How to Effortlessly Mix Materials | Inside The Oaks Project

If you’re looking for interior design tips, you’ve come to the right place. We recently debuted our latest design client, The Oaks Project. And with it we’ve shared all sorts of interior design tips from its Studio McGee-designed interiors. One of the standout design elements within this home’s design is how the design team effortlessly mixed materials inside its modern shell. Within its clean, streamlined architecture, you’ll find things like natural stone fireplace surrounds, furniture pieces with both contemporary and traditional forms, and various wood tones in one space. How to mix wood tones is one of our most frequently asked questions so we hope those of you that need guidance in that area drawn plenty of inspiration from these interiors.

Below, we’re gathering some interior design tips, from how to mix wood tones to how to mix and match patterns, from inside The Oaks Project. We hope you find inspiration in spades.   

In the home’s entryway, Shea and the design team paired a travertine console table, with hard edges and straight lines, with an oblong, wooden mirror for a dose of drama right when you walk into the door.   

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Travertine Pieces

Travertine Side Table

McGee & Co.

Travertine Coffee Table

McGee & Co.

Travertine Console

McGee & Co.

Burl wood is characterized by its unique, knotty pattern, and it’s a special material because of how it can be made into more of a traditional element or a more “funky” pop. In The Oaks Project, it leans more contemporary when applied to the living room’s odd-shaped coffee table. Adjacent the burl coffee table is a pair of boucle accent chairs. We’re loving this textured pairing, especially considering how different the two textures are. One relies heavily on a visual pattern, and the other on hand feel.      

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Burl Wood Pieces

Pia Nightstand

McGee & Co.

McKivits Burl Coffee Table

McGee & Co.

Burl Wood Side Table

McGee & Co.

How to mix wood tones in your home is a question we get often. So much so that we created an entire post on just that topic. You can read it here. Shea and the design team put those interior design tips into action inside The Oaks Project. So if you’re wondering how to mix wood tones in a bedroom, you’ve come to the right place. In the primary suite, there are numerous wood tones in one room, and how they determined if it would all go together is by gathering samples. Having all the samples together and analyzing them cohesively is the trick to mixing wood tones like a pro.  

There’s a lot of areas in this home where this material mixing is on display but one of the most obvious ones is in the kitchen’s dramatic window. Shea and the design team didn’t want to hinder the view from this stunning steel window but wanted to offer the clients extra display space. The decision was to add an integrated wood shelf that spanned the length of the window. While not blocking the view, the shelf allows for a softer moment of displayed vintage pieces.       

A beautiful mixed material moment is in the home’s mudroom bathroom. This raw carved stone sink sits alongside unlacquered brass hardware. We’re loving how these natural materials pair together. We bet you’ll be seeing this interior design trend a lot more in the coming years.