Learn How to Work with Interior Design Styles Like a Pro! Part 2 of 2

1. Learn How to Easily Infuse a New Style with 3 Key Elements: Later in this course, you will learn a more thorough approach for how to mix different styles and they room successfully on your own. However, in this short lecture, I am going to show you how to quickly and easily infuse any style into a room using three key elements. This approach works well in a couple of different scenarios. First, this approach works well if you already have a pretty defined style, but you want to introduce a different style to break things up and add visual interest to your room. And it also works well. If you don't really have a defined style, rather you have more style neutral pieces, but you want to start introducing a style into a room, then this approach will give you a great start. So what are those three elements? They include a light fixture, a rug, and a piece of seeding. Now, let's go ahead and break this down a little more. First, the light fixture, y the light fixture works so well, is that a room needs multiple sources or layers of light. So there are plenty of opportunities to bring in a different light fixture to a room that is in a specific style. Additionally, it is easy to find light fixtures in different styles. And most styles have very distinctive fixtures that are unique to that style. Just look at a typical example of an industrial light fixture or a traditional light fixture. And even farmhouse has its own unique style of lighting. I would recommend that you try to use a chandelier as your chosen light fixture, since that is the most prominent piece in the room. But it could also be a pair of table lamps or a floor lamp. Next, we have the rug. The rug is typically one of the largest items in a room. And since I believe every room benefits from having a rug, both to add texture to your fluorine, as well as to anchor furniture and arrangements. Even rooms with wall to wall carpeting. This is a great and easy opportunity to throw any unique style. Now while it is true that some drugs can work in many different styles, when you combine a rug that is commonly used in a style with the other two specific style elements, then it works to support that new style. Anymore obvious fashion. I'll show you what I mean a little later in this example. Finally, I like to throw in a piece of seating in that new style, we are incorporating seating like the rug is usually a pretty prominent item in a room. Putting in a chair or a pair of chairs or a sofa into a room that is common to a specific style, will definitely infuse that style easily and effectively into a room. So now that you know which three elements to use, let's see this in action. Take a look at this transitional style bedroom. I've decided that I wanted to infuse the modern French style that I love so much into this room. So let's use this easy three-step approach together. First, the light fixture. I am going to incorporate this beautiful French Empire style chandelier into the room. Wow, what a difference that already makes. That chandelier is definitely a statement, Peace and definitely French. Already we can see a change happening to the style of the room. Can you see it to? Next, let's add in our rug. Typical rugs used in the modern French style are so Scruggs, jute or sessile rugs or a zebra rugs. I love natural materials and I particularly love the way a jute rug feels on my bare feet. It's actually softer than you might think. So I'm going to throw in a rod like this. Now, a jute rug is an example of what I was referring to earlier with rugs in that drugs can be used in many different styles, including coastal chic, french country, and contemporary, just to name a few. But combined with the other modern French elements in the room, it will help to anchor this style. Finally, let's throw in a seeding peace that is typical for the modern French style. Now we can easily add in a French style bench at the end of the bed. But I just love Burj chairs. So I'm going to throw in a bridge, a style chair in that corner where the plant currently is. Now we have our finished room. We have taken a nice-looking transitional room. And quickly and easily infuse some great modern French style into our space, giving our bedroom a completely different look and feel. What do you think? Pretty easy, yes. Now, I encourage you to go try this on your own. I am sure that you will love the results. 2. Design Cousins: Styles that will Easily Mix Together: While there are many styles that will work well together, in this lecture, I am going to be sharing with you which ones I would consider to be design cousins or design partners. And either pairing, whether it be cousins are partners, is a match made in design heaven. And that means that this is a very easy way for you to mix different design styles well, all on your own. First, I just want to make mention though that these terms are not official interior design terms, but rather they are terms that I have personally come up with and use on my own. So what's the difference between design cousins and design partner? Well, with design cousins, the styles are so similar that the majority of the main design elements you'll find in one style. You will also find in the other style, how easy is that? Now of course there are differences. And when you know what those are, all you need to do is pick the elements that you like best from each style and mix and match until your heart is content. The bottom line is that with design cousins, you really don't have to worry