A Primer on Top Interior Designs and How to Achieve Them

Sunshine Drapery sliding glass doors window treatment

So, it’s time to redecorate your home, but you’re not sure what type of theme you want to design. Here is a list of some of the best interior designer ideas for you to choose from and learn how to achieve the precise appearance you desire. It is much easier to select a designer style for your home or for one room if you know what they look like and which kind of items are included in that particular style. Most of the time you will need this knowledge to select furnishings and accessories in the style you desire. Some of the styles of interior design are easy to achieve with few choices in colors, while others dictate a longer description to get the desired appearance.

Mid-Century Modern Style

This design style was popular in the mid-1900’s and is characterized by minimalist silhouettes, natural shapes and refined lines. New and creative materials fit into this design category such as plastic, aluminum and plywood. The pieces can be arranged in many different configurations to achieve this look. [caption id="attachment_14384" align="alignnone" width="980"] Mid-Century Modern Style

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Choose the Correct Colors

The dominant colors of this era and design style include the palettes of earth tones such as tans, golds, grays, off white, light yellow and olive green. The brighter versions of the color you are looking for includes bright hues of blue, red, green, peach and more subtle grays, tans and black. Use the 60-30-30 rule of 60% base color, 30% secondary color and 10% accent color with no more than a total of 3 to 4 colors.

Furniture Design

The Mid-Century furniture was made with a wooden frame and included one to two colors, but in solids without any ornamentation on them. Today, you can encompass wood, fiberglass or metal frames for your couches and chairs with clean straight lines and the only accents would be curved and smooth angles.

Rugs and Pillows

The traditional Mid Century styles included asymmetrical and abstract patterns in bright colors to give an accent to the rather plain furniture. Choose decorator fabrics in a variety of textures for rugs, pillows and window treatments for accents in your room.

Lighting Choices

The residential indoor lights in these interior designs include tall and straight floor lamps or round and curved contours for table lamps and chandeliers. You can choose from any color of your accent color in the color palette to include in your lighting choices.

Industrial Style

This style is dated back to the turn of the century. It uses a great deal of exposed steel with distressed wood accents and incorporates exposed brick walls. This style is easiest to achieve if your home has brick or block style elements on your walls. The feel of the industrial style is rustic and mature. You can either choose clean lines of the style or rugged vintage with elaborate ornamentations. It encompasses your style anywhere from chic to a dark and antique design. This design can also be anywhere from organic, bold, refined, masculine or feminine. [caption id="attachment_14386" align="alignnone" width="1024"] industrial style

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Choose Rustic Colors

The primary rustic colors of this style include many shades, of white and cream, as well as tans, browns, dark red brick and black. The accent colors are shades of green, blue, gray and brown.

Industrial Furniture

The furniture style relies on raw wood that is unfinished. This is evident in the coffee tables, living room end tables, and dining room tables. You can choose just one or all of your tables in this style for an industrial appearance. The couches and chairs in the industrial style have a leather finish.

Rugs and Window Treatments

Industrial décor dictates that your rugs and window treatments blend in with the environment. They are generally in the colors of dark gray, crimson red, blue or burnt orange without any geometrical interior designs on them. Any of these colors in a solid designer fabric will work well for the rugs, window treatments and accessories in an industrial room.

Lighting Choices

You have a wide variety of choices in lighting in this design style. You can choose items anywhere from vintage with a lot of ornamentation to a modern and geometric shape with steel accents. Ceiling lamps are a large part of the industrial style such as a chandelier over the dining room table.

The Nautical Style

This décor is warm, positive and very relaxing. It is based on either a white or sand foundation color with blue as the primary accent color. It includes unfinished wood tables and chairs with linen upholstery on the couches and chairs. The decorative accents are many including seashells, jute ropes, sailboats, navigational maps and lighthouses. This is a very easy décor to navigate with the main colors and accents in hues of blue.

The Scandinavian Style

The Scandinavian style is a minimalist look and it encompasses furniture that looks like the items you get from IKEA. It features gentle contours with playful accent colors, a balance of both organic and engineered materials and simple, contemporary and functions furniture. Most of the interiors in this style use a simple white with gray tones for the foundation colors with several playful and bright accent colors in the accessories.

The Bohemian Style

Bohemian décor is carefree and adventurous. It uses creative manners of rich colors and very vibrant colors, most often with reds or purple tones. It’s style is to create a mess look with many textiles in your window treatments and tons of throw pillows, custom tapestries on the walls and rugs. Accent items may be tribal, wooden, animal hide and metallic with nomadic vibes in them.

The Farmhouse Style

This style often transitions in nature with traditional elements. It should remind you of the French Province. Include dried lavender and other green, living plants for accents in each room in matching vases. The furniture is generally distressed wood and upholstered in a fine linen decorator fabric with white or beige as your base colors. The accents of throw pillows and window treatments to match are usually in the turquoise or light yellow colors with pops of colors in bright yellow and blue.

The Urban Modern Style

This design is from the modern designer lofts that appear in many major cities. It is a fusion of different opposing and complementary traits. It includes many choices of minimalist modern, chic on the glamorous side, ethnic heirlooms and new and edgy experimental interior designs. The furniture is sleek with a low profile. The textiles for window treatments, throw pillows and rugs can be artistic, and creative. You can add both geometric interior designs along with traditional interior designs to find a style of your own.

The Shabby Chic Style

This décor uses vintage elements that recreate the appearance of an antique flea market. The furniture is aged in appearance with distressed wood furniture that is covered in milk paint. This gives it an older appearance than it actually is. The decorative accents are soft and opulent. This style is generous in linen fabrics for the window treatments, furniture coverings and throw pillows for accents. You can keep the color palette in the white realm or add some vibrant pops of colors for accents and still achieve this appearance. These ideas will help you to decide what type of popular interior designs style suits you. Our interior designers are here to help you every step of the way in choosing the correct textiles to use to achieve your perfect style in your home.