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Mix-and-match decor: In with the old … and in with the new

By Kim Cook

Associated Press

An early, painted Swedish sideboard next to a leather sectional. An ornate Italian walnut headboard on a bed dressed in featherweight linen. A collection of colorful 1930s Fiestaware pottery on a Lucite bookshelf.

Mixing vintage and modern elements is one of the easier decorating techniques to employ. A little research can help with sourcing quality antiques, but combining old and new is mostly a matter of making sure the fun “found” pieces or family heirlooms get along with the contemporary components.

That introduction may take some tweaking so your room doesn’t end up looking like a catchall of random furniture, but that’s part of the fun. Introduce the furnishings to each other. See who gets along. And rearrange where everybody sits if you need to.

Tamara Rosenthal, Sotheby’s Home marketing vice-president, says the mix-and-match trend is on the rise.

“People aren’t as interested in spaces that look like they came entirely from a showroom,” she says. “They want to create a space with a unique point of view, infusing a variety of pieces, eras, textures and more to create a cohesive but unique look and feel.”

BALANCE IS KEY

Interior design maven Kimberley Seldon, whose business is based in Toronto and Los Angeles, follows this formula when mixing styles:

“As long as 80% of an interior is cohesive — same style, same period, same philosophy — the other 20% can deviate. In 20 years, I’ve never seen this rule of thumb fail.”

Rosenthal recommends layering old and new items, like hanging an antique rug in an otherwise modern room.

Elizabeth Sesser, a designer at the New York firm Ike Kligerman Barkley, mentions a recent project that blended vintage and modern furniture into an elegant whole. The new: a blue and gray wool and silk carpet, and creamy boucle sofas. The old: “Pairs of smaller, bolder pieces — 1920s Swedish black lacquer side chairs, and 1930s mahogany slipper chairs,” she says.

WATCH YOUR COMBINATIONS

Some vintage styles don’t complement each other as well as others, Seldon points out. For instance, the ornate embellishments and jewel tones of Victorian furnishings don’t work harmoniously with the Arts and Crafts movement, whose hallmarks are simpler craftsmanship and muted, nature-inspired hues.

If you do want to blend eras, consider Victorian with other formal European eras like Georgian, Edwardian and French. If you’ve got a few exceptional Arts and Crafts pieces, play them up with clean-lined country styles and modern upholstery.

“One of my favorite ways to mix design styles is with midcentury pieces,” says Rosenthal. “They’re truly transitional, because they can sway traditional or modern without looking out of place.”

Katie Watson-Smyth, who lives in London and writes the design blog Mad About the House, agrees about midcentury modern: “You will never go wrong with a chair from this period. It’s friends with everyone.”

She notes that midmod chairs can be re-upholstered in a range of fabrics to suit any design vibe.

She also recommends looking for common threads among your found pieces — rounded edges; wood and color tones; surface materials like marble.

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