Interior Design: 3 Tips for Creating a Sophisticated Rustic Style

The romantic lure of the rustic style home or cabin is undeniable.  Maybe its because of our rich heritage of building log cabins to protect our families from the weather. Or maybe its the way rustic homes connect us with the outdoors with their rough hewn beams, simple style, and organic materials like stacked stone fireplaces.

But even though we still love our rustic home, sometimes we crave furnishings that are more refined and luxurious to offset the rugged architecture for that perfect mix of masculine and feminine.  If that’s you, here are my 3 tips as an interior designer to help you create a beautiful blend.

1. Select a muted color scheme that picks up the hues reflected in your finishes. By picking up existing colors in the home’s architecture for the furnishings, the overall design style is strengthened and the furnishings connect better with the hard surfaces .  Here in this photo, we pulled out the beautiful gray blue and taupe color scheme from the hues found in the stone fireplace.   By selecting furniture with a softer hand and more luxurious feel, the room also took on a more timeless complex look that adds interest.

Layering in an area rug with an organic pattern in those same hues brings everything                   together while the lighter colors of all the furnishings help bounce around much needed               light in the room.

2. Keep it simple  Because of the rugged nature of the rustic interior, to create a sophisticated feel its important to balance the mega sized fireplace, wood columns, and other rough elements with furnishings with cleaner lines and softer edges to create the perfect balance of rugged and sleek.  Here the softer lines of the sofa and tables help balance the rough hewn fireplace and stone columns.

The same is true with this family room where the textural pillows, shag rug, and airy swivel chairs add texture and light to the darker hard surfaces of the fireplace, floors, and leather sofa.

3. Layer in organic materials that coordinate with the room’s rugged finish to soften room such as natural cottons as seen in the bedding and the casual fabrics on the chairs.  The textural rug also adds light and interest to the room.

A beautiful simple pale blue shimmery wallpaper in an organic pattern provides a nice juxtaposition against the stone columns and paneled wood ceiling.

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