about these two styles clashing with each other, which makes mixing these styles as easy as it gets. Now with design partners, It's a little different. With design partners, it's generally best to let one style dominate and have the other style play a supporting role, if you will. So generally, if I were designing a room using design partners, I would use the 80-20 rule, meaning roughly 80% of the room is decorated in one style, and roughly 20% of the room would have elements from the second style. When we discuss design partners a little later in this course, all not only share with you specifically what design elements should make up those percentages, they'll also give you some very specific examples of what this would look like. Okay, but first, let's start with the design cousins. The easier of the two pairings. I am going to share with you five pairs of design cousins that worked so well together, you'd really be hard pressed to get this wrong. The five pairs include traditional and English country, Mediterranean and Tuscon. Industrial and urban modern, French country and farmhouse, Scandinavian and mid-century modern. While we do have five great pairs, I'm going to focus on just two of these pairs in detail. First, industrial and urban modern, and Scandinavian and mid-century modern. First, because these are four extremely popular styles today. And second, once you see how these two pairs are designed cousins, it will be very easy for you to see how the other three pairs are cousins as well. First, let's start with industrial and urban modern. What are the common elements that you see? What else do you remember from the lectures on these two styles? Go ahead and write down your thoughts now. Well first let's discuss the furniture. In both industrial and urban modern, we see large-scale. Low profile pieces with straight lines. The tables are often constructed of metal bases with glass or would tops. Bookshelves are often open and constructed from metal as well. Were these styles differ in the furniture area, isn't some of the individual pieces and the detailing. For example, with urban modern, we are more likely to see some retro mid mod pieces like the ANC chair or the Pantone chair, or a side table made from tree roots. With industrial this style borrows from pieces that Hartmut even earlier era from the turn of the century through the 130s. Using pieces like the metal side chair, the warm war to inspire aviator chair. An antique wouldn't trunk or vintage metal cabinets from doctors and tend to US offices with industrial pieces. You'll also see metal pipes being used in the furniture frames. In the area of materials. These two styles and definitely have a lot in common as both styles tend to rely solely on metal, glass, and wood for their furniture construction, and also heavily used brick and concrete on the floors and the walls. It's important to note though, that with urban modern, You will see mixed metals like Rose golden Chrome being used. Whereas you wouldn't typically see this and an industrial styles space. Also, you typically when use any Polish materials in an industrial space, should definitely mixed Polish and rough materials in an urban modern space. For soft materials, these design cousins are similar in that they both use natural materials like leather and linen. But urban modern also uses cotton and wool. Regarding colors, they both have a lot of neutrals, including grey, black, and white. But of course, don't forget that urban modern always includes a combination of warm colors as well, including deep red, mustard, yellow, and navy blue. Though remember with industrial, you can introduce some non-neutral colors, but just stick with one though. For patterns, you might remember that you typically do not use any patterns at all in an industrial style space. However, if you do want to incorporate patterns, stick to the patterns that are used in an urban modern space, which include tribal patterns and geometric designs. The other elements that these styles have in common include large windows without any window coverings, and wood or concrete floors for lighting. These two styles can both use open metal cage light fixtures with Edison bulbs. But remember that with urban modern, you have the freedom to throw in some more. Glam pieces like a crystal chandelier. Now were these styles primarily differ is in the three days artwork, accessories, and architecture. Regarding artwork, recall that with urban modern, you typically want to use large scale. One of the kind pieces or travel pictures with industrial go with old schematics, old patents, or even better, hang some salvage items like old gears or road signs on your walls as artwork. Regarding accessories, urban modern is where you want to throw in that ethnic vibe by including African masks or wood sculptures. We'll get your steam punk style on and accessorize with robots, steam punk goggles and a cool walking stick. Finally, we have architecture, whereas you will see brick walls in both industrial spaces do their best to expose the materials that the room is made from, including visible pipes, ducks, and expose was. Now let's move on to Scandinavian and mid-century modern. Both styles originate around the 19 fifties. And in fact, you might recall that it was Scandinavian designers, specifically Danish designers, which helped to inspire mid mod designers. So it's no surprise that I consider these styles to be designed cousins. What are the common elements? You see? What other common elements do you remember? Go ahead and jot down your