If you are someone who has a rather precise image in your mind of how you’d like your home to look like, but when you try and recreate it, things slip away, and something just doesn’t feel right, you are not alone… Even people with the ability and talent to draw sometimes can’t make their hand draw what they can see so clearly in their imagination.

Regardless of the size of your house or apartment, or your interior design skills, there are a few simple steps you can follow to transform your living space into a warm, welcoming home. And the best news is you don’t have to spend too much money either. I am talking about harnessing the power of the jewellery of your home – home decorative accessories.

Plan Ahead and Don’t Overdo It

Planning ahead before buying decorative items will save you a lot of time and money. Know your space and its limits, and write them down. This way you will know how tall and how wide can your accessories be, and you’ll be able to fit them perfectly.

Source: nytimes.com

Slowly but Surely

Resist the urge to buy toо many items at once. Your complete home decor should be a carefully curated composition of items you love that complement each other and ennoble your home. Also, buying too many things will make you want to display them all, and you should be careful to not create a clutter in your rooms. Not only will this look messy and make a room feel stuffed and choked, but it will also make the room visually smaller. Remember to keep it simple. Make your accessories pleasant looking focus points.

Embrace Diversity

One more thing to try not to do is overflooding your space with similar things. Over-matching things may result in a boring, themed room that doesn’t feel like a home. This includes patterns, textures, colours, sizes, shapes, and even design styles.

Instead of using too much of the same, mix the decor from the style you like with some different items. Break the patterns: add one or more big items to a bunch of smaller ones of the same kind, such as vases in different heights.

You can choose one item with different geometrical shapes, such as one throw pillow with a different shape from the others. If you have a contemporary furniture, add something old-timey, something vintage like a small piece of furniture, or a decorative item. Alternate styles and colours of different items as well.

Play with tall, medium and short things on the same shelf for instance. Or put together items with different texture, pattern or colour. Variety is the key. But keep in mind that even variety can be overdone, and should be matched. Going back to the clothes analogy: you may love your jeans and t-shirt, but every now and then you like a nice dress or a nice suit.

Source: housebeautiful.com

Play with Asymmetry

Symmetry may be nice, but in small doses. Keeping everything symmetrical might seem like a good idea, but it can end up looking plain and boring. Instead, try asymmetrical decor arrangements and see how aesthetically pleasing it can be.

Throw in Some Throw Pillows

Throw pillows are a great way to accent a colour, to add more of a colour you want to highlight, or to attract attention. They can help show off a piece of furniture, and they can make a room look richer and more coherent.

Display Meaningful Items

Things that remind you of important people in your life, items from your travels, other memorabilia, collectables, they are all important to incorporate in your home. Enrich your home decor by adorning a shelf, an end or a side table, or a counter as if you were creating a stylish mini “museum of you”.

Not only will this decorative time capsule put a smile on your face, reminding you of pleasant experiences, but it will also make your home yours, while telling a story about you to your visitors.

Lastly, you can mix aesthetic home decorative accessories with your collectibles or souvenirs. Add items with colours that complement or contrast your memorabilia, or the other way around.

Source: www.lnart.ne

Artwork

Art is very personal and full of meaning, not only for the artist, but also for the person that will make it a part of their home. No one can tell you what you should or shouldn’t like. And, of course, what you don’t like has no place in your home. Of course, taste can change over the years as we grow, or as we obtain more and more art knowledge.

If you have art you want to display, you can try choosing your decorating items according to your art, so they complement it and give it an even clearer focus point. There are some rules of thumbs about hanging artwork, mainly regarding proportions: big walls – bigger pieces of art; small walls – smaller pieces art.

Books

Books are artwork on their own. They are meaningful in many, many ways, and this includes style. If you already have a lot of books, a big part of your decoration is done. Try playing with their placement on the shelves. Alternate between vertical rows and horizontal stacks. Add a few decorative elements on the shelves as well.

You can use a stack of books you have as base to decorative items, to elevate them, so that you achieve some height diversity. Even if you don’t have a lot of books, you can use the ones you already have in a smart way. And what’s more, they’ll be a great addition to the story your home tells about you.

If you can invest in more books. Not only will they enrich your home, but they’ll also enrich your life. Books will fill your place with stories more than anything. However, it’s preferable to buy books you actually want to read, rather than just for the purpose of decoration.

Source: designcafe.com

Be Yourself

Your home should represent the real you, or the “you” you are trying to reach. Your home should feel like the safest and cosiest place on earth. So, remember to follow only your own taste and baits of advice that don’t go entirely against it. Don’t add something to your home only because it’s trendy, or because other people like it.