Your home should be your safe haven away from the trials and tribulations of the outside space. With bright and beautiful home decor, soft, plush furnishings and artworks or family photos to offer more colour and personality, styling your home can be as easy as 1,2,3. The placement of these objects and how the items correlate with one another is learning the art of styling your home, and we have 6 special tips just for you.
1. It’s all about contrast and scale
Contrast is the first key to a beautiful and unique display. Through creating tension with height, materials and variety, you will be able to create something that is both layered and feels pulled together. The smoothness of one surface juxtaposed with a rough texture of another become all the more interesting as our eyes are viewing the contrast as a whole and not the individual items. If your collection is all of one type, you can display variety through height. Height is incredibly important to all displays as they create visual tension to avoid a space looking flat and uniformed, thereby enticing the eye to wander.
2. Keep room for negative space
For your objects to look curated, they need negative space around them to breathe. It can be very tempting to start filling shelves with everything we find interesting, but this leads to a display feeling chaotic, difficult to read and failing to balance the fine line between interest and personal junk yard. In the same way you approach clutter and storage, you should curate your objects so that only those items you really love are given centre stage.
3. The rule of odd numbers
This rule states that any collection you display should not make a symmetrical whole. Symmetry is far less interesting to read. Even if you have two symmetrical pieces, you will need to add contrast for the cohesion and tension to sing. Odd numbers are your answer. Think of bookends: they work visually because they are contrasted by a different material, books in between which makes them a collection of three, an odd number.
4. Use textile boldly
Using fabric in interiors is a great way to inject an illustration of your personal style, while adding textures that are both visual and sensory. In small spaces, something as simple as a detailed print on a chair or a highly textured rug can help to pull focus and draw the eye to where comfort is suggested. The depth and comfort these textiles create also bring a room to life. When the seasons change, consider a change of textiles too that carefully suit the climate and purpose. We don’t simply mean swapping heavy throws in winter for light linens in summer, but also altering your colour and pattern choices too.
5. The importance of hardware
Surfaces you interact with everyday should be worth investing in. Hardware are the finishes that elevate your space to take it up a notch from simple to extraordinary. Take headboards in the bedroom for example, as their finish accentuates the space whether covered in fabric, exposed wood or any other material for that matter. These hardware items allow the space to take on multiple layers with creating interesting points of view in every angle. When choosing your items, be a bit mindful of what you place where, and if the items ‘speak to each other’ in the way that colours and various textures correlate.
6. Curating alternative art
If you are not the biggest fan of art or do not know quite where to start, displayed wall hangings should be of pieces you enjoy seeing, that also bring you and your space some happiness. Your home is personal and not a museum, so there are no hard and fast rules on whether something is too kitsch, too over-the-top or too simple. Floating shelves are a great idea to place onto the wall, as they allow you to style books and ornaments. DIY art pieces are also a great way of holding onto memories along with photographs of family. Curate your wall the way you would like and be proud to make that statement on the wall, it is your home after all.
