Five tips for decorating your home like a pro
Your home is your safe haven, a place where you can relax and de-stress after a hard day’s work. Here are five tips to help you decorate it like a pro.
For your home to feel like your safe haven, it’s important to decorate it to you taste, and add your personal touch to each room.
However, decorating your home can feel like an overwhelming task. There are so many factors to consider, and you’re restrict by your budget. This might mean that, much as you’d love to, you just don’t have the funds to hire a professional interior designer.
Fortunately, there are some things that you can do to decorate your home like a pro. Here are five suggestions to help you.
1) Maximise digital tools
Technological advancements have made the process of decorating your home more convenient and straightforward. These days, you don’t need to rely on your imagination and calculations to determine the scale of furniture in your rooms.
You can find free online decorating tools that provide you with visual representations of your planned modifications. This way, you can compare colors and styles with ease and be more sure of the design decisions you’ll be making.
2) Start with a plan
As with any other home remodeling project, it’s crucial to have a plan before you purchase any furniture or decorations like a new set of sofas or water fountains for your garden. By doing this, you avoid making costly mistakes with ill-fitting furnishings and the like.
Keep a clear head, and remember that you don’t have to fill up your space all at once. It can be tempting to do this when you have a new home, but you should always consider the following factors before buying anything:
- Measurements – Your home has a unique set of measurements and dimensions. You should determine these values first, so that you can match the scale of your décor to your rooms.
- Floor plan – After getting the measurements, you can then lay out those figures on a floor plan for each room. This 2D model gives you an idea of how much space you have to work with. Once you have this outline, you can experiment with furniture placement. Just make sure that the dimensions are also scaled to match the drawing’s size.
- Lifestyle – You should decorate your space to support your lifestyle. For instance, if you always seem to be in a rush during the morning, you’ll want your entryway and corridors to be clutter-free so that you avoid any accidents. It would be sensible to design a stylish yet practical bedroom, offering the functionality that you need for daily activities. Another aspect to consider is whether or not you enjoy entertaining guests in your home. This factor significantly affects the kind of furnishings that you choose.
- Budget – Even if you’ve allocated a considerable amount to decorating your home, your funds will be limited. Knowing this, you must take your finances into account so that you don’t end up wasting money.
- Phasing – You also need to plan in phases, if you’re doing any major renovations. You must perform structural modifications first, such finishing the drywall, painting and refinishing the floors, since these tasks can be quite messy.
3) Understand the principles of design
The pros have only achieved their level of expertise by equipping themselves with knowledge of the fundamentals of design. They learned which elements work well together visually. Mastering the rules can also help you to play and experiment with different colors and styles.
Here are some of the principles of design that you should know about:
- Contrast – This pertains to the differences in design elements, thus, making them discernible from each other. It’s the secret ingredient to giving your room that ‘wow’ factor, without forgoing the cohesiveness of your wallpaper, furniture, and other furnishings.
- Balance – In design, each element has a corresponding visual weight. That’s why some imagery is described as heavy, while some as lighter. Applying this principle means that your decorations must create a balanced feeling visually.
- Emphasis – For your room’s design, there must be focal points, which are areas of interest that you want to highlight. Everything else serves only to complement the featured elements in an area.
- White space – Also known as negative space, this design principle talks about the empty portions of the room. Remember, you don’t need to fill an area with all sorts of decorations. Giving your design spaces allows the elements to breathe and can further highlight their beauty.
- Movement – Movement refers to how the eye travels over a design. Typically, you can control the flow of a room by maximizing lines, patterns, and colors. Mastering this principle can make your home’s interior more interesting and appealing.
4) Find a theme
The easiest way to design like a pro is to choose a motif for your home and incorporate it into the rooms. There are a lot of options to choose from, including modern, minimalist, rustic, and industrial.
The rustic theme is a pretty popular one, and you can achieve this even in your outdoor space by putting plants on display, staining your deck, and picking wooden furniture. If you are looking for flags to decorate your space, check out ultimate flags.
If you don’t want to do a major overhaul of your property, identifying a theme for your home can help you to pick out the best pieces to incorporate into your rooms. Of course, you should still strive for balance and contrast. You don’t want to go overboard on the theme and sacrifice style, as it will end up looking gauche.
5) Decorate according to your climate
You should also think about the climate in your area; consider how you’ll keep the natural elements out of your home. For example, you can place a welcome mat right at the door and an inner rug in the entryway, to prevent mud or snow from going any further into your residence.
Understanding the weather in your city or town can help you to decorate with style and functionality, just as you dress yourself.
Ready to start decorating like a pro?
You don’t need certification or licenses to decorate your home like a pro. All you need is to create a thorough plan of what you want to do, as well as to maximize online tools that help you to visualize the style and designs that you choose.
Next, you must understand the principles of design so that you can put together visually appealing elements. You can even opt to go with a theme, to create a more cohesive space. Finally, make sure to think about your area’s climate, so that you can decorate your home appropriately.
