"A house is made of walls and beams, a home is made of love and dreams"
I love this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson as I think it is absolutely spot on. I spend a lot of time making sure that my home is right for us as a family – making the best use of the space we have, and coming up with solutions for storage to make living in it simple. My favourite thing to do is style it. Styling my home is something I have focussed on far more over the past few years as I spend a large portion of the week working from home. I see the house a lot more so I have wanted to refine it and make it as beautiful as I can to spend time in.
I am not an interior designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I know what I like and I enjoy playing around with different ideas. For me it is the small things that make a big impact and change the feel of a room, so I thought I would share some of the different techniques I use and explain how you can use the same ideas.
Colour palette Choose décor and accessories that fit in with your general home colours. My home is made up of very neutral warm colours which work and blend together well; shades of white, grey and beige. So, when I am looking for different décor pieces and accessories I tend to look for ones with similar colours to blend in or deeper shades if I am looking to make more of a statement. I am not brave enough to paint the rooms in bold colours, so I do this through choosing accessories such as cushions, throws, flowers, prints etc in accent colour.
Tones and Texture Put items together of varying textures and tones, it helps to add depth to the room. Mixing and matching woods, fabrics, metals and other materials. For example, our dining room table is a light oak colour, the chairs are the same with a soft grey seat pad of different tones of grey running through it. We have a large entertainment unit in the living room which is a white gloss wood so to soften it up I have added some fabric storage baskets on the shelves. Our bed frame is a grey fabric, so I style the bed using a selection of white and grey bedding, bedspread and cushions in different fabrics - cotton, silk, wool and textures – I like a bit of touchy feely fabrics! I also like to sprinkle a bit of greenery around the rooms (faux of course, I can’t keep real plants alive!) I fell it gives a timeless look.
Grouping Grouping items using varying scale and height is really effective. If everything is at the same eye level it gets lost and unnoticed. I read somewhere about the rule of three. The theory behind the rule is that grouping objects in odd numbers is more visually appealing to the human eye as it looks more dynamic and natural. To help with this I tend to use pieces which are similar colours to tie them all in together. You could use vases, a stack of books, artwork on the wall, photo frames etc. The nice thing about this is that you can use the different items you already have at home and if you are anything like me you will constantly faff and re-arrange!
Stimulating your senses The really nice thing to do with accessories is use them to stimulate your senses. For me I go big on three of the five; sight, touch and smell. I have already spoken about the visuals and touchy feely factor in my points above, but I also think that smell is really important. I have candles and diffusers all around the house and choose different scents carefully. Candles, diffusers and wax burners not only look stylish out on the side, but the scents help to create a different mood and ambience throughout different areas of the house. I like to faff and play around with the accessories I have at home. I am constantly moving things around, swap things in and swap things out. Accessories can really change the feel of a room and can be used easily to decorate for changing seasons too, far easier than changing paint or wallpaper! Decorating for seasons has always been huge in America but the UK it is now becoming so popular, I think this is also partly to social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest as they are full of beautiful photo take inspiration from. With sound I like to have some music playing low in the background, especially when chilling out. The invention of Amazon Echo, Google Home and other smart speakers makes it so easy to have music on and change it really simply. The devices themselves come in all sorts of sizes and colours to blend into your room nicely.
Pretty storage As well as the furniture in the house I make use of smaller pretty storage - baskets, jars, vases, crates, boxes etc and make a feature out of them. I like to have a practical use for mine, to hide items which could make an area look cluttered. I have some boxes on the shelf above my workspace to keep some stationary (envelopes, notebooks etc) and specific work books and papers which I don’t want on show all the time. In the bathroom I have swapped out a wire basket holding our everyday toiletries for a sold box as it hides the containers and makes the space look more streamline. Pretty storage can also be a great way to hide plug sockets and wires if needed too - all sorts of uses aside from organisation and décor.
Whatever your style is play around and have fun!
I have an Instagram account which is dedicated to home and interiors. Come have join in some of the conversations - @acton.life.and.home
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