How To Create an Eclectic Interior - Step By Step

What is Eclectic Interior Design Style?

First, what do we mean by eclectic style interior design? Our faithful Meriam Webster defines eclectic style as “composed of elements drawn from various sources”. Within the umbrella of eclectic interior design, you may have heard of eclectic maximalist interior design which just means bolder is better. I also hear eclectic bohemian interior design bandied about. Although “bohemian” has had many meanings over time, right now I’d characterize this as an eclectic interior that has a greater proportion of natural, handmade and gathered elements in it.

One of the beauties of eclectic interior design is that it can have so many subcategories. So one person’s interpretation can lean more traditional, and another person’s could lean more towards modern eclectic interior design. One of the enduring qualities of eclectic design is that by definition it has many different styles mixed together and therefore it’s impossible for eclectic designs to go completely out of style.

It’s Easy, Right?

That’s all very well, but how do you actually make an interior eclectic? Most “how to” guides will tell you to just use items from different historical periods, different patterns and different textures. To some this is enough to go by, but, having been gainfully employed to create eclectic interiors for many years, if it was that simple, I wouldn’t have been able to earn a living! As I explained in a previous blog post, a mishmash of styles, colors and textures doesn’t automatically create a harmonious eclectic interior.

I created eclectic interiors professionally for over 15 years before I started this unique vintage furniture gig. I believe we all can experience flashes of inspiration, but I also believe that the majority of interior design follows a logical path. Practiced designers just do this in their heads without stopping to notice each micro decision that eventually creates the final design. So I decided to try to distill what some folks regard as “art” into a formula. I wanted to see if I could create a step by step process to create eclectic room designs.

Many scribbled notes, arrows, furrowed brows and sketches later, I had nailed down a very detailed guide for how to make eclectic living room designs. I ended up with an eye test of a flow chart that looks about as welcoming as a rabid guard dog with halitosis:

I suspect this would be a great start for a auto-eclectic computer program. But as my tech skills max out at the occasional Instagram post, I’m unlikely to be creating the design equivalent of ChatGPT any time soon.
So I’ve been sitting with this yellowing crumpled piece of paper for several months now, and you, my lucky guinea pigs, are going to enjoy/suffer me trying to “talk” you through how it enables anyone to put together eclectic designs.

“Where should I start?” said Piglet. “At the beginning,” said Pooh. Probably.

The Step by Step Guide to Creating an Eclectic Room Design

The Interesting Object (IO)

Step one is to pick one interesting home decor object, art piece or furniture piece that you love. It can be one item you know has to go in that room, or your grandmother’s vase, or a painting by a friend. Something like that. The IO is one object that can serve as a starting point for the eclectic interior design. There’s one rule though. It has to have at least 2 colors in it.

Let’s pick this tray as our IO just so we can have an example to illustrate all this waffling.

Our “Interesting Object” is Ted the Tea Tray

We start at the top left of the crumpled flowchart with this interesting object. As we move across to the right, we need to consider three aspects of the object for the purpose of our cunning plan.

• Silhouette - is the outside shape mostly straight or curvy?

• Detail - is there a lot of detail/pattern or is it plain?

• Color - let’s define its accent color (yes, it’s called dominant color on the flowchart, but welcome to editing on the fly as I workshop this with you) and background/neutral color

So for Ted the Tray,

Silhouette. The overall shape of the tray is more linear than curvaceous so we’ll go with straight.

Detail. The wallpaper behind the glass has lots of different lines, colors and text going on so we’ll go with detailed.

Color. The accent color here is green. The neutral would be black.

Next is one more color question for you to answer. Eclectic style interior design can work really well with lots of color, but it’s not a required feature. You decide if you’re

• a) a color junkie - you love lots of colors together

  or

• b) a color moderate - someone who likes to break up their colors with neutrals

For the purpose of this exercise let’s go with color junkie! We’re going to be working with a simple living room. I expect you can tweak this to work in any room of the house. Maybe we’ll find out later!

The eclectic living room is going to contain the following practical elements (listed down the far left column on the flowchart):

• sofa

• lounge chair(s)

• area rug

• throw pillow(s)

• coffee table

• end table(s)

• throw blanket

• floor lamp next to sofa

• table lamp on end table or storage piece

• storage cabinet or shelves

For each element in the room, we are going to consider the same those aspects as we move left to right; silhouette, detail and color. Dimensions are something that are very important of course, but they depend almost entirely on the exact room you have. They also have very little to do with making the design eclectic so I’m going to leave those up to you.

Sofa

Let’s work on the elephant (sofa) in the room.

Remembering that the IO has straight lines, lots of detail and is green and black, we’re going to make the sofa the opposite of the IO in terms of the silhouette and level of detail. So it should be curvy (a few straight lines with the curves is okay) and plain (without pattern).

The color junkie’s sofa is a lighter or darker version of the accent color. In this case, a mid to dark green is the color to look for. So now we’ve established the basic description of the sofa we’re looking for. If I google “curvy plain dark green sofa”, one of the many options I get is this:

Curvy, plain, dark green sofa

Lounge Chairs

Next, lounge chairs. Our chairs are going to have some of the same characteristics of our IO, namely, a straight lined silhouette and pattern/detail on the fabric. For the color, we’re going to go with EITHER the color adjacent to the IO accent color of green (yellow or blue) OR opposite the IO accent color of green (pink-ish red) on the color wheel. Color junkie says let’s go opposite!

The color opposite the closest green on the color wheel is a magenta. Let’s try googling “magenta chair with straight lines and lots of detail”…

Straight lined magenta chair with lots of detail

Whoa! That’s quite a contrast. Color junkies celebrate! Everyone else, just bear with me here!

