Living with roommates or a significant other can mean a hodge-podge of styles thrown together in one apartment. Is there any way to meld a bunch of disparate looks into a coherent whole?
With a little ingenuity and compromise, you can create a unified look out of several different home decorating styles. We’ll show you how.
Talk about it
It would be great if we could sit down with potential roommates or a partner and talk about decorating style before living together, but in the rush to find a place to live or the excitement of moving in with a boyfriend or girlfriend, decorating styles are usually the last thing on anyone’s mind.
After you move in together and start to merge your things, you can chat about tastes and decorating styles. Some people don’t have a defined sense of style and are strictly utilitarian about the things they buy for their apartment. Your new roommate may not care at all about how the apartment’s contents work together. In that case, you might be free to do as you wish to merge styles. In other cases, you could have a roommate who has strong feelings about the decorating style of his or her apartment. Here is where some negotiation may need to take place. Be open and inventive while following the steps below to create a whole new hybrid style!
Take inventory
Once everything is in place, go room by room and survey the kind of look your combined belongings create. Can you find common themes, colors or eras among your things? Perhaps one or both of you have accent pieces that will work to merge styles. Are there smaller pieces that clash which can be removed to storage? Make a list for each room and agree on what items could be removed or altered to fit with your emerging style. (If you are not sharing a bedroom, those rooms are best left out of the equation.)
A couch of a different color
You might find that some items just stick out like sore thumbs in your attempted style merge — a sofa of a clashing color or style, for example. Most of us can’t afford to replace furniture just because it clashes, but we can disguise it or change its look. Here’s where paint, slip-covers, table-cloths, and throws can make a tremendous difference in combining your decorating styles. Refinishing a table, bookcase or chair can give it new life — and help pull your look together. Think about all the many ways you might alter your pieces before you decide they absolutely won’t work together.
Wall color
Decorating styles can clash for a number of reasons: color palette, style, era. Sometimes the right color can unite all of these areas. Look at your room as it stands and see if there is a common color or color group that stands out. You can use that color to cover one, some or all the walls or trim in the room. (Be sure to check with your landlord first before you repaint, of course.)
Accent items
Room accessories are another great way to combine home decorating styles. The right throw pillows, curtains or rugs, for instance, can help you create an eclectic style like no other. If you’ve had trouble agreeing on the bigger things, finding common ground with your roommate on the finishing touches might make everyone happy.
Living with others almost always means finding a way to combine decorating styles. The beauty of it is that there is no right or wrong in merging various aesthetics, as long as the result works for those who live in the midst of it. Look for harmony in color, style and/or era, and you’ll create an apartment aesthetic that everyone can feel pleased with.
