Almost every interior, especially in rural areas, is furnished with a few well-chosen antiques. Antiques can make a space feel more inviting and add a sense of history and charm. However, since 2000, the world of antiques has experienced a dramatic decline. Many people now consider “brown furniture” old-fashioned and boring.
Antique pieces are arranged differently today. Most people use many antique pieces in a room, but the use of color and patterns feels modern and fresh.
Contemporary minimalist spaces instantly gain personality with the addition of antiques, which, rather than detracting from the overall modernity of the interior design, create a harmonious balance. Antiques add character, charm, and a story to a modern home. However, if you don’t know how to blend the old with the new, you might end up with an interior that looks unbalanced, disjointed, or out of sync.
Modern homes often have open designs and generally favor light, neutral, and airy tones that can feel cold, bland, and lacking. This is where the substantial gravitas of antiques instantly adds interest and warmth, elevating them to the status of a “statement piece” or “conversation piece.” It only takes one carefully chosen item to completely transform a room and break up a generic, overly coordinated contemporary look.
To avoid a room looking “shabby,” incorporate antiques throughout to create a fresh, balanced, and intentional curation of old and new. Blending old and new furniture styles cohesively can be tricky, but if done right, the results can be incredibly stylish! There’s a specific way to incorporate antique furniture into a modern home: use color and themes intelligently and balance statement pieces with accent pieces.
A color theme unifies a room, but you can create a theme by having several pieces of furniture made from the same wood or from the same era. These pieces will have similar designs or decorations that make the room look unified.
You can also add brass ornaments to other parts of the room to complement the finer details, such as the brass brackets on classic-style furniture. Even if you can’t match the furniture itself, repeating patterns or materials throughout the room will create harmony.
–sh
