Mixing Styles and Periods with Common Sense

This elegant classic dining room reflects the style of 1820's England but is a very fine reproduction.

There once was a time in the mid 1900’s where symmetry reigned.  If you didn’t put matching tables and lamps on either side of a sofa, the furniture police would haul you away in shame.  And, heaven forbid, two styles encountered one another in the same room!  The rigidity of that time has long passed as well as rooms designed for only one purpose.  The life and times of today, with its more casual yet technical trends, have dictated living in open spaces where creature comforts and functional mobility have superseded “formal” room settings.  More contemporary styles now mix with French, Italian or English accent pieces.  Transitional furniture, which takes a classical style and contemporizes it no matter what the style, has become a new watchword.  But it still comes down to space, scale, function, and something called common sense.  Would you put all tall pieces on one side of the room, block doorways or traffic paths – put everything on an angle?  To make sure you don’t, use your own furniture as placeholders and “see” how it feels as well as looks.  Keep the good stuff when you get rid of the rest.  Just make sure you know what the good stuff is! 

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