Decorating your first home together isn’t always easy, especially if you and your spouse have different design preferences. But mixing interior design styles isn’t as difficult as you might think. In fact, most design styles naturally blend concepts from different eras. In today’s blog, the experts at Star Furniture discuss some home decorating tips for newlyweds that can help you figure out how to mix interior design styles successfully in your new home.
Define Your Individual Design Styles
Before you can start mixing interior design styles, you need to pinpoint your unique style preferences. Use Pinterest or search online for examples of different design styles like modern, traditional, transitional, arts and crafts, shabby chic, rustic, etc. You can even check out our guide to interior design styles to help you get started. By pinpointing exactly what each of you like, you’ll give yourselves a clear starting point for mixing interior design styles.
Find Shared Characteristics
Wondering how to compromise on decorating? Once you’ve pinpointed your style preferences, try finding common characteristics between them. Both rustic and modern furniture, for example, feature natural materials. Highlighting these shared characteristics can help you more seamlessly combine the two design styles. You should also discuss what you both like and dislike about the other’s preferred design style, so you know what to embrace and avoid when decorating your first home together.
Choose a Limited Color Palette
When you’re mixing styles in interior design, choosing a limited color palette can help bring the different styles together in a more cohesive way. You might, for example, match the throw pillows on your traditional sofa with the color of your shabby chic accent chair. By being selective and deliberate with the colors you choose, you can help the room feel unified, even if there’s variation in the decoration itself.
Match Wood Types
Mixing styles in interior design doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Just as matching colors can help create a more unified look, you’d be surprised how much keeping wood tones consistent can help tie totally contrasting pieces of furniture together. You might, for example, want to match the wood tones of your arts and crafts style coffee table with your farmhouse style sofa table in order to help them work better together in your room.
Follow the 80/20 Rule
If you’re new to interior decorating, you may be asking yourself: what is the 80/20 rule in design? The 80/20 rule refers to the balance of things like color and design styles within a single room. As far as color goes, the 80/20 rule suggests you decorate 80% of the room with neutrals so you can get colorful with the other 20%. When mixing interior design styles, the 80/20 rule suggests that you decorate 80% in one style, and 20% in the other in order to get the best balance.
Pick & Choose Your Rooms
While the 80/20 rule doesn’t match the 50/50 compromise we often want to see in relationships, there’s still plenty of room to compromise on which rooms will predominantly feature your style and which will predominantly feature your partner’s style. If you do most of the cooking, for example, the kitchen décor may be more important to you, while the dining room décor might be more important to your partner who hosts a weekly game night at the dining table. Be thoughtful and intentional about which style will serve as the main influence and which will play more of a background role in each room.
Choose Some Stylistically Neutral Pieces
When you’re decorating your first home together and mixing design styles, it may help to choose some stylistically neutral pieces to balance things out. Consider incorporating some more basic furniture and home décor with solid colors and a cleaner, more everyday look so that you don’t detract attention from your more stylistically distinct pieces.
Use Wall Art to Combine Styles
One of our favorite home decorating tips is to make good use of wall space. And choosing the right wall art is a great way to combine multiple interior designs styles seamlessly. Adding abstract or modern art pieces to a more traditionally decorated living room, for example, can help you marry the two designs together. Just be sure that the style isn’t all you’re paying attention to. Color will also play an important role here, so try to find artwork that contains specific tones from your color palette to help your design feel more cohesive.
Make Character Pieces a Focal Point
It may seem counterintuitive but highlighting a character piece that doesn’t naturally fit into your main interior design style by making it the focal point of the room might actually be the best move. When you try to hide it, it will likely stand out even more, but featuring it as a focal point can create a “wow” factor that ties the whole room together.
Now that you know how to mix interior design styles, it’s time to start decorating your new home. Visit a Star Furniture store near you or browse our huge selection of living room, dining room, bedroom, and home office furniture. In the meantime, check out our home inspiration blog where we cover everything from home decorating ideas on a budget to our favorite sofas for small spaces.