My Five Favorite Tips for Mixing Metals in Home Decor

I love simple design tricks that make a room more interesting and adding a mix of metal finishes is one of them. Truth be told, my natural tendency is to want to match things so mixing different metals together in one space isn’t something that initially came easy to me. But now there’s hardly a space in our house where silver, gold, and other metals aren’t all happily living together. Today I’m dishing about my favorite tips and tricks for mixing metals in your home as part of this month’s My Five Favorites series along with my friends Lisa of Shine Your Light, Jennifer of Dimples & Tangles, and Pam of Simple Details.

And we’re welcoming the darling Claire of Claire Brody Designs as our guest host this month! Claire is an incredible design talent and masterfully mixes different patterns, styles, and metals in a single space while keeping a cohesive feel. Her fabulous One Room Challenge family room makeover is a great example of her beautifully eclectic style: 

Thanks for joining us Claire! Ready to get going and check out my five tips to help you get started with mixing metals in your home?! (post includes some affiliate links – see my full disclosure statement {here})

Take Baby Steps with Mixed Metal Frames & Other Art 

If you’re new to decorating with mixed metals, one of the simplest ways to start is with mixing metal frames and other art, whether you throw them all together in a gallery wall like I did in our home office:  

or scatter them around a room. You’ll probably find that they all work beautifully together but if there’s any particular metal in the mix that doesn’t feel right, it’s an easy change to move a frame or two to another room where it’s more at home.

Black Metals Work With Anything and Everything

Iron, gunmetal, and other black metals mix well with pretty much anything and everything! The combination of black metal with gold or brass is my personal favorite. I mixed the two in our recent master bedroom remodel when I topped our black metal nightstands:

with brass swing arm lamps:

Mix in a New Metal with Your Overhead Lighting

Chandeliers, pendants, and other overhead lighting is far enough away from the furniture and accessories in your room that you can often use a light fixture in a different metal than what’s in the rest of your space. For example, in my parents’ kitchen, the appliances are stainless steel and faucet is chrome, but they threw in {this pendant light} in a bronze finish and it totally works!

A Single Piece with Multiple Metals Can Tie a Room Together

If you have a mixture of metals in a room and it feels a bit disjointed, an easy remedy is to find a single accessory that incorporates both metals and throw it into the space – sometimes just the addition of that one piece is all a room needs to tie it together. For example, if you have a bathroom with some accessories in a gold finish and others in a silver finish, these inexpensive silver and gold pulls may be all that’s needed to pull the whole space together:

Spray Paint and Rub ‘n Buff Are Easy Fixes for Mixed Metal Fails

The great thing about experimenting with mixed metals is that if you try a combination of metals out and it just isn’t working in your space, it usually isn’t anything that a can of spray paint or tube of Rub ‘n Buff can’t fix! The large round mirror over our bedroom dresser came in an antique brass finish that was beautiful but just didn’t work like I wanted it to with everything else going on in the space. Luckily it was an easy fix – in just 15 minutes (and without even taking it down from the wall) I was able to change it to a gold leaf finish with nothing more than a dry cloth and this tube of Rub ‘n Buff.

There you have it – those are my five tips to help you get started with mixing metals! Want some more mixed metal inspiration? Hop on over and check out my friends’ posts who have plenty more ideas for you!

Claire – Claire Brody Designs

Pam – Simple Details

Jennifer – Dimples & Tangles

Lisa – Shine Your Light

And if you missed any of my past posts from our My Five Favorites series, you can catch up here: 

XO,