Decorating and styling a new home can be an exciting yet daunting task. The blank canvas presents endless possibilities, but narrowing down your style and choosing pieces can prove challenging. Follow these tips to create a cohesive, livable, and stylish home that reflects your personality.
Determine Your Style
Defining your personal decor style is key when styling any space. Consider what draws you to certain spaces and what emotions you want your home to evoke. Referencing your favorite films, eras, colors, textures, or art is helpful when naming (e.g. modern, minimalist, coastal, retro).
Define Your Priorities
Focusing on priorities helps guide big picture style decisions. Determine if you want your home to feel cozy, spacious, cheerful, relaxed, contemporary. What feeling do you want to create? This helps direct stylistic choices like color schemes, textures, lighting, and accessories.
Gather Inspiration
Look to spaces, images, and styles that appeal to you. Survey magazines, Pinterest, Instagram, friends/family homes, and design accounts. Elements from different sources can blend into a unique personal style. Always save images, fabric swatches, and samples you love.
Consider Lifestyle Factors
Practical lifestyle factors influence how a space should function and its needs. Consider who lives there, pets, how you entertain, your routines, what you do for work/hobbies. Identifying needs like storage, durability, flexibility etc. will inform decisions.
Evaluate Existing Elements
Take stock of any existing architectural details and permanent fixtures that will remain, like fireplace mantels, moulding, built-ins, etc. Determine how to highlight these while selecting complementary new finishes and decor.
Assess Furniture
Decide which existing furniture pieces align with your style vision and can be incorporated. Some may work in new spots or with adjustments like new hardware or a fresh coat of paint. Add this to your floor plan sketch.
Floor Plan
Map out room dimensions, windows, doors, and existing elements. This rough layout helps visualize furniture arrangements and traffic flow. Mark where you need major functional pieces like beds, seating areas, TVs.
Create a Color Palette
Choose 3-5 core neutral tones as your color palette base, then add 2-3 accent shades you love. Neutrals like warm white, tan, gray create cohesion. Accent colors in paint, decor add personality. Refer often when making decisions.
Set a Budget
Create a home style budget based on estimates for required items like furniture, paint, lighting, appliances, decor, repairs etc. Compare needs vs wants, research deals, and determine where to splurge vs save on key pieces. Plan phases if needed.
Style by Room
Approach decorating room-by-room. Define the roomโs purpose, focal points, problem areas and overall vision to address needs. Sketch ideas. Determine essential furniture & secondary decorative pieces needed.
Entryways
Make a strong first impression with a clean, cohesive entryway. Console tables provide landing spots for keys and bags. Mirrors reflect light. Coat racks and baskets neatly corral outerwear. Stylize flooring, welcome art draws the eye inward.
Living & Family Rooms
Ground shared living spaces with a large area rug. Arrange seating to promote conversation and sightlines to focal points like fireplaces or TVs. Incorporate personal touches with cherished art, photos, accessories with purposeful vignettes. Add lighting layers.
Kitchens
Kitchen style revolves around creating a motivating, efficient workspace. Clean lines, counters at comfortable heights, easy-access storage, durable surfaces and multi-functional island seating enhance functionality. Personalize with wall art and decorative tile backsplashes.
Dining Rooms
Choose a statement dining table with substantial chairs for guests to linger. Layer an area rug underneath and suspended lighting above. Display treasured dishware while keeping fine china safely stowed yet accessible. Consider a built-in buffet or hutch for storage.
Bedrooms
Bedrooms MUST promote peaceful relaxation and sleep. Identify mattress needs, then select complementary yet statement bed frame as a focus point. Add personal seating nooks by windows. Restrict technology use here and keep decor simple with neutral tones, metallics, botanicals, billowing fabrics.
Bathrooms
Bathrooms should balance function and refreshing, spa-like style. Interesting tile designs energize floors/walls, while natural stone exudes calm for countertops and shower enclosures. Warm metallics mix with wood tones. Ensure optimal storage, lighting and ventilation.
Home Office
A home workspace requires purposeful design from desk lighting to storage solutions. Prioritize ergonomic chairs and ample surfaces, then motivate with inspiration boards, meaningful artwork and artifacts recalling favorite travel spots. Filing cabinets neatly conceal documents.
