Different Furniture Styles – Selecting the Best Styles for Your Home

There are hundreds of different furniture styles on the market today, each with its own designs, patterns and colour combinations. This makes selecting the right style of furniture for your home a challenge.

Although we won’t be able to cover every single type of furniture in existence, you’ll be able to read about some of the most popular styles in this post. This will hopefully help you decide which style/design is right for you.

The furniture we offer

Here at Lakeland, we stock a broad range of furniture in different styles, including bar stools, dining chairs and office chairs, as well as various outdoor furniture sets. Whether you’re looking for something in particular or you’re just looking for some inspiration, please feel free to browse our store.

What types of furniture styles are there?

There are hundreds of different styles of furniture available today, some of which are vastly popular while others are considered fairly niche. Although we can’t cover every single furniture style in this post, we will try to cover some of the most common styles and categories.

The most commonly seen furniture categories include minimalist styles, modern styles, classic/vintage styles and rustic styles. Most of these categories go by other names too depending on who you ask, and each one includes various unique styles.

What these different styles are is something we’ll discuss next.

Different styles of furniture available today

Although a list of names of different furniture styles won’t cover everything, it can give you inspiration when redesigning your home and help you understand the differences between them.

So, what are the different styles of furniture commonly seen today?

Industrial-style

Industrial-style furniture is a cross between modern/minimalist and factory-like designs and it works best in cities and buildings with unique architectural features. We recently wrote a blog post on industrial-style furniture ideas if you want to get a better idea of what industrial-style furniture is and in which situations it works best.

Industrial style is both a modern and a minimalist style and it works best if you’re looking for a clean and industrial look. Finding the right balance is key to making this style work. It’s important to balance the industrial features with warmer textures to ensure the room doesn’t look too cold.

We stock various types of furniture in this style, including industrial bar stools.

Scandinavian-style

The Scandinavian style has become very popular over the past ten to twenty years, and for good reason! This style combines minimalist layouts with modern designs and features innovative, Scandinavian-style furniture as well as plants and natural materials. You can find out more about this furniture style in our blog post on what Scandinavian-style design is.

If you’re looking for a modern style but you want to avoid your home looking too cold or “sterile” then Scandi-style may just be exactly what you’re looking for. It features many of the same materials that are common in modern and contemporary designs but adds various natural colours and textures to make your house feel more like a home. Houseplants, wooden tables and chairs, and cotton or fur rugs and cushions are commonly used to ensure a warm, homely feel to every room.

If you feel like this is the right style for you, feel free to take a look at our Scandinavian-style dining chairs.

Art-deco

Art-deco is short for Arts Decoratifs and it’s a style that originated in France in the 1920s. It’s a somewhat classical style that has a lot of features that correspond with other styles from the early twentieth century. Although the style has been losing some of its popularity as consumers move more towards modern and minimalist styles, it remains a unique style that’s popular among those who love old-fashioned designer furniture and luxurious-looking woods and marquetry.

Art-deco style can be incorporated into most homes and can even be supplemented with more modern furniture to create a unique mix of modern and classical features. This style features many exotic kinds of wood, some of which are very difficult to find these days and fetch a high price.

Although there are still some manufacturers of art-deco furniture, most of the furniture pieces available on the market today are second-hand or even antique pieces. Antique pieces of art-deco furniture are highly sought after and difficult to find.

Modern-contemporary

Modern contemporary is a category that covers a broad range of more recent furniture styles, including mid-century modern, contemporary, modern and transitional furniture, among many others. Modern styles feature minimalistic layouts and features with clean, straight lines and modern textures. These styles tend to feature a lot of bright whites and other light colours and make the most of natural light. Bright colours are generally left to a minimum, although bright accents or contrasting colours can be used to add some variation to a room.

All of these styles come from the past 50 to 100 years, although modern styles tend to reflect styles that are popular today, which are generally both modern and contemporary as opposed to mid-century modern.

Although modern and contemporary are often used interchangeably, they’re actually two distinct styles. We recently published a blog post on the topic of modern vs contemporary furniture where you can read up on the similarities and differences between these two styles.

If you feel like this furniture style is right for you, then feel free to check out our broad range of modern dining chairs.

Farmhouse style

Farmhouse style is a rustic style that combines rural design trends with a modern touch. Simplicity and practicality are important aspects of this style and it, therefore, works well in combination with contemporary and modern features. Although much of the farmhouse-style furniture has a somewhat weathered, rustic look to it, the overall design is simple and modern. This makes it highly practical and makes it suitable for a broader range of rooms and layouts.

This style first started gaining in popularity in the late 20^th century just like many other modern and contemporary styles. Although the farmhouse style has a lot of similarities with both modern and Scandinavian design, it has more charm and a more homely feeling, with a vast range of natural colours and materials. Wooden and stone surfaces are very common and cushions and rugs help to make a room look warm and inviting.

