Mixing Up Your Interiors: Colors, Textiles, and Metals
There’s a design rule floating around out there that tells us we should never mix and match color, metals, textiles or the old with the new. But who says we can’t? Rules are made to be broken. We are evolving, sentient beings, shouldn’t our environment evolve with us?
Our home is the one place where we can let it all hang out. We can be ourselves without having to worry about someone telling us what to do, how to behave or even how to think. Our home is where our personality can really stand out. How do we do that? By decorating the space in any style of our choosing, regardless of what some designer says. It’s our space, we’ll do it our way.
Breaking the Rules
For the uninitiated amateur designer, revamping our space can be an overwhelming process. We skim through interior design catalogs and books and scour the internet for the dos and don’ts of room design. We don’t want to make any mistakes, especially if we’re on a tight budget. In an interview with Elle Decor, design director Kit Kemp tells novice designers to “start gradually.” You don’t have to refurnish your entire space all at once, you can add one piece at a time. By doing it this way, you can see if the fixture works in the space. Kemp posits that you can still maintain a traditional space with the added colors, textures and metals, you just have to be willing to experiment.
Mixing & Matching Color
Kemp suggests starting with a colorful throw pillow. After you’ve had time to adjust to its color, figure out where another area in the room might help to balance it out. It’s important that you remember the scale of your space. You don’t want to feel boxed in by one color. You can bring in another fixture with the same color, but you should also find fixtures of the same color family. This will enliven the space and give it a sense of purpose. And don’t stop there. Make your space bold using colored patterns in unison with solids. Mixing up patterns and solids makes the space animatic. It moves the viewer’s eye from one focal point to another, helping them to take in the entire space and to feel embraced by it.
Mixing & Matching Texture
Smooth or rough, granulated or jagged, our world is full of textures. If everything is the same – every color, every texture – what’s the point of redesigning the space at all? Why not just keep it as the white box it is and call it a day? Freshome writes that the way a texture looks is every bit as significant as the way the texture feels.
Textures help us to feel grounded or like we’re floating on air. To create a light and cheery space, Freshome suggests you use smooth surfaces. For a weighted, welcoming space, your textures should be rough-hewed.
Mixing & Matching Metal
One thing is for sure, to mix and match styles, you need to have clean-lined modern furniture to stabilize the space. Keeping the sofa and chaise in neutral colors (think cream or charcoal) you can filter in other colors and metals. Your coffee table can have copper legs with a cheery oak top and your table lamp a silver base. The Inspired Room recommends that when you do mix metals, you should repeat them throughout the room. By making the mixed metals stand out through repetition, you are showing that this was a conscious design choice, and a design choice that works.
Your house is your haven. Make it yours with just a few simple tweaks!
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