Last updated on May 5th, 2024 at 03:17 pm
Congratulations! You finally own a home and are thrilled to fill it with bits and pieces you truly love. No more having to tolerate hand-me-downs and landlords’ ugly worn-out kitchen cabinets and broken bathroom tiles. Finally, you get to be the king or queen of your own kingdom.
But even though the thought of this sounds empowering at first, once you actually get down to business you find out that the process of furnishing your own place isn’t as smooth as you imagined. While you may have already picked out a sofa and the colour of your brand new kitchen cabinets, making the things you like actually fit together as a functional and cohesive unit can feel like an impossible game of chess.
Home Decor Tips to Expertly Tie a Space Together
If you feel overwhelmed by the number of brain-twisting decisions before you, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll give some great advice that interior designers swear by when it comes to making any space look cohesive and finished. Armed with these tips, you can put to use what you already have and easily find what you need at a well-stocked home improvement store.
Stick to a Colour Palette
The best way to make any space look perfectly staged is to have a specific colour palette. If you already have some home furnishings purchased, let the most frequently recurring colours make up your palette. Interior designers advise sticking to the 60/30/10 rule for blending colours together. For instance, 60% of your room should be in one main colour (let’s say your sofa, curtains and ottoman), 30% should be in a secondary colour (for instance your rug and wall art) and 10% in an accent colour (obviously, throws and pillows).
Following this specific rule will let you get away with mixing different styles as much as you like. It’s much easier to pick out a sofa design and have it upholstered in a colour to fit the rest of the seating instead of creating a set of matching home furnishings.
Use Rugs to Define Separate Areas
One may be a fan of rugs or not, but nobody can’t deny the power they have to separate different areas from one another. Having rugs as part of your décor is especially important if you have an open-plan home where the kitchen, dining room and living room all blend together.
What’s more, if you ever find that your space lacks the cosy factor, just adding a rug is often enough to get that warm homey feel. Whether you go for a Persian or a modern design, a monochromatic or colourful pattern, a cosy rug is an investment that will elevate your home décor. Just make sure that it fits with the rest of your colour scheme and is the correct size to complement your home furnishings and decor.
If you’re afraid to invest in a rug in a colour you like, or you feel that your overall colour palette is already too bold and a rug will be too much, go the minimalist route. In other words, stick to a neutral earthy colour like beige, brown, grey or something off-white. You can even get a large jute rug to anchor the room. Currently, natural rugs are all the rage, so your room will look more contemporary as well.
Get Matching Hardware
Knobs, pulls and door handles are the home fixtures that you’ll probably interact with the most. Plus, they’re usually placed at eye level, so they have the power to influence a space’s look and feel. This makes them the perfect tool for tying not just a room, but the whole home together.
Even if you have different colour and style schemes throughout the different rooms of the house, sticking to a specific hardware finish will get you that unifying feeling. For instance, you could go for brass if you want a rich touch, chrome or aluminium if you want a shiny modern feel or wrought iron if you’re into the rustic vibe more. There are all sorts of hardware designs you can find at a well-stocked home improvement store.
There’s also another way you can use hardware to your advantage. If you have some furniture like a cabinet, entertainment unit or console table that doesn’t fit the stuff you already own or the look you want to achieve, you can transform it using hardware. Just swap out its hardware for one that fits your design aesthetic and see how it instantly blends in. Yes, just by tweaking one feature about a piece of furniture (whether it’s hardware, colour or fabric) you can make it look more like the theme of your space.
Add a Pinch of Greenery
If you want to unify a space that’s already furnished for the most part, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, greenery is the trick. Making plants the common thread between the different rooms and areas will make your space look organic and natural. Plus, this will make it more balanced if somehow you didn’t manage to stick to a colour palette.
If you lack a green thumb, don’t worry, there are plenty of ways you can invite nature in. You can try low-maintenance plants first, like succulents and cacti who aren’t that fussy when it comes to living conditions and watering. You can also invest in some self-watering planters that will take care of the dirty work for you. Just sit back and relax enjoying your thriving indoor garden.
Don’t feel restricted to use plants all around you – in the bedroom, as coffee table décor, heck, even in the bathroom. Let Mother Nature inspire you!
Anchor a Room with Pillows and Throws
Ever found yourself in the middle of someone’s super expensive living room filled with designer furniture and felt like something is missing? Chances are decorative accents like pillows and throws were out of the picture.
So, if after you’ve carefully applied the above mentioned tactics your space still feels cold and lacking, you can use these items to anchor the whole space. That way, it will look more inviting and truly homey. Consider using these decorative elements as the 10% from your colour palette, and to make it more interesting, pick a “wow” fabric like velvet that will make the room feel more expensive.
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