Not all people spruce up their spaces with full furniture set these days.
And while we are likely to fall for a specific trend—whether it’s Scandinavian, traditional, modern or vintage—the most dynamic spaces are the ones that tastefully combine things from various styles, places and eras.
However, combining various furniture styles can feel challenging and stressful if you are doing it for a very first time.
When it comes to decorating the homes, we visit big-box stores for the essential furnishings. Once we are done with that, the next thing is to create the mix of smaller furniture pieces, object, soft home furnishings ideas and antiques to complete the look.
Here come our decorating tips that help you start beautifully mixing your furniture styles.
Try Neutrals or a Limited Colour Palette:
It’s you “go to” step to mix up your furniture.
Creating a neutral palette will maintain that consistency regardless if the pieces necessarily complement each other.
For example, a modern armchair can form a great pairing with a traditional sofa if it’s in the same colour or tone. In this scenario, they will complement each other.
Or you can have black dining chairs placed around a dining table with white covering and there is a pop of greenery.
Take Care of Scale:
One of the key fundamentals in interior design is experimenting with the scale of objects. Scale means the proportion and the comparative size of objects in a room. Assume how an elegant tall console table would look in front with a low, oversized sofa when placed together. When we place together with the different pieces, we have to determine how they can complement each other in scale. Elegant pieces of furniture, such as settee and the coffee table, are likely to complement the robust and larger ones, such as the round pedestal side table and the velvet. The point is here to achieve balance.
Repetition is also important when it comes to mixing furniture styles. If the items are repeated in the room, like a set of dining chairs paired with unique dining table, it is likely to create that coherence.
Keep Balance:
Keeping a balance is as important as scale and repetition to create a “mix and match” furniture style. And it requires you to ponder over ratio.
Imagine you have a mid-century modern piece of furniture that is supported by a traditional piece.
The point is here to balance the majority of furniture items in your main style and then support them with secondary pieces. Then they can be equally placed throughout the room to create a visual balance.
Once you’re done with that, look for a companion for every item in the room—whether that’s a tone, colour, height, weight or similar texture. The last thing you want to balance the things to eliminate the “visual breaks”.
Balance is also important here to create the synergy between the tones or shades.
For example, you can accentuate a sleek stone surface such as marble and travertine with more rusting items such as cane or rattan. Matte blonde wood can be mixed with shiny black wood finishes. Bring in glass, patterns, metals and velvet. Placing things in terms of contrasts will lead to a more layered space.
Educate Yourself:
Explore designs on the Internet or magazine to learn how styles work together. For example, you want to place together a French art nouveau antique armchair with a vintage chair or table and velvet tufted sofa. Knowing how their combination will look in design guides will help you pull the pieces together tastefully.
Create a Focal Point:
Do you have an odd piece of furniture that doesn’t go with other pieces?
Why not turn that in a focal point? Rather than hiding it, make it the showstopper in the room.
So these are some ways to mix the furniture of different styles, shapes and eras. What do you think? Do you have other ideas on mixing and matching furniture the right way? Let us know by commenting below.
Author Bio:
Naresh Prashar is marketing manager of E-Living Furniture, a leading online portal for affordable and elegant furniture for all types. Now a busy businessman, he loves to travel around the world and write on related topics whenever finds some time from his busy schedule.