How to Style Antique Chinese Furniture in a Modern Home
sEPTEMBER 25,2024
With distinct decorative flourishes, expert craftsmanship and a sense of timeless elegance, it’s hard to deny the appeal of antique Chinese furniture. As more of us seek to create eclectic but meticulously styled spaces, this enduring quality of traditional Chinese furniture offers a great way to incorporate historic pieces into modern interiors without looking out of place.
Strike the right balance between the old and the new with our tips on styling Chinese antique furniture in contemporary spaces.
1. Pay Attention to the Colour Palette
The strategic use of colour is a good way to make the style of a room feel more cohesive or intentional. Antiques can be styled within spaces with either unifying or contrasting colour schemes, depending on the overall look you want to create.
Lots of Chinese furniture is made from wood – such as elm, burr, cedar, pine and walnut – with rich, deep natural tones, so these will look particularly good in neutral spaces that embrace other natural materials. Or, you can match a few accessories to the colours present in your antique piece for a sense of harmony throughout the room.
If your space calls for something particularly vibrant, Chinese red lacquer furniture makes for a charming addition with real warmth and character.
2. Make a Statement
With some stunning examples of master carpentry, luxurious finishes and intricate designs, lots of traditional Chinese furniture draws the eye and pulls focus. Embrace this eye-catching quality and make a real statement by positioning your chosen antique as a main focal point within your space.
Larger pieces like antique Chinese cabinets and sideboards are ideal for making a statement and functioning as a dazzling centrepiece for which to style everything else around.
3. Embrace the Contrast
When styling antique pieces in a modern home, it helps to lean into this contrast of the old and the new. This doesn’t have to mean a stark split between traditional and contemporary, but rather a blending of styles that highlights the strengths of both.
The right blend of sleek lines and dynamic curves can also help create a sense of visual balance that makes good use of contrast.
Play with the shapes present in your antiques, using modern pieces with matching or complementary silhouettes for a grounded juxtaposition. This could be as small as paying attention to a small flourish on your antique table, chair or cabinet and using accessories with a similar curve or decorative element as a nod to the antique piece.
5. Combine Complementary Patterns & Motifs
Similar to the point about using colour to your advantage, think about how you can carry the patterns and motifs displayed on your antiques through the rest of the space. This might mean embracing similar nature-inspired motifs in your rugs, cushions or artwork for a cohesive through line.
It’s often best not to be too heavy-handed when using matching or contrasting patterns, as the space can end up feeling overwhelmed and taking away from the very intentional blending of modern and traditional.
6. Embrace Functionality
While Chinese furniture can be incredibly decorative with ornate carving and delicately painted surfaces, it can also be extremely functional. With many pieces offering multi-purpose practicality, these antiques will soon become mainstays that you just can’t do without.
Modern homes thrive on smart storage solutions and practical pieces that look great and make life easier – making functional Chinese furniture a natural fit for these spaces.
With multiple drawers and storage compartments, traditional Chinese cabinets, sideboards and trunks are great impact-making and highly functional alternatives to modern products. Embracing antiques like this allows you to cater to the demands of a modern living space while investing in pieces that have a fantastic story behind them.
7. Harness the Versatility of Chinese Furniture
Ultimately, the inherent timelessness of beautifully made Chinese antique furniture makes it relatively easy to style these pieces in modern interiors. Many pieces are versatile enough to look at home in various rooms and combined with a range of aesthetics, providing endless styling opportunities.
No matter if you’ve only got one antique piece you want to style around or you have a handful of different traditional items, there are plenty of ways to make them work in even the most contemporary interiors.
Here at Indigo Antiques, we stock an extensive selection of genuine Chinese antique furniture, primarily from the Qing Dynasty. Each piece is painstakingly restored by our expert team in our Wiltshire workshops. So, if you’re looking to add a hint of historic charm to your home or are already a keen collector, we’ve got plenty to catch your eye – see the full collection.
