The way you decorate your home can say a lot about you. But when you’re not sure about your own personal style, it can be hard to see your own personality in your surroundings. You can quickly be dissatisfied with the way your home looks, and you make changes constantly to try and add a bit more personal character to your living space.
And if that sounds like you, we’re here to help! Whether you’ve just moved in or you want to touch up a few areas of your home for the final time, developing your own style for decor takes a bit of trial and error. But that’s exactly what we’re here to help with. Your interior decor habits might need a little finetuning, but as soon as you work out what you really like, it’ll be easy to put your rooms together.
Choose Your Decorating Purpose
Before you get stuck into making any changes, you need to figure out what it is you really want to change. In other words, why are you redecorating? If you know your purpose well ahead of time, it’s going to be much easier to put things together in your head. You’ll be able to come up with a clear redecorating plan, and you won’t waste any time or money down the DIY store either!
So, why do you want to redecorate your space? For example, are you about to put the house on the market and you need to know the best colors to help a house sell? Do you want a change of scene that’s a little dramatic and has plenty of character? Or maybe you’ve got multiple reasons and just need things to look a little different!
Whatever it is, put your goal down on paper as soon as possible. Once you have, you can then come up with the budget for it. You’ll know the min/max spend now, and you know how many paints, panels, and various decorating materials you need to bring in to add value or transform a boring room into a vibrant one.
Don’t Listen to the Trends
The decorating trends you see people talk about online, which are sometimes said to add value to a home if you’re trying to sell it, never last very long. Renovating your kitchen in the ‘Scandi’ style could add a couple extra thousand to your sale price now, but if your house doesn’t sell within a month, that value could be wiped away! Now you’ve just wasted your money and your house still isn’t selling.
On the other hand, if you’re not trying to sell here, you also have to consider whether or not you actually like the trends you see. Sure, they’re popular amongst all those decor blogs you follow and they look good in the magazine, but do you really like that ‘minimalist’ take on a living room? You might appreciate a few highlights here and there, but you need to stop and consider if a whole room decorated in this style is really ‘you’.
Make a Decor Moodboard
Moodboards do wonders for our perception of style. When you can create a screenshot of the feeling and theme you’re going for, it’s much easier to see what works and what doesn’t. To make a mood board, simply save pictures of interior styles and decorated rooms that you like that help to form an impression of the final product you’re going for here.
This is something you can do online, but if you’d prefer you can get a literal pin board and stick photos, material scraps, and potential layout designs to it. Put it all together and see how it fits – does it feel like you? Does it flow and blend together in the way you’ve always wanted? If so, it’s time to throw your whole weight behind this new decor scheme now you’ve got a more concrete idea for it!
Draw Out Some Potential Layouts
Now it’s time to take some measurements of your space and use them to come up with potential layouts. Go for two or three different floor plans here; you never know if the one you want to use won’t quite work out, and it’s best to have a couple backups to default to.
Plus, if you know the dimensions of the room you’re working with, it becomes much easier to go furniture shopping! You can walk into a store knowing exactly what sofas, chairs, and tables you need to get, and more importantly, what sizes are viable choices. You won’t waste any money on a piece that looks good but just won’t fit anywhere into your floor plan.
When creating a floor plan, think about the way the traffic in your home flows. A coffee table is a good idea next to the sofa, but does that block the doorway slightly? Will you or the kids be forever bashing into it when you’re not quite looking? And would it be better to hang the TV on the wall rather than sitting it on a cabinet? It’s far less easy to knock off then!
Watch Some Home Decor Shows
Now this is the easiest part of the whole process! You get to sit down with a snack and watch endless reruns of home decor shows, where two experts put together remarkable looking houses and give you an inside scoop into what these looks take to produce.
At the very least you can pick up some decor inspiration here, as well as different ways to come up with functional furniture layouts that look good within the home. You could also get a good grasp on what this kind of work costs, and what budget you might be looking at for a project of your own.
It’s up to you what shows you watch here, but just make sure they’ve got some substance to them. Get a good look at the way styles can blend together, and how an old room can be made to look new, and even how to brighten up a space that only has a tiny window!
Never Sacrifice Functionality for Style
Finally, make sure you’re aware of how your home is used and what makes life more convenient for you. When you’re coming up with a new interior style that feels good and is nice to look at, it’s easy to look over the functional part. For example, a trash can in the corner is out of the way and doesn’t interrupt the flow of a room, but will it ever actually be used?
Or will you always be leaving rubbish everywhere and have to clean up every 5 minutes? And the same principle goes for accent pieces. They look nice positioned on a bookshelf or mantle piece, but are they just getting in the way of things that actually need to be stored? Your home needs to work for you!
Do You Want to Develop a Better Interior Style?
It’s not as hard as you might think! Take your time to do some research into the most popular interior styles, mix and match these pieces as you see fit, and then throw a bit of your own personality into it. Don’t worry, that’s actually relatively easy to manage.
If you’ve got a collection, display it! If you love books, make sure they take center stage! Whatever it is you love, reflect this in your living space and you’ll always feel right at home there.
