It's almost a cliche these days seems to say that "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", but trust me, I see him almost every day when I work with couples as they try to reach consensus on how they want their home to look like. Inevitably, one of the two loves a traditional look, while others are very modern. Either one likes the French State and the other Danish Modern. Design dilemmas such as this seem overwhelming to my clients, but for me they are from day to day and part of my job is the most fun.
Fun, you say? Oh yes, very fun. I really enjoy getting two competing views, the two opposites and making them both work and ending up with two happy and satisfied customers. Marriage counseling and interior design, who knew the two, went together so well?
I thought I'd share a few ideas I came up with several years in the hope that you can make your own marriage counseling and do some own interior design decisions. I'll start with one of my most frequently heard dilemma, traditional vs. modern.
For starters, you have to do with the bones of your room. architectural features and your furniture, and will help set up the basic design theme for your room. If you have the traditional features and furniture, your bones are basically traditional and this is your jumping off point. Now, if you both as well as traditional, your task is simple, fill in around these bones with fabrics, accessories, area rugs and the like, and you're done. But if you're on the modern and the traditional, here is where the fun begins. You need to start combining the elements that attract these two seemingly different thoughts together.
One of the easiest ways to combine two very different design elements to play with scale. damask fabric is very traditional, but he did more than the size scale becomes much more modern. So, you have a traditional room you're trying to do more modern, pick up traditional motifs and increase scale. I've been seeing this all over the area rugs have been the choice for my web site Rugstomydoor.com. Traditional patterns, large-scale = very popular and simple design choice.
The next easiest way to work with these two odd fellows with color. To the traditional room seem more modern, try going monochromatic. Leave a traditional furniture and architecture, but use all white, gray or taupe upholstery, walls or area rugs. When you do something like this tone down the traditional feel of "bones" and while not making the whole room feel stark or sterile.
for the third time to keep things together is to use a unique piece that contrasts the two styles. Traditional room? Add a stylish piece of carpet as a stand in the room. Modern room? Add a traditional flair to make the occasional piece. Now, do not go over board with this technique, you should only use one or at most two unique pieces in the room or start to get a look which is messy, and not put together. No, it's an easy way to bring two very different personalities in the room and still make it flow.
Ok, now you have three easy ways to make it traditional and more modern, or as I like to say, "save link" - Obviously, there are many ways and styles that can be combined, but it should give you a taste for what is possible and what is more important that it is not all that hard to achieve their design goals.