notes and then we'll review it together. Where to begin? The furniture, of course. And the furniture is definitely where you see some of the strongest similarities in both of these styles. First in terms of styling, both uses very clean lines, smooth, rounded edges, splayed, tapered legs on most of its furniture, and a lack of ornamentation. That being said, Scandinavia is generally low profile, whereas mid BAD usually it's the tire off the floor. Additionally, both dial share some of the iconic furniture pieces of our time, including the Jacobsen a chair and the Jacobs and seven Chair. You'll see both of these pieces used in each of these styles. In terms of materials, wood is heavily used in both styles. However, mid mod pieces also incorporate polished metal, fiberglass, loose sight glass, and molded plastic. Both styles also like to use natural fabrics such as leather, linen, oh, dude, and sessile. However, in Scandinavian style rooms you'll see multi-level storage and proofs proceeding. Whereas this is not typically incorporated into your mid mod spaces. Now on the colour side of things, you might be thinking that these two styles are pretty different, which is not incorrect, but they both tend to paint their walls white and use the same neutrals of white, cream, beige, and gray. So that's definitely something they have in common. However, that is where the commonality generally ends. As Scandinavian is all about it's neutrals. Whereas mid mod definitely incorporate strong colors including Mustard, Yellow, pumpkin orange, bright blues, and Deep Purple. You might recall that Scandinavian will throw any strong color like red, yellow, or blue light use it much more sparingly. Other common design elements between these cousins include the use of large bear windows to maximize natural light. Wood floors. Although the Scandinavian style prefers to use of drugs as well. And large abstract pieces of artwork. So far we've talked about some minor differences between the two styles. But we do have some pretty distinct differences as well, specifically in the area of patterns, lighting and accessories. First, let's tackle patterns in the Scandinavian style. You might recall that patterns are almost never used. Just like we see with industrial. However, in mid MOD, patterns are a pretty important part of the overall design. From Bull geometric patterns to whimsical and abstract patterns as well. Regarding lighting, both styles have classic pieces and a couple of specific light fixtures are used in both, such as the Archean floor lamps and tripod lamps. But there are some unique and distinct pieces in each style. For Scandinavian lighting, common light fixtures include oversized copper pendants, branching chandelier ears, and track lighting. Whereas with MDMA, they have those iconic pieces like the Sputnik chandelier, the bubble chandelier, and artichoke lamps. Finally, when it comes to accessories, although mid mod does subscribe to the mantra, less is more. The Scandinavian style. You might remember, lives, eats, and breeze this fame. It's a very paired down style with few accessories. Mid mine, on the other hand, does have some classic accessories such as the very cool BAR cart, geometric mobile feels, hand carved would items and brass candlestick holders. Although plants are very important in both styles. Okay, that's it. Now that we've covered the design cousins, let's go ahead and move on to the design partners in our next lecture. 3. Design Partners: Styles that will Definitely Work Well Together: Now that you've learned about the five pairs of design cousins, let's now talk about design partners. Specifically what I'll be sharing with you are the design styles that compliment each other well, even though they may be quite different from each other. And I will give you some examples on how to mix these styles. Well, so first let's start with our deco. If I wanted to mix an other styles with art deco, I would look to contemporary and mid-century modern. How would I do that? I'm glad you asked. Let me show you how specifically let's look at mixing art deco with mid-century modern. These styles work well together for a variety of reasons. First, they have some key commonalities, such as using many of the same materials, including wood, specifically teak and walnuts, but also lose sight. Chrome, brass, glass, and leather. Both also sharing love of bright colors in their palates. Although MIT, mod more so than art deco, that's then art deco space can be bold just through the use of a black and white palette. Both technically neutrals, so it can hold its own against a mid mod space. Both styles also loved patterns, particularly geometric patterns. The other main area of commonality includes some of the typical accessories such as the sunburst Mir, and brass candlestick holders. Now, that said, there are a lot of differences. So let's go ahead and build an art deco mid mod room together. As I mentioned, it's best to let one style be the dominant style and the other style be the supporting style. In this case, we'll have mid-century modern B, the main style. Mainly because I know how expensive art deco pieces are. You're usually dealing with antiques and to save money and make the shopping process much easier on myself. Given how prevalent mid mod is right now. All make art deco my secondary style. So now the $1 million question is, how do you decide which design elements should be mid-century modern and which design elements should be art deco. Here's how I approach this. First all look to incorporate all or nearly all