The six decorating styles

Modern

Modern style is about restraint: clean lines, quiet surfaces, and a single considered accent instead of a room full of decisions. Furniture sits low and honest, with no applied ornament — the shape is the decoration. It rewards a small, disciplined palette and a lot of negative space, and it reads as calm rather than cold when the materials underneath the minimalism are warm.

Boho

Boho style layers texture and warmth until a room feels collected rather than furnished — woven fibre, sun-baked colour, and plants doing the work that ornament does elsewhere. Nothing needs to match; it needs to feel gathered over time, from more than one place. It rewards patience and a willingness to keep adding rather than editing down.

Industrial

Industrial style keeps the bones of a room visible — exposed material, worked metal, and a materials palette that looks like it could take a hit. It favours function over polish and raw surfaces over applied finish, with warmth arriving through leather, wood grain, and warm-toned bulbs rather than soft textiles. It reads as confident, and a little unfinished on purpose.

Scandinavian

Scandinavian style is one idea, done thoroughly: light, pale wood, and just enough of everything. It strips a room back to what is actually used, then lets daylight and a narrow, cool-neutral palette do the rest. It rewards restraint in shopping as much as in decorating — the fewer pieces owned, the better each one has to be.

Traditional

Traditional style is formal by design — symmetry, carved and turned wood, rich saturated colour, and furniture with a considered silhouette rather than an invented one. It favours established materials (wood, brass, damask) over trend pieces, and it rewards a room planned as a whole rather than assembled piece by piece.

Eclectic

Eclectic style is the deliberate collision of the other five — one modern line, one traditional silhouette, one industrial material, held together by confidence rather than a formula. It is the hardest style to get wrong by being too careful, because the whole point is that nothing has to match. It rewards a good eye over a strict rule.