If you love modern furniture, but can’t walk past a vintage inspired mantelpiece, you might just be able to get the best of both worlds for your home. The rise of the ‘feature wall’ has become the catalyst for eclectic room designs in even the most vintage of residences. Better still, integrating a special design feature to an area is a great way to avoid a complete home overhaul which can save you lots of hard earned money. The following tips are sure ways to quickly and easily invigorate your beloved home.

Ornaments that create contrast
There’s no reason why you can’t mix old rustic finds from your favourite sunday market with that crisp, clean edged lounge you bought last week. If you have neutral based furniture it is actually highly complementary to nestle some intricately carved or sculpted pieces around the room in strategic positions. Woodcarvings for example, can make a stunning wall feature, and old hand painted china or vases can be a great addition to any tabletop.

A facelift for your furniture
If you just can’t part with the first IKEA chair set you bought when you moved out of mum and dads house and into your shared apartment, but now it really just doesn’t fit your new, ‘grown-up’ abode, why don’t you buy some material and give it a facelift DIY style? All it takes is a fabric of your choice, some batting, and foam, and assembling this furniture sandwich together with a staple gun underneath the chair. If you’re not game enough to reupholster, you can always crack out some chalk paint which doesn’t smell and generally doesn’t require prior sanding, which will give your furniture a whole new look in much less time!

Crazy cooking spaces
One way to make your classic kitchen less boring is to pick one piece of furniture and go crazy with it. If you’re lucky enough to have a kitchen island in the centre of the floor, paint it a gorgeous pastel colour like pink, mint, or yellow and it will be become the perfect feature for the room. Sometimes a random series of cupboards or drawers in bright red or blue can also make your old home a little more distinct and modern, and of course, a much more fun place to walk into.

Old bathroom, new tiles
If you’ve only got a few tiles that need replacing, they are neutral in colour, and are sporadically gap toothed within the wall, you can actually insert some different coloured tiles to break up that stark bathroom feel… you just might need to pluck some other old ones out for an effect that is evenly distributed! Colours like black and red can look particularly interesting. Another idea is to create mosaics that skirt your bathroom mirror, or you could grout a series of rectangular, turquoise tiles in a line that demarks the room horizontally. After this, you can inject a different colour or even a retro wall paper on the bottom of your bathroom wall!

Themes, Eras, History
If you like history and you want to show it, do away with the sleek, abstract drawings you see carbon copied in most furniture department stalls and throw in a distinct image from your favourite era, or even your own family photos. With the rise of photoshop, you could digitally re-master these old family photos and create a photo mosaic of your ancestors and current family members in a space where you need inspiration and guidance. It would be a perfect addition to any book room or study.

Mixing the old with the new is a great way to avoid feeling pigeonholed into a design format for your home. Better yet, you don’t have to feel as though you must match the interior of a your home with its polished outside or open plan format, particularly if you want to invest in one of many modern properties on offer like these house and land packages in Victoria.

Author Bio: Sarah Page is an interior design enthusiast who knows all about complementing the old with the new. She’s currently been planning ways to add an antique flavour to her new home, which she found for sale in Melbourne just a few short months ago!