Welcome to our blog on Home Decorating Tips!
We are going to give you some of the best tips to decorate your home like a pro. Let’s dive in.
Tip #1: Colorful Front Doors
- Colour is a powerful visual tool for expressing emotions and impressions.
- It is an economical way to refresh a home’s curb appeal and create a great impression.
- Bright colored doors are a trend in many new neighborhoods.
- The colour of doors says a lot about the owners, so it should be given careful consideration.
- Red – welcoming and warm. In Feng Shui – red is a symbol of an “opening” of energy or “Chi”. It is also considered to bring luck.
- Black – Magical, mystery, elegance. The owners of a home with a black door are thought to be strong and sophisticated.
- Pink – Owners who choose to paint their door pink – love to make a statement. Pink is related to people who are fearless and fun.
- Orange Door- is related to creativity, high energy, optimism, enthusiasm. Painting your door orange expresses positivity to your neighborhood while drawing people in.
- Green – The most common door colour – stands for tradition. Its meaning is tied to growth, prosperity, and wealth.
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Blue doors project prosperity and abundance – the darker the shade, the more sense of tranquility, peace, and elegance it will bring. This colour is associated with the peace of the sea.
Tip #2: Walls Are Your Homes Backdrops
- Do not follow trends – just because a colour is trending does not mean that it will go well with the finishes in your home.
- If they want to pick on their own, the best is to work with a colour(s) that aremost predominant in the fixed finishes in their home.
- Lighter colours make spaces feel larger on the contrary darker colours will makethem feel smaller.
- When choosing colour for a feature wall – remember Darker colours will make walls recede.
- Lighting makes colours look different – always consider r the effect natural and artificial lighting in their home will have in the paint colour they choose.
- Here I would suggest for people to work with a colour expert (Like myself) to get a colour read so that they get a colour perfect home.
- My favorite go-to when it comes to walls are neutrals.
Tip #3: Living Room Area
- When furnishing a space, people need to think of its purpose.
- For a living room, its main purpose is to entertain and have a conversation.
- When choosing the layout of your furniture aim for the ability to carry out an intimate conversation, meaning furniture should be close together.
- Common mistake: all furniture pushed against the walls.
- Ensure furniture is the right size for the space.
- Choose a layout that is balanced with the overall space.
Tip #4: Let the Brightness in
- Naturally lit homes are one of the most sought out features in homes today.
- If you are wanting to give your home a refresh, make sure you are letting as much natural into your home.
- A naked window is always better than a covered one with an old heavy curtain. Even if they are custom and expensive.
- If you want privacy, add sheer or semi-sheer window treatment.
- When choosing fabric for window coverings, consider their quality and colour. Darker colours will fade over time while lighter ones will tend to last longer.
- My favourite go-to look for window coverings are panels that are simple, semi-sheer to provide privacy and still allow the brightness in.
Tip #5: Mirror, mirror on the Walls
- Mirrors are a beautiful way to make a space feel brighter as it allows for light to bounce from them.
- I like to use at least one mirrored element in every room I decorate.
- Placing a mirror in the wrong spot can be just the same at not having one at all.
- Mirrors to add light around a room – place perpendicular to the window and not directly in front of them to add brightness.
- According to Feng Shui mirror placement can affect your overall well-being and should never be placed in front of your bed to not interfere with your sleep.
Tip #6: Scale and Placement Artwork to your Wall
- Art not in proportion to the wall and hung too high is one of the most common mistakes I see when staging or redesigning a home.
- The middle of the picture should be at the average eye level. If you are tall, consider the height of shorter people as well.
- For a larger wall, consider one larger oversized piece or a group of smaller pieces to create one larger whole, gallery wall style.
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If you are hanging a group of art pieces, hang them all at the samedistance from each other to make them look their best.
Tip #7: Let there be Light
- Lighting is a key element in creating the right mood and allowing you to complete tasks within a home.
- Every home should have 3 kinds of lighting: ambient, task, and accent.
- These should be layered to provide you with different options to suit the different activities and emotions you want to create.
- Ambient lighting, provides overall illumination and often comes from ceiling fixtures. When buying a home, make sure the task lighting is in the right place for the room to function.
- Off-set lighting in the dining room is one of the most common issues we must deal with when staging or decorating a home.
- Tasks lighting is added for those areas that would require extra brightness like your kitchen island or over your stove. These come in the form of pendants or portlights.
- Accent lighting is for decorative purposes like highlighting an art piece or accentuating a particular corner.
- Accent lighting is also used and helps create different moods in your spaces using lights directed to a certain part of the room or dimmed to create a more intimate mood.
Tip #8: Proportion is key (Area Rug Sizing)
- Area rugs define an “area”. In a living room, it defines the conversation space.
- Area rugs should be in proportion to the space they are in. They take up prime real estate in the space they are put in, and its size should be considered carefully.
- I always advise my clients that all legs of the chairs should fall inside the area rug.
- At the very least the front two legs of the sofa and chairs should rest on it.
- If you choose a rug that is too small your room will look out of scale.
Tip #9: Everything in its Place (Decluttering)
- The longer you live in a home, the higher the tendency for you to collect things. Things you use every day or sometimes they just become part of the overall fixed fixtures in your home.
- Built-ins, bookshelves, and closets are some of the most cluttered spaces I see in homes. They tend to be the storage areas of many homes. They often hold 2-3 times more than they are intended to hold.
- For this one, it is best to get a fresh pair like a professional stager or organizer to give you a hand in sorting through things and placing them to make your room organized and functional.
Tip #10: Use tricks to Raise Lower ceilings
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Paint the ceiling white to make the room feel more higher and not as claustrophobic.
- Hang curtains higher than the windows, to trick your eye to thinking the room is taller.
- Standard curtain panes come in 84-96 inches, depending on the height of your window this will allow you to go a few inches above the window.
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Some home goods stores will order in longer panes 108” or 120” if you need longer panes.
- Anything higher than this, will require custom drapes.
- You can also play with vertically stripped panes to visually elongate the walls.
Tip #11: Give your Old finishes a Cinderella Treatment
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Giving a dated kitchen an update is the best way to increase the equity in your home while enjoying a fresh look.
- There are many ways to update your kitchen inexpensively.
- Countertops/Backsplash
- If within budget, change them up, if not,
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Consider Covering them using a peel and stick treatment, acounter coating product or use a refinishing product like Epoxy.
- Cabinets
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A fresh coat of paint can go a long way – go bolder and try a multi-color kitchen.
- Give the cabinets a new look by updating the doors and hardware.
- Lighting
- Instead of buying new ones, consider:
- Use a coat of spray paint to update their look
- Use rub-n-buff to add a metallic look
- Update the shades or globes
Many home improvement stores offer a variety of
conversion kit that enables you to change the look
of lighting fixture in a snap.