of the elements that these two styles have common. Second, I'll look at that secondary style and look at the main furniture pieces and decide which ones I like best. And then pick my favorite one to two pieces at most to include in the room. When I need main furniture pieces, I am referring to all seeding and tables, including, but not limited to chairs, sofas, coffee tables, side tables, and consulted levels. Then I'll list all of the common accessories of that secondary style. And ultimately will select two to three accessories from this style to include at the end. I will also select rugs and lighting from the secondary style. Third, and finally, I would select all of the remaining furniture pieces needed for the room from the primary style. I would also choose the window coverings and one-to-two accessories that I like best from that primary style. This is a great formulaic approach that will help you to blend together the styles from to design partners seamlessly. Now let me show you exactly how this would work by building an art deco make MOD room using this approach, the easiest way for you to do this is to build a mood board in Microsoft PowerPoint. Now this is much easier than it sounds. All I'm going to do is to search for the pieces I want online and then copy and paste that image into my powerpoint board. Now technically with a mood board, you can choose to either display the actual pieces you'll be using or similar pieces to what you'll end up using. I prefer to use the actual pieces, but either approach is o. Okay? So first, let's start with including those items that these two styles have in common. Now, you might remember that the first commonality we listed was that they use many of the same materials, specifically would lose sight. Chrome, brass, glass, and leather. So we'll be sure to try to include pieces made from these materials. The second commonality was a similarity in color schemes. Specifically, both styles use cream, B8, gray, brown, black, white, blue, red, and fuchsia. So I'm going to look for pieces that have some of these colors in them and see what I can find. Obviously, I am not going to use all of these colors in the room, but I will use some of them. Also remember that both styles use geometric patterns. So I'll be sure to include some geometric patterns in my space, like Lee in the area of throw pillows. Finally, the sunburst smear and brass candlestick holders were iconic accessories for both styles. So I'll definitely be sure to include these two items. And fortunately, I know that they are very easy to find right now at all price points. So now that we've included the common elements, now let's move on to step two, which is to look at the main furniture pieces of that I can find. And it's in my price point for the Art Deco style. And decide which one or two main furniture pieces I want to use. After a bit of searching, I really liked this art deco style armchair. So I'm going to include two in my space. You'll also notice that these are leather, which is a common material in both styles. I also really loved this art deco style console table, so I'm going to include it in my final design as well. Now that that's done, I'm going to go ahead and list all of the accessories, rugs, and window coverings common to the Art Deco style. Now apart from the sunburst MIR and the brass candlestick holders, which we've already selected. We also have a vintage radio, French art deco clocks and bases. Large colored glass, sculptural bowls, crystal trays, and any siren of the sea items including sculptures and. Table lamps for greenery. Remember we have large palm trees and beautiful flowering arrangements with everything from roses to peacock feathers. However, I'm not going to select anything yet. As accessories are one of the last things I select for a room. For rugs, the Art Deco style uses pattern rugs, either any rhythmic or a geometric pattern. I'm going to go with the geometric pattern in a gold or beige color, which goes nicely with the throw pillows that I chose for lighting. I've selected this art deco style flush mount light that mimics the shape of the starburst mirror, making it a great fit for this space. The third step is to select the remaining furniture pieces, window coverings, and one to two accessories from the mid-century modern style. First to the furniture pieces. I'm going to use this mid mod sofa, this Noguchi style coffee table, and a couple of these very cool mid mod psi tables for window coverings, I could lead the windows bear. But since drapes can also be used in the style, I will use some simple white drapes like this. Ok. Now onto the mid mod accessories and just be good choose one to three items are options apart from the sunburst Mir, and brass candlestick holders that we already have include a bar Kart, eight George Nelson clock, a geometric immobile, or hand carved wood items. I think I'm going to go with just a bar chart. A great choice for this room. Ok, so back to the other art deco accessories. I think I'm going to include a couple of indoor palm trees. And there's a beautiful art deco vase there. I think I'm done. Since the main style is mid mod, remember that less is more with accessories, so we don't want to overdo it. Now this is a good-looking VR. See how well these styles compliment each other. I hope that example gives you a good idea of how to mix two styles successfully. That said, let's go ahead and talk about the other great design partners that you can use in your own home. Let's start with contemporary. Contemporary looks great with