Choose dining chairs with strong colours, shapes or textures to complement a sleek, minimalist dining table.

Use stools in open plan or transitional spaces to add extra seating that is easily stored or moved, adding flexibility to the space.  For open plan living/alfresco areas, consider transitional seating that is lightweight and suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. 

Use armchairs to define spaces within a room.  For example, placing an armchair in the far corner of a bedroom draws the eye through the space, making the room feel larger.  Larger, open plan spaces often feel cavernous; add warmth by pairing to chairs together or pairing a chair with a bookshelf to create a reading nook. 

Large, open plan spaces can often feel cold and uninviting. While they suit a modern lifestyle extremely well, free flowing spaces can sometimes feel cavernous, cold and difficult to style. An easy way to add warmth and depth to a space is to use an area rug. Rugs define spaces, add colour and texture and can often pull together a design that was lacking un certo non so che.* 

Here are a few tips on using rugs to define spaces:

For large spaces
If you want to make an area feel more intimate, use a darker coloured rug. 

For smaller areas
To make a space larger, choose a lighter colour to open up the room. 

For multiple rugs in the same area:
Use complementary colours
If you are using more than one rug in the same space, make sure that the colours are complementary.

Mix-up sizes
If you are using multiple rugs in one room, select rugs of varying sizes - same sized rugs can cut a room in half visually; while you may want to delineate spaces, you do not want to stop the eye from continuing through the space.

The latest rug collection to hit the Contempo showroom is the recently arrived Jediz Collection by Arketipo; steeped in untold histories, the pieces exude style and sophistication with a dash of old world charm and mystery. 

The Jediz Collection for Arketipo features two ranges of bespoke carpets handcrafted from  antique 18th, 19th and early 20th century carpets of Turkish, Persian and Middle Eastern origin. The Vintage range features whole antique carpets that have been decolorised through sunbleaching.  Carpets are laid out in dry, sun-drenched fields in Antalya, a region of Turkey briefly occupied by Italian troops during WWII and known for its hot climate.  The sunbleached carpets are then cleaned and recoloured using monochromatic pigments. Colour intensity varies depending on the kind of wool used in the original carpet.

Some recoloured carpets cannot be salvaged as whole pieces for the Vintage range.  These carpets are cut into square pieces and rectangular pieces and patchworked together by expert weavers to create a unique design for each piece in the Patchwork range.  All carpets are re-backed with a cotton fabric and hand finished. Jediz Vintage and Patchwork carpets are available in beige, grey, purple and green; due to their bespoke nature, sizes may vary.

Additionally, rugs by French design house Toulemonde Bochart add flair and elegance to any contemporary space.  All Toulemonde Bochart rugs are handcrafted in one of three ways: hand-knotting, hand-tufting or hand weaving and come in a range of patterns, colours, textures and sizes to suit any space.

*un certo non so che is the italian version of je ne sais quoi.  

Maria Porro, a designer of the Arketipo Collection now at Contempo, draws design inspiration from the stages of Europe and Australia, creating dramatic, soulful pieces that enliven and engage spaces. Born in Como in 1983, she graduated with honours in Set Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera, Italy.  As a finalist for the national arts award (Premio Nazionale delle Arti) in 2008, she worked on pieces of “theatre outside the theatre”.  With an interest in stylistic contamination, she experiments with the use of video in theatre set design. She showcased this work during the 2008 West Australian Ballet season of The Nutcracker at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth.  She now works in Milan as a set and costume designer and continues to work on dramatic  designs to create living theatre inside domestic spaces.