Interior design is a great opportunity to show off your personal flair for colours, textures, and styles within your home. It’s always fun to watch people decorate their new homes or renovate old ones on television, but what about real life? When it’s time for you to decide on the interior decoration of your new home, there won’t be an expert TV personality to guide you. Trying to imitate things you saw on television could be completely impossible in your house. This article will cover the things you should be aware of when decorating your home, so be sure to keep these tips in mind when it’s time to put the finishing touches on your brand new house.
Interior design is a great opportunity to show off your personal flair for colours, textures, and styles within your home. It’s always fun to watch people decorate their new homes or renovate old ones on television, but what about real life? When it’s time for you to decide on the interior decoration of your new home, there won’t be an expert TV personality to guide you. Trying to imitate things you saw on television could be completely impossible in your house. This article will cover the things you should be aware of when decorating your home, so be sure to keep these tips in mind when it’s time to put the finishing touches on your brand new house.
INTERIOR DOS
- Use your travels as inspiration. If you like to travel, don’t forget to use these experiences to inspire your home’s decoration. You may have seen a painting in a museum or a beautifully textured tablecloth at a restaurant. Whatever it is, if there’s something you’ve come across in your travels that wowed you, use that
- Use dramatic colours in small areas. If you have a small or narrow corridor or laundry, it’s ideal to paint these areas with bright colours. Bright and exciting walls in large areas where people often congregate can make a room feel heavy and dark; conversely, using bright and loud colours in small areas can make them stand out and feel even bigger
- Use an interesting piece as a focal point. If you have a long corridor, place a beautiful sculpture or chandelier at the end. It draws people forward and creates interest. If you have a large room, display a key item as a showcase, just don’t add too many pieces as the room will feel cluttered
- Move furniture away from walls. There is no need to have all your furniture right up against the wall unless a space is really constrained. Instead, go for the ‘waiting room’ look and have your furniture ‘float’ around the room. It provides a more relaxed feel and allows people to chat and converse with those around them more freely
- Use cushions, but choose wisely. You don’t want to purchase cheap cushions that are too firm and can’t be shaped. A lot of cushions that are poorly or cheaply made don’t shape very well and are manufactured with fabrics that aren’t very nice to the touch\. The best thing to do is purchase well-made cushion covers and overfill them with cushions larger than the covers. This makes them feel even more plush and allows them to be shaped much easier
- Think of your outdoor space as a continuation of the inside space. If you have a living or dining area that can open up to go outside, it’s a great idea to add pieces outside that match and complement the furniture indoors. Not only will this look great, but it will open up the interior space and make your home feel even larger
INTERIOR DON’TS
- Don’t sacrifice on lighting. There are often a lot of budget cuts made when decorating a new home, and unfortunately one of the cuts that is often made is on lighting. Lighting can make or break a room, and you need to purchase lighting that is an appropriate size and style for the room. We often see people cut the budget and end up with tiny hall lights that barely light up the area. Use your budget wisely and always ensure that your lighting is appropriate
- Don’t forget about scale. That bedroom suite looks great inside the showroom, but will it fit in your house? A lot of people tend to forget that the size of the showroom is a lot larger than our own homes, so they buy furniture that doesn’t fit or is too large for the room. Be sure to measure your room and bring a tape measure with you to the stores when looking for new pieces
- Don’t buy a completed set of furniture. The showrooms will likely show off a matching sofa, futon, loveseat, and ottoman with all matching coffee tables, side tables, and TV units. But do you really need all that stuff? No, not really. Unless you particularly desire to dress your lounge room up uniformly, don’t buy them all. You can mix and match different pieces from different styles and eras to create a great ‘lived in’ look to your home. Don’t forget to use your creativity
- Don’t pick your paint colours in the store. The lighting is generally quite bad in paint and hardware stores, so you cannot get a true feel for what a colour is going to look like in your bedroom or living area. The best thing to do is purchase the paint in a tester size. This gives you a complete hands on look at how the paint will look inside your house and with the lighting in your home. It’s better to spend a little bit of money on some tester colours and get it right instead of paying a lot of money on a whole can and end up hating the colour you’ve chosen
- Don’t get yourself inundated with plenty of knick knacks laying around. If you like buying ornaments, buy a few favourite pieces but don’t keep adding new ones to the collection you already have. Instead, choose some ornaments to display and store excess collectables in a cupboard. Change them seasonally to match colours and prints in your home. Not only will you remove excess clutter, but your home will look like new every so often thanks to your small changes
- Don’t go crazy with wall colours. If you want a red feature wall, try to not have the next room decorated in bright green. The key is to keeping your wall colours simple but attractive. Sure, you can have a red wall if you want, but keep other colours neutral. You want to stimulate your visitors with the wall colours, but you don’t want to overdo it
- Don’t spend your whole budget on current ‘trends’. They may look good in magazines, but like all trends, they will go out of style eventually. You don’t want to be breaking your budget on trendy items that in a year’s time will look passe and unfashionable
- Don’t let other people make interior design choices for you. At the end of the day, you should choose pieces and colours that feel right for you. If you want to buy that modern chandelier for your hallway but your mother-in-law hates it, buy it anyway. Not to grind her gears, but because you should design your home the way you like. Don’t be afraid to add pieces that reflect you, after all it is your home.