mid-century modern, modern French, Zan, industrial, and Scandinavian. Can you see how the spouse can work well together? Here are some of the commonalities, mainly neutrals in most of these styles, and lots of clean straight lines in most of the furniture pieces. Just to start, this alone creates a great foundation for a good marriage. Now let's look at traditional, traditional pairs well with Tuscan, formal Mediterranean, coastal chic. And believe it or not, industrial as well. In the case of the latter, traditional and industrial, I find that making traditional the primary style and industrial as a secondary style can look great together. In particular, I love the look of industrial style lighting in a traditional space. Trends additional is another style that works well with multiple different styles. I've mixed transitional with contemporary, traditional and with coastal chic to other great design pairs include Western and farmhouse and French country with English country. Probably no surprise there. And that concludes our conversation on how to mix the many different styles successfully. I hope that you now have a much better idea of how to pull this off well, in your own home, using this simple 1-2-3 approach was styled that we know work well together. 4. 2 Interior Design Style Challenges: Now that you and I have spent several hours together, I am guessing that you've definitely had your fill of my voice and my face. So I am going to break things up a bit and bring in to individuals to talk about their particular design challenges. Specifically how to mix two to three different styles well, in their own spaces. First, please meet Alexandria. She loves traditional Mediterranean and Tuscon, but she's struggling to know which items to use in which style in her formal living room. Alexandria, welcome and thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your design challenge with us. Why don't you go ahead and tell us what you've done so far and where you're stuck. Thanks, Erica. Well, I've made some progress on my own, but I'm kind of at a standstill because I don't know which direction to go. I really want to incorporate traditional Tuscon and Mediterranean elements in to my living room. However, I'm concerned that the room may end up feeling a bit too chaotic as if I couldn't make up my mind on which style to go with, if I don't get the proportions right. So I have a traditional chandelier. It's just beautiful, that looks like this. I also have added this Tuscan style sofa to the room along with this gorgeous Tuscan tapestry. But this is where I've stopped. I still need to add one to, to accent chairs, a rug, coffee table, site tables, window coverings. And I'd like to add some scan's has as well. But I'm not sure what style I should be using. Whether to throw in more traditional, more Tuscan, or where to throw in the Mediterranean influence? It's a great question. Well first though, let me just say that you have done a fantastic job so far. In a Tuscan or a Mediterranean style room, traditional lighting is the way to go. So you definitely nailed it on that point. Great job. Now because Tuscon and Mediterranean are so similar, you really just need to choose which pieces from each style you prefer. Because honestly, all pieces should work really well together. First, the $1 million question I have for you is, would you prefer the room to look more traditional or more Tuscon and Mediterranean. Because as you may already know, it's important to have a primary style so that the room looks intentionally designed rather than completely chaotic. That is a great question, Erica. If I had to choose, I think I'd like to have the room lean more towards Tuscon and Mediterranean perhaps, because the exterior of our house is that style. I also think that my husband, her probably prefers that style as well. Okay. So then traditional Will be the supporting style. In that case, the first step would be to find out what elements these three styles have in common. In this case, a would be curved wood furniture pieces, typically in a dark finish. Common colors to these three styles include cream, age, deep reds, and greens. Common architectural elements include wood floors and arches. And common accessories are vases, bowls, and beautiful candlestick holders. That being said, my recommendation then would be to go with a cream pink color for your walls and the wood floors you already have in your home. Our perfect. You'll want to go ahead and look for furniture and accessories that include beige reds and or a beautiful greens and include some decorative vases, bowls, and possibly candlestick holders. Next, let's go ahead and find one to two furniture pieces in the traditional style for your room that you love. My recommendation would be to incorporate a queen in style coffee table and table, or just a traditional style and table would also work really well with this type of coffee table. For a rug, I would choose a traditional style rug like this, has some of the terracotta and red colors that we are looking for. For Scott says, I would also use something in the traditional style like this. As to traditional accessories, we could include a favorite collection that you might have, or a beautiful vase, candle holders, elegant bowls, or a guilt framed Mir. But let's pick out the remaining furniture pieces before we make any decisions on your traditional accessories. Next, let's look at what remaining furniture pieces we need for this room. And then we'll want to choose them amongst formal Tuscon and Mediterranean style