How To Create an Industrial Interior Design (With the Right Rug)
Industrial interior design has grown in popularity recently. More and more people are striving to create stylish, modern spaces that aren’t overly cold. This decorating stylistic approach offers an appealing cozy and charming look of older aesthetics combined with a touch of modern sleekness.
Industrial design with loft apartments, large windows and exposed brick can make it intimidating for a lot of people. It may seem like it is impossible to pull the look off without the right architecture. Fortunately, with a few careful interior décor choices this sleek and stylish look is well within reach in most spaces.
What Is Industrial Interior Design?
Before jumping into how to design a space, it is helpful to understand the core concepts of industrial interiors. The decor style is derived from the no-nonsense, bare material look of old warehouses. Typically, it involves naked metals, wood and exposed bricks. Often it can include upcycled or salvaged materials as well.
The industrial aesthetic is pleasingly bold thanks to its combination of time-worn, weathered and exposed materials with the sleekness of modern minimalism. The hues tend toward relatively neutral, including a lot of grays, cast iron and exposed natural wood.
Creating an Industrial Interior Design
One of the great benefits of industrial design is that it can be very flexible. The color palette is easy to work with in a wide range of spaces. However, the challenge comes from the minimalism aspect. When you have less form to work with, you need to make more precise design decisions.
Keep Your Interiors Open
A lot of the themes of the industrial look come from the natural style of old warehouse lofts. These spaces tend to be relatively open, often featuring high ceilings. It likely isn’t possible to change the bare bones of the room you are designing. But if you are able to open up the ceiling and expose some rafters, pipes and ducts that could be a great enhancement for the space. However, it isn’t always practical or doable.
Nonetheless, you can create an open, flowing floor plan that helps to give the space an industrial feel. Try to avoid major obstructions to the room. If possible, consider removing any walls that may be closing things in. For load-bearing walls, consider removing them and replacing them with metal supports. Again, this may not always be an option, but such efforts can go a long way for your room’s interior design look.
Choose Neutral Colors
Gray and brown and earth tones are major colors in industrial design. This color palette is driven by the metal and wood often found inside old industrial spaces. Ideally, these colors should come from the natural or lightly finished colors of the materials used in your furniture. Of course, most people wouldn’t want to sit on cast-iron couches. For seating, upholstery is acceptable, but try to stick to those neutral color palettes.
If you find your colors getting a little too drab, consider adding some bright white on the walls or built-in furnishings. Lighter wood colors can also help add a little warmth to the space. For the floor, hardwood with a large, modern rug works wonders. Look for a decorative pieces in neutral tones. A beige or gray color couch, for example, typically works best with industrial design.
Additionally, the design should not be too bold. While a single flat color may be too boring, consider a soft, subtle pattern. Nazmiyal’s rug collection has a number of understated pieces that can work well in any industrial space.
Go Naked with Your Materials, But Don’t Overdo It – Keep The Rug!
For industrial design, naked is always the right choice. One of the key themes of the industrial look is the exposed inner workings of a building. In the same way that open rafters and metal supports add to the style, exposed metal supports on furniture contribute to the look. Similarly, lightly finished woods are great for this aesthetic.
The goal when choosing rugs and furniture is to see what you can strip away. Rather than fully upholstered armchairs, choose one with exposed wood arms and supports. Consider bar chairs with cast metal legs.
Be careful about comfort, however. The challenge of minimalist design is ensuring that the room is still usable after you’ve stripped most of the extras away. As cool as those upcycled pipes may look as a seat, they probably aren’t very pleasant to sit on. You can always use the more extreme industrial look for tables, shelving and other furniture items where comfort is less of a consideration.
Your accessories and art offer an opportunity to get aggressive with the industrial look. Salvaged industrial design elements and items can make an impression as decorative items. For wall art, consider more abstract pieces that match the color palette of the room.
Start Exploring and Designing
One of the best qualities of industrial design is the opportunity for flexibility. You can dive right in and see what works for your space. To bring it all together, an attractive rug from Nazmiyal can be the perfect tool. Check out our full collection and connect with our experts for help finding the rug for you. The right rug can tie your whole room together.
Here are some beautiful rugs from the Nazmiyal Collection to include in industrial decor:
This interior design blog about industrial decor was published by Nazmiyal Antique Rugs.