Do you feel like your home decor doesn’t live up to the vision in your imagination? I believe that with some exploration and practice, you can develop a keener eye for what makes good home decor—even if you think you’re not very good at decorating!
Everyone deserves to live in a home they enjoy that reflects who they are. The whole idea of Roominess is to give you easy steps to follow so you can create these kinds of spaces for yourself. But if you’re looking for some extra help, start here.
Easy First Steps
When I hear someone say, “I can’t decorate,” often my first piece of advice is to declutter. It’s difficult to figure out what works and doesn’t work in your home if every square inch of space is occupied by random odds and ends that don’t quite fit anywhere. Removing unnecessary clutter reduces distraction and opens up the spaces in your home so you can more easily imagine new possibilities. Here are a few simple tasks to get started:
• Clean up. I know, it’s a lot more exciting to talk about fabrics and paint than to actually clean up your space! But cleaning your home will automatically make it look more attractive, even without making any changes to your decor. So get rid of all the trash, dust, vacuum, mop, and wipe the counters. All of this really needs to happen before you can start looking at how to improve your decor. My easy tip for keeping your home picked up on a day-to-day basis is to set a timer for 10 minutes. You can see that Roominess video here.
• Put everything away where it goes. If you don’t have a place to store everything, that might be a place to start. A lack of storage space in the places you need it is a guarantee that clutter will get in the way of your decor. (For example, that beautiful pedestal sink in the master bath will never have a chance to shine if it’s buried under a pile of loose toiletries.)
• Get everything off the floor. This is a common blind spot for people setting up their homes. Storing anything on the floor in random boxes or bags is a decor killer every time. Only rugs, furniture and substantial accessories should ever be on the floor. (As a general guideline, a substantial accessory is at least the size of a basketball.)
Copy an Inspiration Room
Magazines and websites are great resources for finding rooms that you can copy. Unless the website is linked to sales pages, you probably can’t buy the look verbatim. But you can take note of the individual pieces and search for matches to work in your space. This is called an “inspiration room.” For example, white walls and blonde wood floors are a popular look online these days. So copy that! See a photo with floating shelves on the walls that look appealing to you? Install some! If you’re not sure where to hang the floating shelves, use the photo as a reference. Stick pieces of painters tape on the wall and move them around until the placement matches the photo. (For more support, ask a friend to help with the placement and installation.)
You will probably need to buy some furniture pieces to match your inspiration room. You can do that by (a) spending a lot of money to get a near-exact match, or (b) spending a lot of time in consignment shops, thrift stores, and donation centers to find pieces that are a good enough match. Make sure to take your inspiration room photo with you. Lastly, be on the lookout for accessories similar to those displayed in the photo.
Look at Multiple Photos for Inspiration
If you’re up for a bit more of a challenge, you can also build your own look based on multiple photos. Do a Google image search and save favorites in a folder on your phone or tablet, or browse Pinterest and pin the images you like. I used this technique myself when I remodeled my kitchen. This will give you a lot of ideas that are related because you like them all and they (hopefully) have a similar aesthetic, but you won’t have a list of specific items to buy. Instead, pay attention to not-so-obvious details from the idea photos, such as the following:
• Colors. What kinds of color combinations do you seem to gravitate toward? If an idea photo shows a large window, pay attention to the colors in the view outside the window, too. Those colors may be unconsciously informing your opinion of the room. Sometimes background colors from stucco, brick, plants, or stone get glossed over when we’re translating the photos to our homes. Even wood grains will bring a distinct shade of brown, yellow, red, or gray to the room.
• Lighting. Lighting can be tricky to pin down in photos. Interior spaces are often photographed during the day when the rooms are flooded with light. If your room doesn’t have large windows or faces north, you may not be able to recreate the same ambience. Try using a lighter color on your walls, floors, and large pieces to achieve a similar sun-drenched effect.
• Lighting at night. The second issue I often see in photos is a distinct absence of lamps. It’s all well and good to have a sunny room during the day, but without lamps, it won’t be much use at night. Add table and floor lamps to keep your room warm and inviting even after dark. (I have an ebook guide to lighting as well as this series of videos on the topic.)
• Style. In the photos you like, do you see a specific style as a recurring theme? Some recent popular styles include modern farmhouse, mid-century modern, and vintage chic. Google one of these styles to see if you can find any appealing rooms in the search results.
• Mood. What kind of mood do your favorite rooms express? Are the rooms bouncy and lively with bright colors and lots of patterns? Are they subdued and sultry with dark colors, striking silhouettes, and low lighting? Are they tranquil and Zen with natural textures, neutral colors, and soft daylight? To recreate a mood you like in your own space, consider the entire room. Instead of just buying a couple of furniture pieces or adding a handful of new accessories, think about how you can rework the whole space with colors, textures, and lighting that match those in your favorite idea rooms.