furniture as this is a formal space as you know. So in this case, we know we need one or two accent chairs. Now, you could go with something really unique, like this antique Tuscan sat on a roller or Dante chair, which was used during the Italian Renaissance. Or you could go with a more formal Mediterranean side chair like this. Finally, for window coverings because this is a formal room. I would definitely absolutely use some drapes. So I would have some drapes custom-made from a petty silk. And in one of the colors that we have found in your rug, a light color or a dark color would work just fine for this room. For accessories, I would look to incorporate a Greek style vase like this, which works really well in the Mediterranean style. And I would definitely include a Mediterranean inspired floral arrangement as we know how important flowers are in the Mediterranean style. Now let's go ahead and go back to the traditional accessories and select two to three to go in this room. I know you have a collection of art books that would look. Fantastic on this coffee table. And let's also include a guilt framed Mir. So alexandria, What do you think? Erika, this makes perfect sense. Thanks so much. Now I'd like you to meet Eric. Eric is trying to pull together a home office using both contemporary and urban modern styles. But he feels a bit nervous doing this on his own. So he's asked me for some professional advice. Hi Eric. Thanks so much for sharing your design challenge with us. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little more about your project. Thanks, erika. Well, my home office definitely needs a complete overhaul. And I really like both contemporary and urban modern styles. I'm just not sure how to pull it together using those styles, I could really use your help. Of course, I am more than happy to help. Do you have any current pieces that you'd like to using your new room? And more importantly, which style do you prefer? Contemporary or urban modern? In other words, which style would you like to be the primary Style? The only thing I really want to keep as my Eran desk chair, it's really comfortable. Other than that, I'd like to start from scratch. I think I prefer contemporary. So let's make that the primary style sounds great. Well, here's how I'd like to approach this room. First, let's make a list of all of the elements that these two styles have in common. First, we see that in both styles, the furniture is large-scale, low-profile, with clean, simple, and generally straight lines. The tables in both styles are usually open and airy, often constructed of a metal base with a glass or a wood tabletop or a weak base with a glass top. Both styles also like to use metal, glass, and wood in large amounts. And it's important to have a mix of polished and rough surfaces in both styles. Now in the area of color, both styles use a lot of black, white, and gray. And both styles can add splashes of color, particularly urban modern. As far as a pink color for the room, my recommendation would be to go with a white pink color, as that is typically what we use in contemporary spaces. Now as far as other commonalities, Both styles also like to leave the windows bear, but can use roller shades or simple curtain panels if needed. For fluorine, concrete and wood are the two most common choices in the area of lighting. Urban modern can definitely use contemporary lighting, which is great. And finally, both styles tend to use large, oversized pieces of art in their spaces. As you can see, these two styles do have quite a bit in common, making this a great pairing. Moving onto the next step, let's go ahead and find one to two furniture pieces, a rug and lighting in the urban modern style for your office. Because urban modern is known for using some really great retro pieces in its style, I'd recommend we go with a cool egg chair like this one, which can also be one of your main pops of color for the room and it comfortable accent chair for a rug. Let's also have a little fun and throw in a cow high drug. Finally, for lighting, I'd recommend a couple of contemporary pendants over your desk like this one. And we can also use some track lighting to highlight the artwork that we will be including in your office. Now, we also want to look at what urban modern accessories we may want to include in the room. You might remember that great accessories for an urban modern space include Mexican woven baskets, African masks, hand carved wood sculptures, BAR cart, anything vintage. Fo for a throw blankets, hand blown glass globes, air plants are cactuses or anything with unique sculptural lines to it, will come back to these in a minute. Next, let's go ahead and look at what remaining furniture pieces we need for the room, and then choose those that are classically contemporary. First, we'll start with a desk, an obvious must for your home office. Now since both styles use a lot of wood and glass, my recommendation would be to use a contemporary glass top wood desk, something like this. I also noticed that you have a lot of books. So let's be sure to add a couple of metal and glass bookshelves to the room. Your AIG chair could also use a side table. So I would use something like this. What I really like is that the triangular lines of this side table reflect the triangular lines of your penance. We also need to go ahead and pick our window coverings and a couple of accessories in the contemporary style for window coverings. Let's go ahead and go with simple white roller shades so that they will filter light, but still provide