Mixing Design Styles for a Bold Living Room Makeover

Meg Booth — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 08:15:00 +0000

Capturing a bold living room design (or really for any room in your home) does not happen without intention and planning. In order to effectively achieve the desired outcome for one homeowner, we decided that mixing design styles in her living room was the perfect way to go. The result, a striking mix of dramatic flair and timeless elegance. Since the classic tale of a makeover never grows old, this living room before and after stirs the heart with equal magic and charm! Let’s jump in!

Living Room Before & After

Quite often, the living room is the first room one enters after coming through the main entrance of a home. This can sometimes result in a sort of “catch-all” kind of feel and become the default function of the space. For this client, their living room was trying to serve multiple purposes and over time, it became a little disjointed. You can see in the before photos below, there were a few key challenges we wanted to address with our design plan: lack of a focal point and cohesive look, inadequate lighting, and a lot of open surfaces (all too eager to serve as clutter catchers).

LIVING ROOM BEFORE

LIVING ROOM AFTER

After assessing what would need to be addressed, we came up with a plan to overcome the challenges and create a cohesive living room design with a blend of gorgeous styles and function that works for the homeowners. Below, you will see how we tackled everything, but first how about this reveal!

#1 Lacking Focal Point – Dressing the main wall in a bold pattern draws your eye immediately to one major focal point. And by adding the dark & matching pieces of furniture adds weight to that end of the room, creating

#2 Poor Lighting – We added central, overhead lighting to the middle of the room. When light is cast from above and supported by table and floor lamps around the room, the illumination factor is amplified and creates balance.

I love this light! The sprawling design creates a major statement while adding so much light around the room. I have linked it up for you below:

Ceiling Light

#3 Open Surfaces – We chose glass fronted cabinets that could accommodate

Design Mixing That’s Bold

I love that this project serves as a great example of mixing design styles without the need to overdue one style over another. Plus, it truly is representative of working with a client’s personal taste and style while keeping a design cohesive and well planned.

Design Board for this living room

Mixing Styles Makes Good Design

So just exactly why does mixing styles make good interior design?

First, it is important to understand that one of the hallmarks of interior design is the ability to create a harmonious look and feel to any space while ensuring good function and flow. Mixing styles helps introduce the practice of balance and also lends itself to a more curated look and approach – key marks of quality and intentional design.

Can you mix different design styles?

The simple answer here is, YES, you can mix different styles together. I would suggest that this is true for all forms of art and artistic design. The key to this, however, is to approach this with care, balance, and maybe just a touch of restraint. As in the famous adage of “take(ing) one piece of jewelry off”, coined by Coco Chanel, you should ensure that no one style overtakes another. In other words, just when you think your design is complete and final, go ahead and remove one piece of proverbial jewelry off, and it will be perfect!

How do I merge design styles?

Merging styles is in itself an art form, so the answer to this question is somewhat nuanced. To assist, here are some key points to serve as a guide.
-Mixing design styles will take practice.
-Merging design elements lives within a bendable framework, giving a lot of possible combinations room to emerge.
-When blending a variety of styles, don’t get hung up on hard and fast rules.
-Remember to keep things in balance and in the appropriate scale.

What are common styles to blend in a home?

Interior design has encompassed the mixing of a vast array of styles over the years. With the right design plan and focus, most styles can work together to create a gorgeous and curated home.

Design Styles Used for this Living Room

Selecting the right balance and mix takes time, practice, and consideration. For this homeowner, we focused on capturing some drama of Art Deco and marrying it with the timeless ease of Mid Century Modern.

Art Deco Details

The bold sunburst motif and repeated geometric pattern mixed with curved lines reflect the flair and drama of art deco styling.

Mid Century Staples

Using clean, simple lines and natural elements such as jute & leather are consistent with the features of MCM design. It keeps everything so timeless.

Mixing Styles – Final Thoughts

Creating a style that is unique to you is part of the interior design process. If you would like some additional inspiration and want to see examples and tips for using different design styles, check out these other blog posts, linked below.

Mid Century Modern Basement Design

Design Trends to try in 2025

Mid Century Living Room Update

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Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

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