Timeless Interiors
How often do you like to decorate a room? Every 6 months? Every 12 months? Once every few years? For most people it’s the latter, so when they do decorate they worry about following fads and being too ‘trendy’. They want to create a look that they’ll like for years to come but that they also won’t get bored of, this can be a tall order and difficult to achieve without a crystal ball!
Clean Lines
Furniture with clean lines has been popular forever, for good reason. A simple, pared-back silhouette will always look classic and sophisticated - it’s the interiors equivalent of jeans paired with a white shirt. When you’re going for a timeless look avoid anything too fussy with ornate detailing. This isn’t to say you can’t go for some ornamentation, beautiful legs and nail heads are classic detailing that don’t go out of style. Check out these timeless pieces I’ve curated to see what I mean:
Keep It Neutral
The key to a timeless look is flexibility, you want the big pieces in your room to work with any new things you might bring into the room and if you decide to change up a piece of furniture you want it to work with the colours you’ve already got in there. The way to achieve this is by using a neutral colour palette. If you have a neutral colour sofa you can easily add in colour with cushions and blankets. If you’ve found a gorgeous piece of art at an antique store, it’s more likely to work on neutral walls.
Layer Texture
There will be lots of people who will blanch at the idea of neutral walls and furniture thinking it sounds far too boring - and they’d be right, a plain white box can be flat and dull without the next key ingredient: texture! Creating a gorgeous tactile experience for the eyes and the hands is how you stop your scheme being boring. I always try to use natural textures wherever possible; wood, wool, glass, clay, stone. You get the picture.
Source: hyggeforhome.com
A Place For Trends
Timeless decorating doesn’t mean you can’t include that fabulous faux fur cushion you’ve spotted or that lime green balloon dog sculpture you love. Use trends and bright colours as accents so that they can be swapped in and out whenever you tire of them without having to redecorate your entire room.
Less Is More
Coco Chanel said “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off” and this is also the key to mastering a timeless look for your interiors. Chances are if you’re looking at your room and it still doesn’t seem right even though you keep adding bits to it, the problem is scale. Far better to have one large beautiful thing, than 3 things that are too small. When you buy a lamp go big, table lamps shouldn’t be less than 60cm - this gives you a far more generous look. Another trick is to try foraging some large branches or get some extra tall flowers, this will really give your scheme an extra something.
Mix Old and New
To really achieve a timeless look try blending in some vintage or antique pieces with your new ones so that your scheme can’t be visually tied to any particular period or decade. This creates a sophisticated and eclectic look that never gets old. A great way to do this is with art, if you have a vintage painting that you love try hanging it over a more modern piece and vice versa, hang modern art over a vintage piece to create the perfect juxtaposition of old and new.
