The luxury retailer Restoration Hardware designs some of the most coveted furniture on the market. A seamless blend of modern and classic aesthetics, RH interiors are simultaneously sophisticated and comfortable, dazzling yet understated.
“Restoration Hardware is big and bold,” comments Linda Rosen of the Los Angeles-based design firm Linda Rosen Interiors. “Deep-seated sofas, sandblasted and reclaimed woods, and neutral fabrics are at its very core.”
If you purchase these pieces from the upscale retailer, you’ll need to shell out some serious cash. But the good news is that you don’t have to pay Restoration Hardware prices to get the look at home. Once you learn the key components that define the style, you can easily replicate it when designing your interior.
“Restoration Hardware is an industry leader, and many furniture companies are now making similar looks for any budget,” notes Kelly Marohl, owner and interior designer behind The Greenspring Home in Baltimore.
Our designer-backed guide breaks down the brand’s signature style into six defining components. Channel the RH aesthetic with these guiding principles, and you’ll achieve a flawless catalog look for a fraction of the price.
1. Start with sleek slipcovered seating in neutral colors
Restoration Hardware is known for “casual slipcovered furniture with clean, modern lines,” explains Jess Harrington, owner and founder of the Boston-based staging and interior design company JessFinessed, referring to sofas, love seats, and lounge chairs. It’s also known for rendering these furnishings in “neutral upholstery void of pattern in luxe materials like linen.”
To mimic the look for less, purchase a higher-quality slipcover to cover a low-to-mid-range sofa, like IKEA’s KIVIK sofa. Then cover the sofa with a cotton, tweed, or twill slipcover, like those Bemz designs just for IKEA furniture.
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s Cloud sofa ranges to nearly $9,100, but Macy’s budget option comes in around $1,600.
And while Restoration Hardware’s Kensington sofa ranges to about $12,000, you can score a Wayfair budget option for under $1,100.
2. Adorn your interior with metal and glass lighting fixtures
Restoration Hardware’s lighting fixtures bring star power to the interior. Bold, oversized pendants and chandeliers balance glass and metals like burnished brass and polished nickel for a dramatic effect. Styles draw inspiration from modern and historical design styles, including Art Deco and industrial stylings of the early 20th century.
Browse RH’s lighting section for inspiration, then hit Google Shopping to seek out a large, sculptural fixture with sleek lines and visible Edison light bulbs.
And if you just can’t find the one, Harrington would nudge you to splurge on an actual Restoration Hardware fixture. “For the dupes that are just too hard to find, sometimes it’s worth going for the real thing,” she says. “Dupe lighting doesn’t always look as good as high-end lighting.”
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s 1920s Odeon chandelier costs nearly $3,400, but this farmhouse-style crystal chandelier from Amazon has a similar aesthetic for under $260.
3. Anchor the dining room with a salvaged wood dining table
Restoration Hardware is known for crafting heavy, conversation-starting dining tables from salvaged woods. The rough-hewn finish adds a weathered, organic element to an otherwise sleek and modern design. Some of the brand’s tables are salvaged from century-old buildings abroad. Even their mass-produced tables exude a one-of-a-kind look and a sense of history.
Mimic a Restoration Hardware dining room by sourcing a heavy reclaimed wood table from Etsy or Facebook Marketplace. Surround the table with matching bench seating on the sides and upholstered wingback dining chairs at opposite ends.
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s salvaged wood trestle rectangular dining table ranges over $5,100, but Wayfair’s Tekamah Pine Solid Wood Dining Table comes in under $800.
4. Add masculinity with leather sofas or armchairs
Most Restoration Hardware living rooms feature classic leather seating — such as you might expect in a redbrick university library. Indeed, Restoration Hardware describes its Kensington leather sofa as a reproduction of the classic Chesterfield style, meant to “evoke the grand gentlemen’s club tradition.”
But real leather isn’t for everyone. For one thing, it’s certainly not vegan. And for another, it can be quite expensive — especially when it’s from Restoration Hardware. Thankfully, Chesterfield designs are fairly easy to find online for a far lower cost. Just search for leather or faux leather armchairs or sofas using the keywords “button tufted” and “rolled tuxedo arms.”
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s Kensington leather sofa ranges to over $15,000, but you can get this faux-leather rolled-arm sofa from Wayfair for (wait for it) just $799.
5. Elongate the room by mixing tall and short storage pieces
It bears repeating that Restoration Hardware focuses on scale to create their signature dramatic room designs. For instance, the brand visually elongates room height by pairing heavier, low-profile sofas and side tables with floor-to-ceiling curtains and gilded mirrors.
For a similar look, focus on size when choosing your furnishings like dressers, cabinets, and media consoles. Contrast the scale of a heavy coffee table with a pair of tall, narrow bookcases in the corners of the room.
When it comes to style, stager and designer Tracy Kay Griffin recommends noting the details in an RH product’s description. So, if you’re obsessed with the Cayden Campaign Media Console, search for media consoles using keywords like “oak,” “glass doors,” and “brass hardware.”
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s Cayden Campaign glass sideboard and hutch costs over $8,000, but Wayfair sells a reclaimed pine version of the four-drawer sideboard and hutch for just over $3,000.
6. Curate statement decor fit for The Met
Complete your Restoration Hardware-inspired interior with carefully curated decor. Accessories like decorative bowls, abstract wall art, gold-framed mirrors, coffee table books, and Greco-Roman statues will elevate your space to the next level.
When sourcing these pieces, look no further than the retailer’s own stated design ethos for inspiration:
“We believe the most pleasing environments are a reflection of human design. They are a study of balance, symmetry, and perfect proportions. We respect the hierarchy and important relationships between architecture, furniture, and decor that create harmony. It’s a discipline of adding through subtraction, where less becomes more.”
Decorate with fewer, sculptural pieces that are thoughtfully proportioned with the room’s furniture. Think big — in scale, and in historical or design-world significance. After all, the retailer does just that with reproductions of famous statues in its showrooms and references to DaVinci’s Vitruvian man in its ethos statement:
“We subscribe to the principles of Vitruvius, that perfect proportions exist in human design. That beauty is produced by the pleasing appearance and good taste of the whole.”
Get the look:
Restoration Hardware’s Roman bust sculpture fragment costs nearly $500, but you can get an Aphrodite bust reproduction sculpture for $100 from Los Angeles’ famous Getty Museum (and support the arts while you’re at it!).
Header Image Source: (Design by JessFinessed and photography by Abbey Ojemann)