you with some privacy. For contemporary accessories, I would choose a large abstract painting like this one or anything with reading it to create a connection with that very cool egg chair. And perhaps a large sculptural plant like the fiddle leaf fig. Now, going back to the urban modern accessories, let's throw in some hand carved wood sculptures and a few hand blown glass globes like this. And we definitely have our urban modern influence. So Eric, what do you think? Does that make sense? Yeah, it really does. I like what you show me and I can't wait to get this done. 5. Putting Interior Design Style Mixing Theory into Practice: I know that there are many of you who are looking forward to trying out the information that you've learned in this course, specifically on how to begin mixing styles in your own home successfully. To that end, I have created this bonus lecture to walk you through the process of doing this step by step. All you need to do is print out and fill in the worksheet that is included in the resources section of this lecture. So let's go ahead and walk through this together. Now that you've printed out your style mixing guide, let's go ahead and review this together. I've gone ahead and populate it with a real world example so you can see exactly how this guide should be used. And more importantly, how easy it is to mix two different interior design styles. First though, as you may remember from the lecture about design cousins and design partners, I explained how there are certain style pairs, which I call either design cousins or design partners, which are either very easy or fairly easy to mix together because they have a number of commonalities. Please know that just because I didn't list to specific styles as either design cousins or design partners, does not at all mean that they cannot be successfully mixed. It just means that it may be a bit more challenging. The best way to determine if two styles can work well together is to see how many commonalities those two styles have with each other. You want a fair amount of common elements. What is a fair amount you ask? Well, I'd be looking for roughly ten or more common elements. However, a single element can be represented by just an individual color. For example, if two styles both have white and black as common neutral colors, then that represents two common elements. Said another way, any similarity, no matter how big or small, counts towards the ten plus commonalities make sense. Great. So in this real world example, I'm going to be mixing two styles that weren't listed as either designed cousins or design partners in my lectures. But that's okay. And actually it's going to be good for you to see an example that falls outside of these typical parents. Specifically, I'm going to be mixing modern French with art deco. So now that you have your copy of my Guide to mixing styles successfully in your room or home in front of you. Let me walk you through how easy it is to use this step-by-step tool to help you mix styles with ease. The first item we see on this guide is to fill in the name of the room in which we'll be mixing our styles. I generally start with a family or living room, since it's the most used Room of the home. And so I've written in family room. The next item is asking me to write in the main furniture pieces needed for this room. I've already done a floor plan of this room, so I know what pieces I need. Now regarding floor plans, I do go into detail on how to do this in my other class called How to design a room in ten easy steps. Now, for this room, I have decided that I'm going to need a couch, two chairs. A coffee table, a plant, window coverings to floor lamps, and an overhead light fixture for ambient light. Next, the guide asks us to list the results of the four style quizzes that we took earlier in the course. Specifically based on the quizzes. What formal, casual, Twenty-First Century and retro inspired styles are best for me based on preferences. You can see that I have written in modern French, Scandinavian, transitional, and art deco In this example, question number four asks me to make a decision on which two styles of these four styles I like best. I've also included some questions to help you make this decision for yourself. That said you already know that I've made the decision to mix modern French and art deco in this room. Question number five asks us to make another decision. Which of these two styles, modern French and art deco do I want to be the primary style and the secondary style? Now if you watch the lecture on modern French, you know that I am absolutely in love with this style. So I am going to go ahead and make this the primary style. That's page one. So far, so good, right? Okay, on to page two. If you watch my lecture on design partners, you'll recognize these questions from my three-step approach that I discussed on how to mix two styles. Well, you'll see that step one is to list all of the common elements of these two styles. The easiest way to do this is to pull up or print out the style specific style resource guide handout contained in the resources section. This document provides an overview of the main elements of each of the formal interior design styles, along with popular retailers that I mentioned in each lecture. Once you have opened or printed out the style resource guide documents for your two styles. Look for the commonalities and then write those down here, just like I have. Now on to step two. Step two asks us to look at our secondary style, in this case, art deco, and