Area Rug

Area rug next. The rug should have curved lines (unlike the IO). The rug could have a curvy outside shape but as that can be hard to find, we’ll incorporate the curves into the pattern. It should also have a pattern or lots of detail (like the IO). The color should be a lighter or darker version of the chair color. As we’re already going pretty dark with the chair, let’s go to the lighter side.

Pink rug with curvy pattern

Throw Pillows

Throw pillows are the ultimate salve for all schemes with major contrast. The throw pillows for our eclectic design scheme will be have a straight lined silhouette/geometric pattern (like the IO) and will have details like a pattern or trim (like the IO). The color should be lighter or darker than the color on the chair .

Square pink throw pillow with straight lined pattern

Coffee Table

The coffee table is up next. The formula for this one is curved silhouette (opposite to IO) and minimal detail (opposite to IO). You get to choose a wood tone here, but try to pick a wood that is similar to the era/style of your interesting object. For example, if it’s rustic, pick a weathered wood. Go with a teak tone for mid-century or a walnut tone for classic. Our IO has a mix of styles (the definition of eclectic decor!) but the book wallpaper has a hand colored black and white photo style which was popular at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. For more on that, check out this history. I remember a photo of my father as a young boy on the pier at Brighton in 1936. He has a hand colored little blue coat on. So I’m going to go with the 1930s.

Curvy 1930s wood coffee table

End Table

The end table should have curved lines (opposite to IO) and minimal detail (opposite to the IO again). Go for a color here rather than a wood tone if you can. For the end table we’re going to go with the accent color (green).

Curvy green end table

Throw Blanket

The throw blanket is going to be used on the sofa. The recipe calls for some straight lined, detailed pattern in the accent color of the IO.

Green throw blanket with geometric pattern

Floor Lamp

Next, a floor lamp to go next to the sofa. The formula here is straight lines with some detail. The color should be a metal tone of your choice or the same color as the chairs. As we’ve already introduced some gold in the end table, I’ll go with gold here.

Gold geometric design floor lamp

Table Lamp

The table lamp will go next to the lounge chair. It needs to have straight lines and detail but without matching the floor lamp. The color should ideally be the contrast color to the IO’s accent color.

Pink geometric design table lamp

Storage Piece

Phew, we’re nearly there! The last piece is going to be a storage cabinet or bookcase. For this piece we’ll need straight lines and lots of detail. The color should either be a wood tone that is different from the coffee table or a combination of colors from the IO.

Cabinet with straight lines and lots of detail in green, pink, black

We’re done! Let’s check out the whole scheme:

Definitely eclectic and colorful. The design coalesces around a rhythm of colors, contrasting curves versus straight lines and detail versus simplicity. Keep reading to see how I work through how this scheme could have looked if you were a color moderate instead!

Eclectic Room Design for Color Moderates

I had promised to go through my eclectic design process for color moderates. If you want to know how to design a room and pull together eclectic designs, but without as much color as the example above, this will show you how. Some of the pieces in the room can be exactly the same. We can keep the coffee table, and floor lamp because those pieces didn’t depend on the choice of how much color you wanted in the room. So here’s what we already have:

Interesting Object (Ted the Tea Tray), gold geometric floor lamp and curvy wood 1930s coffee table

Sofa

As before, we’ll start with the sofa. Rather than go with the accent color as we had previously, we’ll choose a neutral. If the neutral or background color on the IO is white or black (ours is black) and that’s impractical for your sofa, pick a gray or beige. I’m going to go with a very light creamy gray because it’s one of the other colors on our tray so we know it will work. Just like last time, the sofa also needs to be curvy and be relatively plain or without much detail. Here’s one of the many options that Google finds for us:

Curvy gray/cream sofa with simple lines

Lounge Chair(s)

For the lounge chair we’re going to use the accent color from the IO (green). As before, it has to have straight lines and some level of detail. We’re mixing up shapes, detail level and colors in a way that will provide an eclectic furniture mix but also a balanced modern eclectic interior design. In this case the furniture piece will fulfil the detail requirement with its channelled back and gold and black legs:

Green lounge chair with straight lines and some detail

Area Rug

The rug needs to have some curved lines and be patterned, i.e. have detail just like the option for the color junkie, but this time it needs to be in a lighter or darker version of the neutral we used for the sofa.

Area rug with curved cream lines on gray

Throw Pillows

Throw pillows for the scheme should be in the accent color (green) with straight lines and some level of detail or pattern.

Geometric pattern green throw pillow with details

End Table

For the end table, we’re going to go with a color that is adjacent to the green on the color wheel. So it should either be blue or yellow. I’m going to choose blue because the chances are you prefer that color, and I don’t like using yellow in a room that has gold in it. As before it needs to have curves and be simple/not detailed.

Curved simple blue end table

Throw Blanket

The throw blanket for sofa should have the same color in it as the end table but have straight lines and some level of detail or pattern (sorry that it looks a bit like a ghost in this picture).

Blue throw blanket with geometric pattern (wide stripes)

Table Lamp

For the table lamp, we should go with a lighter or darker version of the accent color. It should have straight lines and some detail.

Light green table lamp with straight lines

and some detail

Storage Piece

And lastly, the storage piece. If we can mix some of the colors in our palette together in this piece it would be ideal. Here we have cream and blues. This should have straight lines and have some detail to it. You can add detail to these shelves by displaying different objects on it. Remember though that eclectic design doesn’t equal clutter!

Shelves with straight lines and detail

And now for the big reveal!

An eclectic living room built around the same interesting object, but for a someone who likes to use neutrals along with colors. What do you think?