Your Guide to Modern Traditional Interior Design | Wayfair (2024)

The best home interiors blend old and new pieces for a result that's timeless and contemporary at the same time. Modern traditional interior design merges fresh furniture pieces and decor with classic shapes, patterns, and architectural elements for a space that's open without being sparse and cozy without being cluttered. Keep reading to learn more about this design style and key ways to implement it in your home.

Modern traditional interior design is a design style that combines furniture and stylistic elements from the 18th and 19th centuries (traditional) and the early-to-mid 20th century (modern) to create a seamless blend of styles in your home. While modern design may be too minimal and traditional design may be too cluttered, modern traditional spaces cultivate the perfect balance of these two design schemes. The modern traditional aesthetic combines the best of modern simplicity (think clean-lined furnishings, minimalist spaces, and relaxing monochromatic palettes) with cozy traditional design elements (think elaborate patterns, ornate furnishings, collectibles/heirlooms, and crown molding/trim, paneling, or wainscoting) for an elegant home aesthetic that still looks fresh and updated.

The best part about this design style is that you don't need to completely remodel your home to achieve it! Just add modern or traditional elements to balance the existing architecture and furnishings.

Modern Traditional vs. Transitional Design

The modern traditional aesthetic shares many similarities with transitional design in its love of clean-lined furnishings, light neutral color palettes, well-placed patterns, and natural materials. However, there is a distinct difference between these two design styles. Transitional style is all about updating the traditional elements of your home, whereas traditional modern design encourages you to keep traditional elements as they are and add modern furnishings or decor to balance the space and bring it up-to-date. Essentially, modern traditional design encourages a blending of old and new home elements, while transitional design focuses on updating traditional elements to be more current and on-trend.

You want modern traditional interiors to feel open yet cozy and on-trend yet timeless – striking just the right balance of furniture, texture, pattern, and shape. Review these key design elements of this design style to get inspired on how to recreate it in your home.

1. A Balance of Traditional & Modern Elements

The main principle of modern traditional interior design is establishing the right balance between modern and traditional elements within the room. The right mixture of styles helps ensure that your space doesn't swing too far to the traditional or modern side. We recommend using your home's interior architecture as a starting point. Bring in a low-set modern sofa, modern platform bed, geometric area rug, or abstract wall prints in more traditional rooms with wainscoting, crown-molding, or brick fireplaces to immediately make the room more current. Swap in ornately-framed vintage art prints, a rich-colored area rug, rolled-arm sofas, or stunning chandeliers to cultivate a sense of tradition and character in otherwise modern spaces with open-floor plans, high ceilings, and floating staircases.

2. Light Color Palettes & Bold Accents

Modern design loves neutrals while traditional design is all about rich color. So naturally, modern traditional interior design finds a space for both of these color palettes to shine. Modern traditional spaces connect to minimalism's love of monochromatic color schemes by sticking to a base of light neutral colors (think white, cream, beige, or light gray). This creates an open, contemporary feel and brings the space up-to-date. We recommend keeping the walls, flooring, and main furnishings neutral for a fresh modern vibe. Use decor and accent furniture to infuse the space with color. You can't go wrong with traditional rich jewel tones like ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald or olive green, citrine, and any other bold colors that speak to your style.

Tip!

Have dark wood floors or wall paneling? Leave them be! Introduce neutral abstract wall prints, a vibrant area rug, and light-colored furnishings to help balance the space.

3. A Fusion of Modern & Traditional Patterns

Mixing and matching modern and traditional patterns is another quick way to bring these styles together in your home. We recommend sticking to three or fewer patterns within a room to keep the space relaxed and easy on the eye. You can't go wrong with a vintage-like rug to juxtapose the modern look of abstract art prints or a sleek faux marble coffee table to add a bit of contemporary style to floral-upholstered furniture or floral pillows.

4. Traditional Wood Detailing

Relax textured walls and traditional patterns with sleek modern furniture designs. Look for furnishings with thin, open-work frames and pared-back profiles to balance out traditional furniture pieces in your collection. For example, you can swap in a pair of streamlined pedestal nightstands to balance out a bedroom that has an ornate traditional bed. Or you can introduce a clear glass coffee table to open up the space in front of rolled-arm sofas featuring button-tufted upholstery.

6. Natural Materials

Like each style individually, traditional modern interior design incorporates natural materials to promote a warm organic feel that's as much timeless as it is modern. Infuse your space with traditional natural materials like stone, solid wood, clay, or wool, as well as natural materials favored in modern design like bamboo, concrete, or jute/rattan for the best results. The above space features wood-paneled walls, wood floors, a marble fireplace, a concrete side table, a jute area rug, and woven baskets for a relaxing fusion of natural materials.

Start designing your modern traditional home!