Help interior decorating MNers! How to style Victoriana furniture in very modern house?

[Callipo]

We have just moved into our very modern brand new house, think ice white walls, clean lines, black granite cream carpets. Its lush. We have moved from a Victorian cottage and obviously brought all our tatty furniture. Most of it looks fine but the sitting room is looking a bit odd. It is a north facing rectangular ice white box approx 3x5m with the window on the short far wall. Our lovely old brown leather chesterfield and red/gold persian rug both look a bit odd. We can't get rid, so I need some ideas on how to style modern room to incorporate these pieces. I'm crap at decorating stuff and definately don't have "an eye" Any ideas? Ideally with pictures or links cos I have no imagination... TIA!

Can you repaint the walls?

If not, I think a mismatched look is probably the way forward - "things we picked up on our travels" iyswim. Couple of pics that show what I mean:

here

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A big throw for the chesterfield.

the rug will have to go somewhere else.

Oooh thankyou!!Lovelypics. Are you actually one of the Trendey sisters (or both)?!

Fraid not! Just a bit furniture obsessive at the mo as I'm in the middle of furnishing a new place (well, attempting to) which seems to involve hours on google.

I think you can keep the pieces, but isolate them within minimally furnished space. What I mean is: keep the white box look, have everything very minimal except for your chesterfield and the rug. If you can, have the chesterfield pulled into your room, rather than against the wall. Keep other furniture minimal other than a few more modern things - a mid-century sideboard, a modern coffee table, a mustard-coloured floor lamp to pick up tones in the rug etc.

This is much easier said than done in most family homes, I think (you can make anything look good if there's no clutter and plastic toys around) but I'm sure you can pull it off

My opinion differs slightly - I think it's hard to furnish a very modern room entirely with old/vintage looking things - you can end up with it looking like everything's just sitting there temporarily (IYKWIM). I think a Chesterfield sofa and perhaps some older pieces of furniture would look good with a modern patterned rug (actually the link minipie gives shows some good examples of that) and will blend together old and new. But I think old rug + old furniture in new room might just look odd. Same with curtains, I think I'd go for heavy, traditionally made curtains but perhaps with only a very slight pattern or plain (if you have patterned rug), adding some warmth to the box-like feel.