Follow the five principles explained, if you wish to get a stylish as well as a beautiful home, and you will very soon find yourself living in a place you will love.
Everyone wants a beautiful home, one that suits their tastes and their purposes. However, many people spend a lot of money on décor that never seem right. Because they've been furnishing with what is pretty or handy; the key is making sure everything in your house is both.
Define Each Space
First determine what you want each space to be. The biggest issue here is often that you need one room to serve two purposes. Clever furnishings make that perfectly doable. If you need a home office or craft studio to serve as a guest room as well, consider installing a murphy bed.
In case, you don’t know what a murphy bed is, it is a complete bed-mattress and all-that stores vertically into the wall so that it is totally hidden until pulled down for use.
Make Walls and Floor Disappear
Neutral, natural colors are most versatile. Follow nature’s cues and put the darkest color on the bottom with the lightest on top. It’s pleasing to the eye to see a wood floor, a light hue on walls and white ceilings.
If you want to infuse a room with warmth and energy, use color on one wall but leave the other three white, grey or cream. The accent wall should be the one that frames the room’s focal point; for instance, in the bedroom this is the wall behind the bed.
Conserve Space
Functional spaces tend to be uncluttered, more easily achieved if each piece of furniture serves multiple tasks or stores away compactly when not in use. Sturdy nesting end tables, storage benches or ottomans and attractive utility carts can prove indispensable throughout the home.
Make use of vertical space by installing shelves or cabinets; favor sleek lines and units that look built-in. Floating shelves blend into the wall if they match the wall color; they become sculptural pieces themselves if you opt for wood, metal or a combination of the two.
Light It Up
The key to beauty is lighting; we can’t appreciate what we can’t see. There are four main layers of lighting. The first is ambient lighting; this includes natural lighting from windows, doors and skylights, plus overhead or recessed lamps. Ambient lighting provides most of a room’s light and sets the mood.
Task lighting is the second layer of light. As the name indicates, it supplies sufficient light to complete the main tasks performed in a particular area. For a kitchen that may mean pendant lights over the island; for a home office it includes a desk lamp.
The third layer, accent lighting that serves to highlight an area’s focal point, is optional but can make the difference between a mediocre room and one that really shines. Fourth is decorative lighting. This is also optional but novelty items as paper lanterns, candles and wall sconces can pack a lot of panache into a small space.
Style With Sentiment
Functional decor doesn’t mean boring or impersonal. Travel souvenirs, family heirlooms and objects d’art that make you smile still have their place. That oil painting you got from a street artist in Paris can still be displayed; use decoupage or a custom piece of glass to turn it into a serving tray.
The glass sailboat you bought on your Caribbean cruise will make a great ring holder by the kitchen sink. The vase you inherited from your grandmother should be kept full of fresh flowers and proudly displayed on your dining room table. If you have items you can’t use anywhere but can’t part with, choose some and devote a shelf to displaying the collection.
Wall art can make a space feel cluttered if displayed haphazardly. So, put the frames in same style—you can’t go wrong with simple black frames and white mattes—arrange them artfully, leaving space between frames.