Even the most modern home can become the perfect setting for antiques! Take a new look at ways to use furniture, decorative items, and artwork from bygone times to visually stunning effect. Often made of beautiful materials rarely used nowadays, they'll add texture and focus to any room. Make an exciting interior with the most unlikely mix of pieces, blend styles with confidence, and base design schemes around a single, special artifact. Includes insiders' tips on purchasing.

Past meets present in this stylish guide to decorating modern homes with heirlooms and antiques. Designer and antiques dealer Tara Shaw is a respected supplier of French and European antiques for a host of AD100 and Elle Decor A-listers, including Bobby McAlpine, Mary McDonald, and Bunny Williams. In her first book, she helps readers understand how to select the best antiques and how to use them in a variety of decor schemes. The book presents never-before-published spaces from Shaw’s portfolio and reveals her favorite antique-hunting spots throughout Europe. Anecdotes from years of treasure hunting are accompanied by images of rare and precious finds, with text that decodes just how to choose the right pieces and display them in a contemporary interior. Readers will be able to look at each space and take away ideas they can apply to their own homes, to create personalized rooms full of provenance and beauty.

Saving and reusing unique bits and pieces of old buildings and homes becomes a rewarding decorating style with the help of an in-depth examination of the beautiful artistry of the past that describes methods of giving vintage items a new lease on life.

Interior designer David Naylor embraces the broad range of possibilities presented by a world of materials old and new, of objects both found and manufactured. He calls his approach "infusion design," by which he means capturing the ideas of the Old World without forgetting about the present, stirring melting pots of cultures and allowing opposites to coexist, and pulling together objects from around the world. The timelessness, natural warmth, and adaptability of the popular Southwesternstyle aesthetic provide an appealing backdrop for his interpretations, which eschew the clich�s while retaining the essence. The architectural elements of the region-round beams, adobe walls, natural wood finishes-create a versatile aesthetic that can embrace an infinite variety of designs, while the nomadic nature of Americans generally, who move freely about the country bringing their favorite decor items with them, makes for limitless opportunities to infuse designs with intriguing juxtapositions and unexpected placements. Chapters include: Old World, New World Luxe Americana Contemporary Comfort Mixing It Up Trained as a painter and visual artist, David Naylor turned to furniture and interior design and has opened his own workrooms and showroom to feature pieces that he incorporates into his design commissions. He has studied at Philadelphia College of Art and later the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His designstudio, Visions Design Group, is located in Santa Fe, NM.

While modern design often neglects cultural and artistic heritage in favor of minimalism, Siraudeau demonstrates that it isn’t necessary to forgo tradition to create a fashionable home. With his eye for idiosyncratic details, Siraudeau has an exceptional flair for finding homes characterized with vintage style, where antique objects invoke nostalgia and time-tested quality. French writer and musician Boris Vian declared, “Any object can be an objet d’art once put in a frame,” and that innovative spirit shines through in the one hundred properties featured here. From 1960s mannequins to antique books to a salvaged Parisian streetlamp, any kind of paraphernalia can define and enrich the personality of a home by giving it a history. Styles and periods don’t need to match because French design is about integrating the unexpected alongside unconventional details to make a modern home unique. The reader is guided through some of the most remarkable locations in France, each abounding with features that characterize the unique French flair for home decorating. From delightful rural guesthouses, exquisite townhomes, and charming seaside retreats to the best of France’s antique shops, Siraudeau reveals how an extraordinarily diverse range of ambiences can be achieved by integrating the simplest of decorative touches. His ideas and advice are astute to contemporary comforts and the practicalities of modern living, and his exquisite photos, flooded with the soft light of a French summer, make this an invaluable volume for admirers of French style.

Tackling the tricky--and common--problem of combining furnishings of different styles and from various sources and periods, The vintage modern home demonstrates how to make the most of what you have in an achievable yet stylish way. Whether your furniture and accessories are prized antiques, second-hand discoveries or high-street pieces, this indispensable book describes how to bring together old and new, inexpensive and precious with both subtlety and flair.