10 Simple Tips to Create a Stylish Home
Style is a very personal pursuit, based on your preferences and beauty ideals. That being said, creating a stylish home interior is made easier by following tried and true interior decorating principles.
The trick is striking a balance that not only creates a picture-perfect home, but makes it uniquely yours. If you’re struggling to determine the best ways to make your home stylish, here are some simple tips that will get you on track.
1. Start with A Neutral Foundation
It’s tempting to choose colorful paint, flooring, and furniture, but this is a big no-no. Color styles change rapidly and you don’t necessarily want the hassle and expense of updating these foundational pieces frequently.
By choosing a neutral base for your home, you start with a timeless style that you can then update at less expense with colorful, modern accessories.
2. Add Trending Colors
Staying on point with your style means updating to trending color palettes every so often. In truth, trending color can change seasonally, but all you have to do is look at past decades to see years-long trend cycles.
Just think of the burnt oranges and avocados of the ‘70s, or the neon shades of ‘80s. Updating colors every few years should be sufficient to maintain a stylish home interior.
3. Limit Your Color Palette
It’s easy to go overboard with color and end up with too many competing hues. For the sake of chic styling, consider limiting your palette to one key color family and add 2-3 complementary accent colors.
Having trouble? Visit the paint store to pick up paint sample cards or brochures. Many brochures offer the latest color palettes and samples of complementary color groupings for your convenience.
4. Add Visual Interest Through Accessories
Visual interest is a must, and you can add it through color, texture, pattern and shine. Your accent tables, throw rugs, pillows, window dressings, lamps, vases, and other accessories offer endless opportunities to increase the visual richness of your spaces with hard, soft, shiny, matte, colorful, and patterned surfaces.
5. Use Mirrors For More Than Gazing
A large, well-placed mirror can do more than just show your reflection. It can bounce light to brighten dark interiors and visually expand small rooms to make them appear larger and less confining. It also acts as wall décor, in place of artwork, if you only have a few key pieces of art to work with.
6. Clear Away the Clutter
If you’re seeking style, your house can’t look like it belongs in an episode of Hoarders. Managing your stuff isn’t easy, but you can do it in a stylish way by utilizing a system of matching bins to corral the clutter.
7. Edit Everything
Over a lifetime, we collect a lot of stuff, and it can be difficult to let some of it go. But as Coco Chanel famously advised, it’s always best to remove one piece of jewelry before you head out the door. The same basic principle can be applied to a stylish home.
When you think your décor is perfect, consider removing a piece of furniture and a few accessories. We tend to overstuff our rooms, but an open and airy feel is always preferable to cramped quarters. Don’t be married to your décor or you risk becoming trapped by it.
8. Add Your Own Personality
You might not think adding personal touches to your space will contribute to the style, but it does – it makes the space yours. Designing rooms that look like they came off a showroom floor is fine, but they can feel cold and impersonal.
This isn’t very inviting for family or friends. By imbuing your space with your personality, through photos, tchotchkes, and so on, you add unique flair that makes the space feel lived in and loved.
9. Embrace Nature with Beautiful Patio Doors
Adding natural elements to your home through wood flooring, potted plants, and river stones in the shower is great, but with frameless sliding glass doors, you can blur the lines between indoors and out, creating living spaces that expand into your breathtaking backyard.
10. Don’t Get Complacent
Style is something that must evolve or stagnate. Once you’ve perfected your décor, you might think you’re done, but if you want your space to remain stylish, it has to change with the times.