first identify the typical furniture pieces used. It then asks us to identify whether or not we have any of those furniture pieces in our home already that we can use in this room. Remember on page one, I stated that I needed a couch, to chairs, a coffee table, a plant, window coverings to floor lamps, and an overhead light fixture for ambient light. So I'll need to identify it if I have any of these furniture pieces in the Art Deco style. If I don't have one to two of these main furniture pieces, the Art Deco style, all need to write in which items I'd like to shop for in this style. In this example, you can see that I do have a chrome framed coffee table with a glass top, which is perfect for this style. But I'd like to also get to leather club chairs in the Art Deco style. So I add that to my shopping list. Step 2A simply asks us to write down all of the common accessories, including artwork found in our secondary style of art deco. Easy enough, I just need to look at the style resource guide for the retro inspired interior design styles and write down those accessories and artwork that are common for the Art Deco style. You can see that I've written those in here. At the end of this guide will come back to this list and choose two to three accessories to include in our room. Moving on to Step two, b, we're going to be selecting a rug and light fixtures from our secondary style. So using my style resource guide, I notate the common rugs and light fixtures used and then indicate whether or not I own those items or whether I'll be selecting some to purchase. In this example, you can see that I have a geometric rug and to Chrome floor lamps that will work well, but I will need to purchase a light fixture to provide ambient lighting to the room. So I'll go ahead and look for an art deco flush mount light to purchase. Step three has us now focused on our primary style of modern French to select all of the remaining furniture pieces needed for our family room. Specifically, it asks us to identify the typical furniture pieces used, whether or not we have any modern French pieces that we need. And if not, then we'll need to place it on our shopping list. You'll see that I already have a contemporary sofa for the room, which is the only remaining main furniture piece that I needed. Step 3a stays on our primary style and asks us to identify the window coverings and accessories, including artwork as typical for our style of modern French. It also asks us if we have one of those types of window coverings, and if not, we should add them to our shopping list. It's the same approach on the accessories and artwork. First, we need to list those items that are common, determine whether or not we have any of them, and then add anything we need to the shopping list. So we end up with one to two accessories from the modern French style. You can see in this example we have the window coverings needed as well as the right artwork, but we're going to need to purchase one other item. And in this case, I've chosen a BAR cart. Now you'll see that our guide takes us back to question 2A. Now that we've selected all of the main furniture pieces for the room, it's time to go back and look at the list of common accessories in our secondary style of art deco. And identify which items I have in my home and which items I'll need to add to my shopping list based on everything I have in the room, I'm going to use the palm tree that I already have and purchasing crystal tray for the coffee table. We have now arrived at the final step, which is to create our mood board with the items we have selected for the room to see if everything looks good together before we make our final ShoppingList, The way that I like to do this is to use Microsoft PowerPoint, but you can use any comparable program. Specifically, what I'll do is search for images for the types of items that I will be using or plan on purchasing from my room. Once I find the image, I'll right-click on it to copy and paste the image right into my mood board. Then it's time to review the way that all of my selections look together to ensure that I am happy with the way everything looks together. In this case, I am quite happy with it. So now I can create my shopping list. Now if I wasn't happy, then I would look for other items that would fit that particular style from my previous lists above and continue to copy and paste images into my mood board until I had created a room that I love. Now it's just time to summarize all of my responses. The next question asks us to list the items which we own that we will be including in the room, which you can see I have done here. Next, it asks me to consolidate my shopping list, which you can see I've done here as well. In this section, you'll notice that it asks me to indicate a new paint color if necessary. In this example, because white is a very common neutral in both styles, all plan on painting this room white, likely simply white, by Benjamin Moore. The very final step has me list all of the recommended retailers that I shared in each of the lectures on where you can find furnishings in that particular style to make it easier on myself when I go shopping. You can see I've gone ahead and listed the retailers for both the modern French and The Art Deco style here, which can be found in the respective style resource guides. And that said, I now have everything I need to pull together my fabulous modern French art deco room. I sincerely hope you found this lecture to be helpful and easy to follow as you set off on your own dial mixing adventures.