back of the dresser is unattractive, you could always cover it with a vintage movie poster/art or even fabric (patterned black and green maybe?) I would take the art you have behind the tv and move them above the bed along with other primarily black pictures, or if you can afford it buy a new larger piece with a lot of black in it. Switch the lamps, putting the matching on either side of the bed. If there is room, maybe see if the mirror looks good at the end of the tall dresser (facing the window?) Then play with bedding and pillows in your three colors. I also agree with the floor length curtains.

as was said before; "There is a lot of furniture and "stuff" in the room (3 floor lamps!), and its arrangement is somewhat haphazard."

the stuff simply overwhelms the furniture to the point where the different colors are hardly noticable

You want a more organic interior? Try getting rid of the furniture made from vinyl-wrapped particleboard and powdercoated steel. That stuff belongs in your cubicle at work, not in your home.

I like the idea of introducing teal or turquoise into the colour scheme. It will add a warmth that the current scheme lacks. You could try to find a table runner in shades of green and teal to drape over the TV cabinet, which will make its black a background rather than a dominant colour.

As for the furniture itself, to be brutally honest it looks like a combination of gifts, hand-me-downs and last minute purchases of neccesity. It may be helpful to look at every item in the room and ask, "Where did it come from?" and "Why do I have it?". Why, for example, do you have three different floor lamps? Nobody needs three floor lamps in one room, and they're not beautiful items, just practical IKEA-level pieces. Why are they there?

If you ask yourself "Why?" for everything you own, you may find it easier to get rid of pointless clutter and create a more serene private space.

I'm surprised to see all the comments suggesting that you paint the furniture. Sure you could, but it isn't the only solution. You don't need to have a super matchy-matchy look to have a nice room.

I recently redecorated my bedroom-slash-office to include brown and black furniture (though a slightly lighter brown) and it worked better than I expected. In my artwork and bedspread I used a lot of warm tones and whites. The walls in my place are cream-colored, which pulled it all together beautifully. Good luck!

Why is it that no one ever cleans up their mess before asking "good questions"?! I don't get it. Those photos make me think the person living there don't care one bit what the room looks like, and then what's the point in helping out? It's not that my own place is never in such a state, but I sure wouldn't want photographic evidence of my mess!?

I agree that you just need to rearrange, rather than repaint your furniture, and that the best placement for the bed might be under the window. As someone who has made a lot of necessity-based purchases and regretted them (I'll never forget the day I first found design blogs), I wouldn't go buying anything before you've tried to work with what you have.

You might try softening the black furniture with the addition of textiles. An Asian-inspired table runner could easily tie in the green (like the lucky bamboo you have in the corner), black and brown in one go. You could drape it on the TV cabinet to tie that into the room scheme. The office chair looks a little heavy for the space. You could brighten that up with fabric or simply keep an eye out for wooden chairs worth spray-painting on Craigslist.

Good luck! There's a lot of advice here, some which may not work with your personal aesthetic or budget, but I'm sure you'll find what suits you. As long as you have an idea of how you want your bedroom to feel when it's finished you can edit and decorating with a goal in mind.

I agree that the reason this "looks confused together" is not really the mix of black and brown furniture.

The way to get "organic and calm" is with fewer small things, more larger ones... fewer hard lines (especially in your lighting) less "tech" (if you have room to move your office out of the bedroom), and more texture.

I agree with what others have said about paring down clutter.

A nice solution to your can't-paint-but-love-green problem would be to buy gauzy fabric or pre-made curtain panels in a soft, spring green, install a curtain rod as high as you can on the wall (or a hospital track on the ceiling) and run curtains along that entire back wall.

Another easy, cheap fix is to paint all your picture frames white and use white matting (just sand them down, prime and spray paint).

Finally, if at all possible, move the TV, the computer workspace, or both out of the room. Neither is very calming.

To clarify, by "back wall," I meant the wall where the window is.

If you want a relaxing space, I'd take the work and TV areas away if you can. I'm not sure whether you are renting a room and this is your only space or whether you have a living room/other space where you can put stuff. But if you DO have more space, I would remove the work area (desk) and also the TV area. A restful bedroom ideally just has what you need to relax. Bringing in your work life complicates that. But that's my best case scenario.

Either way, I agree with the advice to rearrange the furnishings. Mixing black and brown shouldn't be an isssue in my opinion. If you need to keep everything in the room, I would move the desk under the window and then move the bed over toward the closet so that it is more centered against the wall. I'd put the dresser where the desk now is. I'd get rid of all the lamps and replace them with two bedside lamps on bedside tables flanking the bed. If you can spare some closet space (after some serious spring cleaning of course) you could even put the dresser in the closet so the only thing against the back wall is the bed and bedside tables. When I had too much furniture in my bedroom, I put a dresser in the closet and the room felt much better afterward, without sacrificing any storage.

And I agree about replacing the desk and chair when your budget allows (or when you can find a great deal on Craigslist for something nice). Also agree with the comments about floor length curtains and perhaps a new duvet cover. It also looks like you could benefit from installing some coat hooks on the wall behind the door. I also like the idea of getting rid of the shelf that is now above the desk or at least lowering it and placing it someplace else.

As others have said, declutter.

I would:

Get rid of those floor lamps and look for two smart looking table lamps for either side of the TV and a different (but same style) for your desk. Target has a nice selection of lamps under $25.

