Is The Eclectic Style A Good Idea For Your Kitchen Design?

The fact that designing a kitchen is a challenging endeavour is a secret to no one. And here we’re not talking about the costs, labour, and logistics that go into the process, but about something that should be a lot easier to tackle, yet isn’t: style. 

Long before homeowners get to the part where they have to consider storage needs, appliance integration, space constraints, budget limitations, or conflicting schedules, they have to figure out what style they want to embrace in what should be the very heart and soul of the home. That is in and of itself a very tricky aspect that many people have lost sleep over, going back and forth on the options. 

The problem with deciding on a kitchen design is that there are so many looks you can create that it makes it difficult for homeowners to settle on one. From cottage to contemporary, country, Scandinavian, industrial, bohemian, and so on, the multitude of possibilities is enough to give one a headache. 

Well, if you, too, are tormented by this dilemma, we’ve got great news. You don’t really need to limit yourself to one particular style; you can combine elements from various aesthetics and create what is called an eclectic kitchen design for less.  

But should you go for an eclectic look just because you can’t seem to make up your mind? A look at the pros and a few tips on how to create such a style in your home will help you decide. 

Eclectic style defined 

Let’s start from the very beginning and see what the eclectic style is all about. This is a design approach that implies fusing a variety of pieces, patterns, colours, textures, materials, and other design components from different styles and periods to achieve a cohesive and singular aesthetic. 

However, you can’t just fill the space with all sorts of items chosen randomly and hope that they will simply arrange themselves into an eclectic look. While the eclectic style is defined by a lack of rules and the freedom to overlook trends, you need to have a vision and find a common thread that will tie all the constituent elements together into a unified design; otherwise, your space will simply look disjointed and messy. 

Looking back into the history of interior design, we can see that the electric style has been popular for centuries, finding its origins in ancient Greece and Rome, where individuals from the upper echelons of society would decorate their interiors with objects and ornaments gathered from different parts of the world. 

The eclectic style experienced a resurgence during the Victorian era due to the development of tourism, which gave people the possibility to travel further and wider and bring with them different furnishings and decorative items from the places they visited. Since then, this aesthetic has been embraced across cultures and generations, becoming a staple in the world of interior design. 

The advantages of embracing eclecticism  

The eclectic style has a lot of fans, having captured the hearts and imagination of many homeowners and designers over the course of time, so let’s see what’s so enticing about it. 

Uniqueness 

An eclectic design allows you to incorporate all kinds of elements that you love or find interesting, even if they don’t pertain to the same style or era or don’t seem to have much in common at first glance. This freedom to showcase your personal preferences and tastes through the objects you choose to surround yourself with can help you create a space that is uniquely yours. Therefore, your kitchen becomes not just a place for cooking but an expression of your individuality and a one-of-a-kind room bursting with originality and creativity. 

Flexibility

With no rules to play by and no need to stay within the confines of a certain trend, one can create endless combinations, mixing and matching furnishing and features from different styles and even bringing contrasting elements together. If you’re into cottagecore but also appreciate the sleekness and convenience of modern kitchens, you can have the best of both worlds by blending pieces from these two opposing styles into your kitchen, infusing it with character and charm. There’s no other stylistic approach that allows for so much creativity and flexibility. 

Timelessness 

A concern that many homeowners face when they have to decide on a specific design is that it might become outdated at some point, and they’ll eventually get bored of it. Well, if you want to have a kitchen that ages well and continues to inspire for many years to come, eclecticism is the way to go. When done right, the eclectic kitchen design will be able to withstand the passage of time and trends. What’s more, these types of kitchens can be easily updated with new items, so you can reinvent them over and over again, and save plenty of money in the long run.   

How to get the look

Although the eclectic style follows no rules, there are several principles that can help you achieve this look with ease. So, here’s how you should go about it:

• Start with a vision: the key to achieving an eclectic style is to choose elements that are purposely different and somehow make them come together and become part of the same narrative. For this, you need to find a general direction for your kitchen. Creating a vision board where you can display all the things that inspire you can help a lot in this respect. You can also search for kitchen showrooms and visit them to see for yourself what items would match your vision best. 
  

• Create contrast: the purpose of the eclectic design is to create unexpected combinations and put diverse features side by side to highlight the differences, so don’t be afraid to experiment with all sorts of pairings, as strange as they might seem. Some will work well together, and some won’t, but at least you’ll have fun with it.    

• Make use of colours, patterns, and textures: eclectic kitchens provide a feast for the eyes by mixing a variety of hues, shapes, patterns, and textures. All these can add interest to the room, but you need to select each item carefully to ensure it fits within the setting. 
  

In the end, it all comes down to one question: would you rather commit to a particular trend or style that already exists or create your own?