Rustic Modern merges styles, creates unique feel

“Rustic Modern” is a design trend that's caught on quickly. It’s not from any one country, and it doesn't focuses on any particular style. Often, it's decor that's the anti-design, not falling toward any one design aesthetic.

So what is it? Rustic Modern design is often better known for what it's not than what it is. But one thing’s for sure: It can help you make the most of any style you have.

What it’s not

Rustic Modern design is often confused with cabin or country decor styles, but Rustic Modern has so much more potential than any single style of design. Basically, modern or elegant furnishings are contrasted against a room with an architectural style that leans the opposite direction — with exposed brick walls, timbers, beams or rafters. Natural and exposed elements in the room are a hallmark of Rustic Modern.

Decor style

Furnishings and fixtures in a Rustic Modern house can run from contemporary furniture to elegantly formal. It’s the juxtaposition of the rough feel of the home or room that plays against the formality of traditional furnishings or the clean lines of a contemporary chair, for instance. This dynamic play of the architecture with the decor is what’s compelling, and yet feels so comfortable and natural. Perhaps it’s the feng shui that balances two such different styles and does it so well that it feels harmonious. But it’s not just the house that has to be rustic.

Rustic finishes

Rustic touches can be added to your home to give it that balance and relaxed feel of the combination of modern and rustic. It’s not hard to do, and fall is the perfect time to try a Rustic Modern makeover. With fall’s emphasis on the natural world awash in pinecones, firewood and brightly colored fall leaves as well as nature’s bounty of gourds and squashes, adding in those natural elements is never easier than it is now. Adding the natural elements around your home can help pull in the season, too.

If you’re more adventurous, considering adding rustic beams in your living room. If you’re extra handy, try covering over a wall in reclaimed barn wood. Create a focal wall of wood in a bedroom, behind a sofa or on a small entryway wall.

Think out of the wood box, too, by adding wood panels to ceilings, around jetted tubs, or on slanted upstairs walls that become much more interesting with the addition of wood panels.

Powder bathrooms are a terrific place to add some rustic charm with a wall covered in brick, stone or wood panels. Pair with a chandelier and sleek pedestal sink with a bowl and you've got the perfect Rustic Modern jewel box.