One of the main benefits of farmhouse-style rooms is that great-looking designs can be achieved at a very low cost. Since the style has a lot of variation you can easily opt for second-hand furniture and there are also plenty of inexpensive new natural furniture pieces that can be used too. Since this style has its roots in rural homes that often used the materials available to them there are plenty of ways to save on costs.

Vintage/retro style

Vintage and retro styles are great for creating unique spaces with lots of character. Although there are some manufacturers that manufacture vintage-style and retro-style furniture, most of the time, the furniture is at least twenty to thirty years old. Even though it’s not quite old enough to be considered antique, vintage furniture does create a unique look and feel that’s very different to all of the modern styles commonly seen today.

As is the case with farmhouse-style furniture, vintage furniture can be bought second-hand without it looking out of place. There are even companies that refurbish and sell vintage furniture that looks as good as new, while still maintaining the vintage look and feel. All in all, this makes it a reasonably inexpensive style to get right.

That being said, finding the right balance can be tricky. Too much vintage furniture and features can make a room look too old-fashioned and even neglected. Making sure a room gets ample light and there’s a good balance between vintage and modern features will prevent this from happening.

Traditional style

If you want something that looks elegant and luxurious, then nothing beats traditional style design. Traditional style design is a classic furniture style that’s inspired by the high-end styles of the nineteenth century and earlier. It features many curved lines and intricate details that make every single piece of furniture stand out. It also features solid colours and painted, natural materials with gold, silver or other metal accents.

When done right, this style can make your home look like the inside of a European castle with its luxurious appearance and grand furniture pieces. However, this is a difficult style to get right, especially if it’s not combined with another more modern style like modern or contemporary. Since this style generally uses more furniture pieces, mirrors and paintings, it can quickly look cluttered if care isn’t taken when deciding on a layout.

If you find the right balance between modern features and traditional style furniture, however, there’s no style quite like it!

Coastal style

Coastal style takes inspiration from coastal areas, using materials and textures commonly found along the coast. This furniture style is great for those living along the coast, but it’s also a great way of bringing the coast closer to you if you live in the city. Coastal furniture is made of natural materials like wood and wicker and is commonly accented with light, natural fabrics. Plants are also common in coastal-style rooms and the layout is generally fairly minimalistic, as is the case with other modern furniture styles.

The coastal style is one of the easier styles to get right as long as you can find the right type of furniture. Driftwood lights and glass bottles with woven netting around them, as well as indoor terrariums, are great items to add to the décor and are especially useful if you’re having trouble finding all of the right furniture. Modern or contemporary furniture can be mixed in with coastal-style furniture as long as the general style remains consistent.

Can you mix furniture styles?

Mixing different furniture styles isn’t just possible, it can actually look great! That being said, if you want to mix different furniture styles in your home, it’s important you know what you’re doing. Below are a few of our top tips when mixing furniture styles:

Avoid combining too many different styles in one room

Although you might be tempted to combine three, four or even five different furniture styles, especially if you’re having trouble choosing, combining too many different styles can make your room look very strange. Although there are ways of combining more than two or three styles in a single space, like by splitting the room up into sections, in general, it’s best to stick with just two or three styles.

Less is often more

When it comes to interior design, less is often more. Too much furniture, colour or too many different styles can make a room look very busy. Colour accents, light-coloured walls and practical furniture pieces will work anywhere, whereas very busy, bright or cluttered spaces are very difficult to make work.

Use conflicting styles to make them pop

Mixing two conflicting styles can help to emphasize both of them, as well as make a space look unique. This works best when you use the “stronger” of the two styles sparingly. For example, if you were to combine retro or vintage styles with a modern style, the retro style can be used to accent the modern style. This could be done by adding a few pieces of retro furniture, for example.

Combining similar styles is easy to get right

Combining styles that are similar is very easy and may be an easier way for you to make your room look unique without the risk of creating a strange-looking room. Most modern and minimalist styles work well together, so why not try and combine Scandinavian and contemporary styles, or combine modern furniture with a farmhouse interior?

Have a clear theme throughout your home

When designing the different rooms in your home, it can be easy to go overboard with different styles, colours and themes. Although it may be tempting to create unique spaces in every room in your home, creating a consistent theme throughout your house is a much easier way to ensure your home looks and feels welcoming. Try to pick a single theme reflected throughout your home that allows you to change things up from one room to another without deviating from the style.

It can be helpful to pick a single category to focus on and then mix and match between a few styles within this broader category. This will help to prevent you from going overboard.

There are hundreds of different furniture styles on the market today. Although we weren’t able to discuss them all in this post, you should now have a good general understanding of the different furniture styles and categories there are and which one is right for your home.

If you have any questions after reading this post, or you’d like some help finding the right furniture for your home, feel free to reach out to our customer support team.