Earlier this month, we shared all our takeaways from the Antiques & Garden Show in Nashville – a mecca for design inspiration both timeless and modern. One of our biggest observations stemmed from antiques: while heirloom pieces have long been used to accent spaces, we witnessed many designers and collectors breathing new life into those pieces.
Dated wooden chairs had been reinvigorated with bold, brand-new fabrics, and showrooms had new components like modern art and trending wallpaper woven together with historic elements like classic china and timeworn sconces.
Being big fans of bold prints and quality materials ourselves, we’re big fans of this shift. And actually, we’ve put it into practice!
Check out how we incorporated beloved antiques into this refreshed home.
Dining Room
If there’s one room synonymous with antiques, it’s the dining room. China cabinets, pressed linens, and storied chandeliers often define dining room decor, but in this recent renovation, we wanted to bring a touch of freshness to the space.
We started with our client’s existing dining room set, refreshing the chairs with new, durable fabric. Then, we decorated the surface with her stunning collection of linens and silver, adding fresh-cut blooms to liven up the space.
When focusing on designing around antiques, remember it’s perfectly fine (and we might even say encouraged) to incorporate modern trends as well. In the dining room, we added a trending paint color to the walls and the ceiling, and finished the look with high-quality curtains in a print that seamlessly combined old and new. We decorated the wall by hanging her collection of antique plates.
Finally, we upgrade the room’s lighting with modern options, focusing on reflecting light up onto the ceiling instead of down onto the guests.
Living Room
Even with heirlooms in mind, we never waver on our commitment to increasing functionality in a space. Our client had a desk for work taking up a chunk of her living space, so we got creative with rearranging to give her a more dedicated work area that could still double as entertaining space.
We added wainscoting to the wall – which itself is an old trend made new again. In Amish tradition, wainscoting included a thick ledge for hanging chairs at the end of the day. We incorporated this technique by making the ledge a bit thicker for our client to display her artwork, always movable and never anchored to the wall.
