Moving into your new home can feel like a dream come true. However, when you begin decorating and arranging your belongings, your old furniture can often look out of place in your new space.
Whether your pieces look outdated, misplaced or they’re the wrong style or size, the mismatched aesthetic can be discouraging. That’s why you should add, “make my old furniture work in my new home,” to your summer bucket list.
If you’re trying to make traditional furniture work in a modern setting, mid-century furniture fit into an older home or something else entirely, Wheaton Worldwide can help. Below, we’ve outlined some tips to try before replacing all your furniture.
Tips on Making Your Old Furniture Work in Your New Home
If you don’t want to get rid of old furniture and you’d rather make your belongings work in your new home, these tips are for you:
1. Clean your upholstered furniture
If your furniture is in good shape but looks a little shabby in your new space, have your upholstered furniture cleaned. Send cushion covers to the cleaner or have a professional steam cleaner take care of the job.
2. Buy new inserts
Buying new inserts for your sofas and chairs can help restore the shape of your furniture. This is an inexpensive way to make your pieces look new!
3. Restore wood finishes
Dull wood finishes can be restored with a quick cleaning. For items with chipped or flaking paint, simply repaint them!
4. Reupholster significantly damaged pieces
If your upholstered items have significant staining or tears in them, consider reupholstering them. If you know your way around a sewing machine, reupholstering can be easy and inexpensive.
Before you start, be sure to carefully remove the old fabric to use it as a template for the new fabric. If you would rather not go that route, you can always pay for a reupholstered service or have slipcovers made for your pieces.
5. Is your furniture too small? Keep it in the middle of the room
If you find that your new living or family room is significantly larger and your furniture seems small by comparison, do not push it against the wall. Move it to the middle of the room and anchor it with a large rug.
You could even set up a separate reading corner, game nook, or whatever else might service your family’s needs and interests. Use artwork and decor to draw the eye—the empty or negative space will highlight it!
6. Is the furniture too big? Keep it closer to the walls
If your furniture seems too large, push it closer to the walls and utilize vertical space as much as possible. Try moving large side tables behind the sofa so they work as a console piece. If rearranging doesn’t work as you expect, pull out one or two items, like a side table or an ottoman.
If, after rearranging and removing a couple items, the room still feels too congested, see if you can lighten the room visually. To do so, hang curtains so they frame windows rather than cover them; hang them higher than the top of the window. This will make your windows seem wider and your ceilings taller. Additionally, putting mirrors between windows or across from windows will make the room look and feel more expansive.
7. Use color to bring everything together
If you’re wondering how to make your mid-modern furniture work in an older home, turn to color to solve your troubles. Use color to connect the room—for example, you can choose traditional accessories in the same color family as your modern upholstery and accents like throw pillows, throws and rugs; this will help tie it all together!
It helps to highlight the architectural details, like molding or fireplace mantels, and find one older style piece of furniture that you like to help blend the styles.
If you have old-fashioned furniture in a modern home, you can use color in the same way. Work in modern accent pieces like lamps, decorative items and throw pillows in colors that work with your furniture. Find one or two more modern pieces, like side tables for example, to help bring the look together. The goal is to make the mixing of styles look like an intentional design statement. Embrace your conflicting styles, and make them work to bring your home to life!
Get Help Moving Your Old Furniture to Your New Home!
Now that you know how to decorate your new space, it’s time to get all your stuff there! If you’re preparing to move into your new home, Wheaton Worldwide wants to help. With our network of agents across the U.S., we can get you where you want to go. To get started, find your local agent today!
