Remaking Traditional Furniture into Contemporary Furniture

Traditionally styled furniture often consists of natural wood pieces, especially in medium or dark wood colors. Fabric colors also tend to blend well with natural wood tones. Small fabric patterns are also commonly used in the construction of traditional furniture. On the other hand, contemporary furniture generally has a more striking color palette, and tends to lean towards cooler colors, often combined with stark black and white.

If you understand these color differences between traditional and contemporary styles, you can often remake a traditional piece of furniture into a contemporary piece simply by giving it a fresh coat of paint or a new slipcover. For example, if you have a solid dark wood coffee table, it will generally look out of place in a contemporary room. But if you paint it glossy black, it will blend in beautifully. A brown and cream print sofa could take on a whole new look if you covered it with a silver gray slipcover. You can use this color principle in any room of your home to give traditional furniture pieces a more contemporary look.

Another difference between traditional and contemporary furniture is the overall spacing, lines and curves of the pieces. While traditional furniture often has a somewhat "evenly spaced" appearance, contemporary pieces are often uneven in length, or have unusual angles and lines. Although changing the overall structure of a piece of furniture can be difficult, there are some methods you can use to visually change the even appearance of traditional furniture. For example, after covering your brown and cream print sofa in a silver gray slipcover, make several throw pillows in a coordinating shade and arrange them unevenly on the sofa, preferably in a group of three. As opposed to the common practice of placing one or two pillows on either side of the sofa in traditional decorating, adding an odd number of pillows will add a modern look. You can achieve the same effect by only using one end table beside a sofa instead of using a matching table on either side. If your furniture pieces have hardware accents such as wrought iron knobs, consider replacing them with sleek new hardware to add a more modern touch.

You will find that with just a few simple revisions, you can totally change to look of your furniture pieces to add a more contemporary look and feel. Then finish the look with modern accents and wall decor, like a contemporary tree of life wall decor or modern fish wall hangings.