Current, clean, considered.
Contemporary, as it looks this year
Contemporary is the hardest style to pin down, because it means whatever is current rather than a fixed set of rules. A contemporary room from 2012 and one from today share a sensibility and almost no specifics.
Contemporary
Is Contemporary your style?
Right now it means clean lines without coldness: softer shapes than a decade ago, warmer neutrals, timber back in the room, and far less high-gloss. We have finished 28 rooms in it.
You like a space that feels of-the-moment — crisp lines, neutral palettes, and quiet restraint, with just enough warmth to keep it inviting.
What contemporary means today
Curves, where everything was rectilinear a few years ago. Rounded arms, arched mirrors, softer edges on case goods.
Warm neutrals rather than grey. Oatmeal, mushroom, bone, with timber tones that lean warm. The cool grey palette of the last decade now dates a room faster than almost anything else.
Restraint in the number of materials. A contemporary room usually runs on three or four, used repeatedly, rather than a wide mix. That is what gives it the calm it is after.
Contemporary and modern are not the same thing
Modern is a historical period, roughly mid-century, with a fixed vocabulary. Contemporary is whatever is current, so it moves.
The practical consequence is that a contemporary room needs its anchor pieces chosen for longevity and its lighter pieces chosen freely. Buy the sofa and the table to outlast the moment; let the cushions, the art and the smaller lighting carry whatever is current.
Done that way the room updates with a few hundred dollars rather than a redesign.
“Real rooms, photographed on completion. No renders, no stock photography, no AI-generated interiors.”
Every photograph on this page
28 finished, photographed on completion