Blending Contemporary, Modern & Classic Designs

We all have our own personal styles and preferences when it comes to interior design. More often than not, your personal tastes will blend the lines of contemporary, modern, and classic design. While there’s nothing wrong with using different trends and designs from all types of interior design styles, it can be hard to know how to intermingle these designs without making your room look choppy and lacking flow.

Before heading to a modern furniture store in Edmonton, you’ll want to know the ins and outs of blending different interior design styling to create a room that meets exactly what you envision in your head. Here are the tips and tricks to follow.

Start with Neutral Colours

Starting your room with a relatively blank pattern can help greatly with blending various styles. Painting the walls with a neutral color like white, grey, or a light blue allows you to add pops of colour using other elements.

While bold furniture pieces are common, when blending styles it’s best to keep your furniture neutral-coloured. Having a couch with square arms gives off a very modern look but also allows for enough leeway for other elements. A bright red vinyl couch screams modern and may be much harder to work with if you want to add touches of classic or contemporary styles.

Have a Main Look with Supporting Looks

Having a room that is contemporary, modern, and classic at the same time is achievable, but you’ll need to have a defining look and theme first. Figure out which design style best suits your vision, and then determine which styles can be used to accentuate the main style.

As a rule of thumb, follow an 80/20 ratio. This allows you to choose a main style and then use accessories and pops throughout the room to add in touches of other styles. Your primary style should be represented in about 80% of the room, and the remaining 20% should blend other styles that you’re incorporating.

To start, look at large items in the room. What’s the fabric of your sofa? Leather is quite modern, while velvet gives off a super classic look and feel. It’s also helpful to look at supporting furniture like armchairs and side tables. Certain design styles like geometric patterns, bold colours, and square arms are modern and contemporary. Jewel tones and soft textures fall more into the classic design realm.

Take a look at the lines throughout the room. Clean, sharp lines are quite modern or even contemporary. Classic looks tend to have more curves and softness.

The big items in the room set the main style. From there, you can accessorize to bring in other styles. Room-changing accessories to consider adding to your room include:

• Bold window treatments
• Area rugs
• Tabletop accessories
• Lamps

By following the 80/20 rule, you can easily blend a variety of room styles without worrying about clashing looks.

Balance Is Key

While the 80/20 rule can help, there are other ways to ensure balance throughout the room. Balance is all about ensuring that the room has equal visual weight throughout. You want equal items throughout the room as well as pieces that break up the space.

For example, let’s say you’re decorating a living room. You may have a couch, an armchair, a coffee table, and accessories such as shelves, wall art, and maybe a light fixture.

To create a balanced look, the couch, chair, and coffee table should be the focal point of the room. From there, hang wall art on one side of the room, and then add another height-based element, like shelving, to create balance.

A well-balanced room must also have styles dispersed throughout. If you’re going for a modern-rustic look, you want to ensure that you have rustic touches throughout the room. You can do this with rustic elements such as wood items, twine, and even faux animal hides.

Place Furniture First

After purchasing furniture in Edmonton, you’ll want to immediately place it in the room. Starting with larger pieces first helps with ensuring there is visual balance throughout the room. For example, if you’re adding side tables to either end of a couch, they don’t have to match, but to ensure visual balance, ensure they’re a similar colour and the same height.

By putting the largest elements in the room first, you can work around them to create a mix of styles while also ensuring that there are breaks to add the right amount of visual appeal.

Group Like Things

You don’t want your room’s design to be too “matchy-matchy.” Things should look like they belong together, but they don’t necessarily have to be the same kind of accessory. While you may think that certain room designs don’t blend well together, chances are that there are items that fit within the confines of contemporary, modern, and classic designs that can tie each of them into one space.

For example, try grouping items by size, texture, or colour. This allows you to create a collection of accessories that, despite being from different designs, can create a cohesive look. It’s best to create collections using small items such as vases, books, candles, and decorative boxes.

You can create collections on shelves, coffee tables, dressers, and even on your kitchen countertop. By grouping these items together versus spreading them throughout the room, you create a bold focal point in any space.

Have a Focal Point

Do you have an item that you really want to be placed in the room but realize it doesn’t blend well at all? While this element may not fit in as nicely as others, it’s okay to have an oddball piece in any room. In fact, embrace this item and make it your room’s focal point.

Balance is important, but there’s nothing wrong with having an element that stands out among other designs in the room. This creates an exciting visual cue that makes your room that much more interesting.

Look for Inspiration

Unless you’ve got a clear-cut direction and look in your head, it can be hard to know what you really want your room to look like. It’s even harder to design a room when you’re mixing several different styles.

Before starting out with your room’s design, take the time to scope out some inspiration. Instagram and Pinterest are ideal locations to find hundreds of pictures that will get your interior design juices flowing. You can take pieces from each image to design a room that is exactly what you’ve dreamed of.

Your Source for Modern Furniture in Edmonton

No matter if you’re blending designs or sticking to a purely modern design, you can depend on us having the modern furniture that you need to complete your room. We offer a wide range of pieces, including sofas, chairs, dining room sets, bedroom pieces, and much more.

Visit our showroom today at 13519 – 156th Street NW Edmonton, Alberta to see our furniture in person. We look forward to providing the pieces you need to complete your room’s look.