If you’ve ever watched a television show on which individuals flip homes or remodel spaces, you may be jealous of the results. After all, you most likely own your home, as well, but it might not seem as put together as one that is professionally designed by an interior decorator. One of the reasons that home remodels look so great on television is because of a few principles of design that go a long way in transforming a space for good-looking to great. Here’s how you can use the same design principles that professional decorators use to decorate your home.
Balance the space, especially if it’s small
Balance is one of the best principles to follow when you’re decorating your home. Put in layman’s terms, balance means that things are evenly distributed throughout your home and each room in it. You don’t want too many items in one space, otherwise, the room will feel small and cramped. At the same time, however, having too few items will make it feel like your home isn’t ever lived in and is empty. In addition to considering quantity, it’s also a good idea to have items at different heights throughout the room. If all of your bookcases and other furniture make it so that there’s a lot of space above the five foot line in your home, it may make people feel uncomfortably tall. Balance is the difference between looking like a cluttered packrat or someone without enough money to decorate and somebody with taste and style.
Create emphasis with accent pieces
If you’re on a budget, emphasis is a great way to take advantage of a design principle without breaking the bank. Emphasis ensures that there are focal points in every space of your home, directing guest’s focus so that they look where you want them to. Emphasis also helps underline the function in each room, such as drawing everyone’s eye towards the television in the room you watch sports on or accenting an impressive dishware hutch in your dining room. Emphasis allows you to show off your best pieces, which also means that you can focus your budget on these items instead of needing to purchase expensive pieces of furniture and decor throughout your home. Think about emphasizing something in every part of your home, including in hallways. Even an inexpensive, yet personal piece of artwork from Simple Canvas Prints can go a long way in creating dynamic design in your home.
Unity ties a room together
An additional design principle to consider when decorating is unity. This principle, which is also known as harmony, refers to how each aspect of your room works together to form a cohesive statement. Without unity, things in your home will feel mismatched and slapdash, rather than carefully thought out. Selecting similar shapes, textures, materials, and color palettes are all ways to create unity in a room. At the same time, however, you must remember to balance the space, too, or it may feel too one-note. You can use contrast to disrupt unity and create excitement and emphasis in each space once you’ve established a pattern of materials and colors. This allows you to pick a theme for each room without overwhelming yourself or your guests with too much of one thing in a manner that appears obsessive.
Each design principle seems simple, and they are on their own. However, when you begin to combine different design principles together, you can create an elegant, cohesive space that impresses others without having to break the bank. Keep concepts like balance, emphasis, unity, and contrast in mind as you approach each room in your home, and you’ll be able to create a stunning transformation with little thought and careful planning.
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