• Texture and materials. Most decorated spaces include a variety of textures and materials. An amateur mistake is to keep using the same material everywhere. For instance, someone who likes natural woodgrain buys all wood furniture to put in a room that has wood ceiling beams and a wood floor with a wood wainscoting. The overall effect will be uninteresting because there isn’t enough variety in texture and materials. Pay attention to how a variety of materials with differing textures—smooth, rough, soft, and hard—are mixed together to add interest to a room. Look at how paints and stains are used to alternate the colors through the space.
• Pattern. Depending on what you’re drawn to, patterns may or may not play a big role in the idea spaces you find in photos. Finding one pattern that you love in a large piece—such as curtains or a sofa—can give you a go-by fabric to work with for the rest of the room. A go-by fabric is a big help, as I talk about in this video.
If the idea photos you like tend to mix a wide range of patterns, that can present a challenge. Here are a few suggestions for mixing patterns:
◦ Separate patterns with solid colors. Patterns right next to each other can appear too busy (and sometimes headache-inducing!). If an ottoman and a sofa have different fabric patterns on them, try placing them across the room from each other. Solid fields of carpet and wall between the patterns will help them to coordinate. This is especially true when the patterns share many similar colors.
◦ Limit multicolor patterns when starting out. If the pattern you love has three or more colors, it will look great with patterns that are simpler—with just two colors—when the colors match up with your multicolor pattern. One multi-colored plaid in the same room with a simpler two-color medallion pattern and a two-color ivy pattern can look put together without being overwhelming.
◦ Look at your patterns together when shopping. If you have an existing fabric pattern in your home, take it with you when you go shopping. Keep in mind the suggestion to separate your patterns with solid colors. If two patterns don’t appear to coordinate right next to each other, place them on opposite ends of a solid-colored furniture piece in the shop. You might like them in the same room, just not right next to each other.
• Another helpful hint when searching online decor photos: Most decor photos show off large homes. In order to see ideas that work in normal-sized spaces, use the keyword “small” or “tiny” in your image searches.
Practice First
Still worried about how your decorating is going to turn out? Practice in smaller, more private rooms first. Try out a bold wallpaper in a half bath. Revamp the guest bedroom at the end of the hallway as a home office. If you feel you made a mistake, it won’t be front and center in your home. You can just try something different without incurring a big cost or experiencing major embarrassment. As you practice, you’ll build more confidence about your taste as well as your ability to bring your vision to life.
When things don’t look right to you, experiment! Almost anything can be adjusted. Often it’s not the furniture or accessories themselves that are the problem, it’s just the arrangement. If you don’t like the way the decor on your mantel looks, clear it off and start over. (I do this kind of thing all the time!) Look at the accessories you have and try varying your shapes or heights. Experiment with the colors: put objects with similar colors together, or alternate objects with different colors. Keep tweaking until you find a look that you like. If your seating furniture arrangement isn’t working for you, have a look at this video about placement options.
Shopping
When you’re shopping for your home, resist the temptation to make an all-or-nothing decision. If you need a piece of art over your fireplace, for instance, don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself to find the perfect item. Consider other possible options for the same art, in case it doesn’t work over the fireplace. Maybe you could hang it over your bed or in the dining room instead. This will give you multiple paths to success and help reduce your anxiety about getting it right on the first try.
Follow these tips to avoid common furniture size pairing mistakes:
• Side tables should match the arm heights of your upholstered furniture.
• Furniture pieces should have approximately the same seat heights and mostly the same back heights.
… Or Just Buy the Room!
Buying an entire room is expensive, but if you have the means, it’s an option. You don’t lose points for replicating someone else’s design. (And you don’t have to admit to it, like Ted in Schitt’s Creek.) If the showroom at the furniture store is exactly how you want your room to look, buy the whole thing and copy it! First, take measurements of everything to make sure you can fit it all in your space. Then take pictures of the showroom and copy everything: the walls, the flooring, the lighting, the art. Please note: the furniture store display likely floats seating pieces out from the wall. This is actually an important part of why the showroom’s furniture arrangement looks appealing to you. So, rather than shoving your new furniture up against the walls, scoot the pieces away from the walls and in closer relation to each other.
Try This At Home!
I hope this article helps as a start-from-zero decorating lesson! You can explore more Roominess.TV articles or videos to continue your journey. Drop a comment below to let me know how these ideas work for you!