Yep, floor length on the curtains.

Get rid of the contemporary desk and look on something like Craigslist or go to thrift stores for a solid piece of furniture (can even be a nice dinette table for size considerations) if you must have your computer in the room. Get some structured baskets to put things in to contain them. I often find them pretty inexpensive at Ross's home decor department.

The little table under the clock is underwhelming. Either look for a nice piece of furniture to place there that adds height (either drawers which will help with the clutter of your desk or shelves with baskets) or eliminate it all together and put a fabulous full length mirror there and be rid of the free-standing mirror.

I also agree with the comforter. Find a nice duvet cover that compliments your greens that will add in some browns and/or blacks to tie it all together.

I have a black metal bed with brown (antiques) for the rest of my furniture and it somehow works. I think with minimum investment and keeping your eye out you can do a lot with your room.

I do agree that the clutter is going to kill you every time so for absolutely free you can straighten that room up, rearrange your furniture and the items on the wall and you've got a great basis that wont leave you pulling out your hair...then you can find core things that work for you because face it, we all have our own style.

It's amazing how good a room feels when it's in order.

I agree, there's too many furniture in this small room and floor length curtains is much better than those short green ones. My advise is, if you want to work this out with minimal changes, buy a black/brown/some-other-bold-colour-you-like mix bed cover. You can also buy small accessories on that bold colour so colours can be on balance.

I agree with some of the other comments above: use fabric, that contains both brown and black, to unify the look. You can still use some green accents (cushions, candles, etc). I think something like this would look nice:

http://www.romo.com/collections/weaves/orsello/orsello.html

(Romo, Orsello, Ebony7159/01)

If you really do "want to create a more organic and calm interior" then I think just clearing out, tidying up and making the bed would make a huge difference.

You can definitely make the black, dark brown and green work, but I think you need to use the green more judiciously, and not all shades of green, just a few. The blanket on the unmade bed could be put across the foot of the bed and I think the curtains should be replaced with a full length pair in more substantial fabric (that semi-sheer is too light for the heaviness of the furniture). I like your bird picture, but I think it's effect is more blue than green, I think it would work better in another room.

I completely agree with arroyo. There are too much stuff in the room.

1) I think the first thing to do is to change the desk. In ikea you can find lots of affordable nice desks with storage that can match with your brown furniture.

2) You can change the curtains for a long lenght ones. And choose a bright green curtains with paterns like Marimekko's or ikea's.

3) You can change the dresser for a wall mirror and take off one of the lamps.

4) you can put big canvas with green colors on the bed wall.

I think the most important thing for your change is to find a nice room that you realy like and try to copy it to your room.

I had the same exact problem about 6 months ago and yes some of my furniture was from the malm collection lol.
Ok, this is how I came to terms with it. When you are using black-brown, you are uniting modern-night "black" with nature,day, classic "brown" so I took both elements and went to work with accessories, here's some ideas:

all related to nature: vintage wood, books, old suitcases and candles, incorporate more tan like other comments above mentioned more ivory, not too much black except for the essentials and you can do do black and ivory long curtains and for fun you can use accent pillows in any bright color of your choice, just to give it a kick. I am still working on my bedroom decor, it used to be I avoided it as much as I could and now I can't wait to go there every day so take your time and if you need to feel inspired get a hold of the crate and barrel catalog and of course check " The Apartment Therapy" everyday like I do.

The issue w/ that room isn't the color of the furniture...
...is this an office, a TV room or a bedroom?

And what's w the forest of floorlamps? Your ceiling is certainly well lit - but there's no task lighting...

Decide what you want the room to be and move the other stuff elsewhere.

I going to go with the group and say it as well- clean up and organize. I have a mix of black and brown (more of an espresso for me) in my current room and it works perfectly. I have the same bed as you, the IKEA Hopen. Its simple and your room should follow that same theme. Get rid of the clutter and organize only whats really necessary. I have under the bed storage bags for things that I need but that don't necessarily need to be visible and they work perfectly under the bed. No one knows they are there and everything has a place.

It doesn't appear that your room is very large so don't try to stuff it with everything. Just get back to the basics, hanh those curtains high and wide and clear out some things and you should start to see that everything comes together nicely.

As others have stated, I would choose a set of floor-length curtains that combine both black, brown, and green. I have some from IKEA that tie in both colors and are super affordable:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00143749

I think they did the job in my living room. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15784652@N04/4310396457/

-excuse me... all three colors.

do you have an ikea near you? they have a couple of fabric collections that incorporate both black and browns.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00124581
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00129055

Check out the West Elm contest picture just posted today on Apartment Therapy....very earthy, serene and calm. A picture worth a 1,000 words!!!! I can't tell you how much money I have spent (in small amounts that add up) trying to make-do with what I have, when it would have been better too save my money, throw out the junk one piece at a time to replace with what I wanted. About a small space: I live in one, and it is a real challenge to make a place for everything, and easily accessible YET hiddened from sight but is the only way to keep a room neat and clean. I would tend to paint all the furniture green...sage or lighter with only one bold unfussy light art piece on the wall and get rid of the bed frame....I also liked the ideas about bringing in copper, a bamboo shade, large table for desk.....so many good ideas posted above. Don't forget to check out the West Elm contest picture....! Hope you show us what you do. Maybe you can win the contest...wouldn't that be something!