Laundry Room
Laundry rooms rely chiefly on utility including durable surfaces/finishes and abundant storage solutions. Install ample shelving, hanging racks, cabinets and folding tables. Splurge on top-load washers/dryers. Vibrant paint colors transform mundane chores.
Pull Together Finishing Touches
Complete the full picture of your home with carefully chosen accents reflecting style and needs. Mix metals, wood tones and crisp white for timelessness. Meaningful accessories inspire and collections display treasures finds.
Key Takeaways:
- Determine your priorities and personal decor style
- Thoroughly evaluate existing architectural elements
- Create an inspiring yet functional floorplan tailored to lifestyle factors
- Establish a color palette then make layered lighting, furniture and style choices per room
- Invest time and budget determining optimal furniture, fixtures and long-lasting finishes
- Personalize with accessories, artwork and collections that motivate and spark joy
Conclusion
Decorating a home to align with your lifestyle and aesthetic takes time and thoughtful decision making. Define priorities upfront for a cohesive vision that functionally supports daily routines. Evaluate existing assets then identify new structural additions and quality foundation pieces respecting architecture for durability over trends. Layer personal collections, meaningful gifts, travel momentos and lighting to reflect who you are. The resulting furnishing decisions and finishing touches allow your unique style to shine through – creating a welcoming retreat for relaxation, inspiration and connection.
FAQs:
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How do I choose a decor style?
Identify aesthetics, eras, locations, palettes, textures that resonate by analyzing images, art and spaces sparking joy or admiration. Name the style. -
What are the most popular decor styles?
Currently mid-century modern, industrial, bohemian and traditional styles reign, with coastal and Scandinavian influences remaining mainstays. Eclectic blending is trending. -
How much should I budget for decor?
Experts recommend budgeting 1-2% of your home’s total value for decor and furnishings – potentially more for a full redesign. Budget per room or project. -
What decor colors are trending?
Earth tones like terracotta, green and blue accent warmer new neutrals: greige, alabaster white and soft black. Vibrant hues energize accents. -
Should my home decor match?
Cohesion stems from consistent finishes rather than overly matchy decor. Maintain a color palette with varied textures, metals and natural materials for harmony without boredom. -
How do I choose a color palette?
Limit core neutrals to 3-5 flowing tones pulled from architectural elements or nature outside. Add 2-4 accent colors sparking joy. -
How do you mix and match decor?
Guide eclectic looks with a color palette binding mismatched elements into harmony. Repeat textures to balance contrasting time periods and styles. -
What are the best neutral colors?
Soft white, warm greige, taupe and gray serve as foundational backdrop neutrals pairing infinitely. Black grounds modern spaces. -
How do you brighten a dark room?
Tactically add ample well-placed lighting. Mirrors amplify light. Whites expansively open shadowed spaces. Warm metallics enlighten. -
What Defines Your Decor Style?
Your decor style stems from beloved aesthetics inspiring happiness inside your refuge. Name it through eras, locations, palettes conjuring positivity. -
How do you decorate a house on a budget?
Strategically supplement solid secondhand foundation furniture from reputable retailers with new mattresses and personalized colorful accents purchased on sale. -
What are the 3 most important things in interior design?
Scale/proportion, cohesive color flow and purposeful lighting build foundations for aesthetically pleasing, functionally flowing interior spaces. -
How do you choose decor for a rental home?
Opt for classic affordable staple furniture on wheels allowing flexible rearrangement between spaces with inexpensive reversible upgrades like slipcovers, area rugs. -
How do I choose a sofa/couch?
Evaluate size suiting space, lumbar support preferences, seating capacity, durability of frames/fabrics and lifestyle staining risks before selecting sofa shape and upholstery. -
How do you arrange a small living room?
Visually expand space choosing slender furnishings with legs revealing floor. Float central focal furniture like sofa off walls. Limit pieces to essentials for flexible flow. -
How do you mix metal finishes?
The present mixing metals trend allows blending complementary gold, brass, chrome, nickel and black metals cohesively. Unify through repetitive use of color and shape. -
What are the best online home decor stores?
Top online destinations for discovering distinct home decor include West Elm, Lulu and Georgia, Joy bird, Rejuvenation, Schoolhouse Electric and Burrow.
