The Art of Blending Decorating Styles Without Clashing

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Mixing Your Styles is Easier than Thought

Some people believe that they have only one decor style and other styles will not fit with it. This simply is not true. You can learn how to incorporate new styles in with your older styles like a pro.

Blending Decorating Styles without Clashing

You can blend decorating styles if you follow a few different rules. There are actually very few pure decorating styles. Most styles of decor are a blend of several different periods and eras. New design styles are created when interior designers take the best liked pieces from certain fashions or periods and incorporate the elements into a home. This allows you to have so many choices when you decorate your home. You can learn how to add an heirloom piece to a contemporary living room or blend you and your spouse's styles together with ease. The goal is to create spaces that the eyes and the mind views as one whole.

Limit Your Color Palette

Too many colors in a room can actually detract from the cohesiveness you are trying to create when blending styles. It can make each piece in the room look as if it stands alone. The best idea is to repeat the same colors throughout your space to bring all of the items and the entire room together. Be selective with a few colors that you love and the rooms throughout your home will feel unified.

Choose One Unifying Pattern

You can choose one shape or motif to use in your space to bring a room together and keep the decor in that room from looking like it's just thrown together. The pattern unifies the varying styles of your decor. Another way to tie in your decor is to use the lines of a sofa or a chair and repeat those lines or curves throughout the space.

The Oddball is the Focal Point

If you have one piece that really doesn't match anything, but you want to use it in a room, then by all means do so. This is where the antique pieces will fit that are quite different from anything else. You can let this piece be the focal point of the room and then build the rest of the room around it. For example, if you have a lovely antique chair with bright green upholstery, you can display slivers of green shades in the room to link it together and have harmony.

Matching Wood Types

Two furniture items that are from different periods can go together well when they are the same shade of wood or they are made from the same type of wood. As long as they are similar in wood tone, they will tie the room together. If you have some mismatched wood items that you just love, then you can consider a wood stain to bring them closer to the same shade as each other.

Accessorize Your Room

You can choose a style that is displayed effectively through your accessories. Choose pillows, exotic patterns or decorative vases to accessorize your room. Solid color window treatments always work well in a room with blended styles so they do not compete with your items in the space.

Rules for Patterns

When blending styles of decor, don't be afraid to mix different patterns for an interesting effect. However, try to focus on one area of the room to do this and don't take over the entire space with mismatched patterns or it can create a style clash rather than making sure the styles complement each other in a space.

The 80/20 Rule

Another way to approach mixing decor styles is to follow the 80/20 rule as many interior designers do. You will have 80 percent of one style mixed with 20 percent of the other. Take inventory of the larger items in a room, such as a couch in the living room. These items would make up the 80 percent, as they are more expensive to replace.

The Buddy Rule of Balance

Balance throughout the entire space is what brings everything together. Think of accessories as buddies, in which there are two of each, even if they don't necessarily match each other. For example, you can have several pictures on the wall in which the frames don't match each other, but they each have a buddy frame that shares the same color. Your accent colors should match in pillows, upholstery, hanging paintings and lampshades. The size and shape of a sofa and a chair in different colors will still match each other as long as they are in the same color palette. You can have two lamps that are different in the same room that are about the same height with similar shaped shades to balance each other and be buddies. An open bookshelf on one side of a fireplace and an armoire in approximately the same size on the other side is a good example of balance. You can balance light and dark objects by including cool tones like gray or ice blue with natural woods, warm leather and warm metals.

Mix Styles throughout the Room

When you are blending two different styles of decor, don't group too many things of one style together or it will throw everything in the space off balance. Instead, you want to focus on splitting up the items and distributing them evenly in the space.

Repeating Elements

If you have a painting on the wall with super bright colors that you totally love, then embrace it in your space by adding small pops of the lighter colors in it throughout the room in your accessories to tie the painting in with the room. You can also tie in fabrics that are soft and fluffy on your throw pillows to add to a more masculine room and soften it. You can choose one or several of these ideas to decorate your space with your own personal style when you mix items together in a cohesive manner. Who knows? You might even create a new mix of styles and decor that will become famous among designers.