A classic look, when done well, is timeless and feels as relevant in your home today as it would have 50 years ago. So how do you make the look work?
Canadian House & Home president Lynda Reeves and Gardiner Museum executive director and CEO Kelvin Browne offer some terrific tips to create a fresh look for a classic room.
Classic doesn't necessarily mean traditional, although it can be, Browne says, nor is it rigid, unchanging or impersonal.
"Ultimately, classic style is calm, it's refined and I think it's a background for your life," says the designer, journalist and fan of the style.
"Most of us don't have all brand-new contemporary stuff," adds Reeves. "We've got classic things that we've had all our lives that we want to work into our interiors but still keep them fresh." Browne, she notes, has pieces of furniture that keep popping up in the many homes he's lived in, yet they never look out of place."It's the way you use it," he says.
Here are Reeve's and Browne's top tips for bringing fresh style to classic rooms.
Love the stuff you own
"Never buy furniture to give a room a certain look," says Browne, because you'll get tired of it. "The only thing your furniture will ever fit with is your sensibility, so buy stuff you like."
Buy old things
"Antiques are the biggest bargain today," he says. "You see so many pieces of furniture where the reproductions cost twice what the real thing does, and the real thing has patina."
Never buy fancy
"If you decorate to impress, it always looks like you're trying too hard," he says. "Rooms with fancy furniture make everybody uncomfortable."
Scale is key
"The worst mistake people make in rooms ... is they buy really large-scale furniture and they don't have any room to put anything in the room," says Browne. "You don't need big scale to be comfortable," adds Reeves.
Don't buy patterned sofas
"This comes from experience," Browne says. "I think sofas and big upholstered stuff are like beached whales in rooms: they're huge, they sit there. They suck all the energy out."
The mix
Give thought to what pulls your look together. Is it the colour, shape, form? "You have to have something, otherwise it looks as if the furniture movers have just dumped the stuff in the room," says Browne.
Personality isn't clutter
"We've all been told clutter is bad," Browne says, but collections of small things give personality. "They're what you care about. They have to be beautiful, they have to be meaningful and you can't have a million of them ... You should never be a stranger in your own home."
Paint out your trim
"This is a big trend this year," says Reeves. "It makes your traditional house feel more modern because you don't have all these sort of lines of contrasting colours."
A hit of black
Black in a room is like eyebrows providing definition to your face, says Reeves. "You need it in every room. It's a place where the eye will always go."
Mix your woods
"Everything matching is going to make your room look old and boring," she says. "Mixing your woods is going to make your room look newer and more hip."
Use big art and hang it low
It brings instant freshness to a room that's otherwise classic, says Reeves.
Evolve
"You're never finished, but the room eventually tells you what it should be," says Browne. Don't be afraid to experiment and move the furniture around.
--Postmedia Network Inc. 2014
