6 Tips for Creating a Collected Look

Your home should look like you, not like a catalog! Here are 6 easy tips to help you create a collected – or curated – look in your home!

As much as possible, I try to create a collected, or curated, look in my home – one that looks as if it’s evolved over time.  I think it’s important that our homes look unique and reflect our individual tastes as styles, as opposed to looking like a store showroom, which is a bit impersonal.

The easiest way to create a collected look is to, of course, actually collect the items in your home over a period of time!  Since our tastes, interests, and style changes over time, history alone creates a collected look because the items in your home will represent different points in your life. 

If you’re doing a makeover of a room, though, you might want it to look as if you put it together over time, even though you didn’t.  So here are 6 tips for creating a collected look…in a short timeframe.

Even a collected looks should still feel cohesive”

1.  Mix and Match

Mixing and matching furniture styles, finishes, textures, etc. is one of the easiest ways to help a room look as if it’s evolved over time.  While matching sets are convenient to buy, they are also a dead giveaway that everything was purchased together at the same time.  Instead, pick pieces with different wood tones, finishes, and styles.  Be sure to mix the elements consistently throughout the room to create a cohesive look.

 2.  Create a Consistency

Using a variety of furniture styles, wood finishes, etc. can be daunting if your fear is that the room will look chaotic.  The key is to look for consistency among the items in terms of color, scale, shape, feel, or visual balance, so that the pieces complement one another.

3.  Combine New & Old

I think that sometimes, antiques get a bad rap and conjure up images of dusty relics tucked away in your grandma’s attic.  Not true! 

While a home full of antiques may not be for everyone, they can still be used sparingly through the space.  Consider mixing antique or vintage items alongside your new pieces to help give your room a bit of history.  Vintage pieces mixed with new allows for unexpected finds, adding interest to the space!

 4. Think Outside the Box

Using an item in a way other than its intended use immediately gives personality and adds creativity to a space. To find a new use for an old object, look at its shape, not its intended purpose, which will allow you to brainstorm other uses for the item. 

Keep in mind, though, that simple is better.  If you can use a vintage object as is, without modifying it, the look tends to be more effortless and thus, more natural.  If you have to try too hard to make something work, it often ends up looking kitschy.

5. Shop at a Variety of Places

I was recently in Restoration Hardware looking at some chairs and the salesperson offered to draw up a floorplan for me so that I could better assess how everything would fit in my space.  A free floorplan?  Okay! 

A day later she sent me a presentation with furniture suggestions for everything from the chairs, to the pillows, the paint, mirrors, and more.  I ended up ordering the chairs but I could hear the disappointment in her voice that I wasn’t going to purchase anything else from them.  While I love Restoration Hardware, I don’t want my home to look like their showroom!

Venturing out and buying things from lots of different places is one way to expose yourself to new items, styles, and decorating ideas so that you can combine your favorites from each into one place in your home. 

Here are some of my personal favorite places to shop:

• 16 Best Online Stores for Affordable Home Decor
• The BEST Online Shops for French Décor {Antiques & Reproductions}
• My Online Holiday Shopping Guide {Top 12}
• The Best Bay Area Antique Stores for European Finds

6. Choose Meaningful Items

Collections are generally made up of items that are meaningful to a person, so it would make sense that a collected room would be filled with items that you love.  Decorating with meaningful items helps to tell your story.

To me, a collected look has personality and interest, plus it allows us to add and remove items without throwing off the entire look of the room.  After all, our lives are constantly changing and evolving, so shouldn’t our homes reflect that?!  :)