Don't Just Decorate Your Home, Design It!


One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people make is that they assume that their home is going to look exactly the way that they want just by decorating it. Now, there's no doubt that decorating your home is one of the most important ways to make sure that it's got a ton of personality and that it stands out from the crowd. However, there's a lot more that goes into making your home great than just sticking some pictures on the wall or slapping a fresh coat of paint on the walls. If you've ever looked at an interior design blog or magazine and wondered why your home doesn't ever look quite like the ones that you see, it's because while your home has been decorated, those homes have been designed. That might sound like kind of a confusing distinction, but those two things are very different in a number of incredibly important ways. With that in mind, here are some ways to stop merely decorating your home and start designing it.

Learn colour theory
Colour theory is one of those things that people always tend to assume is incredibly complicated but in reality is actually rather simple. Sure, it's possible to get very deep into colour theory if you so choose but on a surface level understanding which colours complement each other and which ones clash is something that most people can figure out fairly easily. If you don't pay attention to think like colour theory, then you're going to end up with a home that looks either overly bland or incredibly gaudy. Brushing up on the very basics of colour theory really can make a huge amount of difference to your home.

Consider the details
A lot of people tend to only ever think about the really big stuff when making any changes to their homes. They assume that the only things that will make a serious difference to the way that their home feels are big things like furniture choice or the way that each room is arranged. In reality, there are a lot of things that people tend to ignore when it comes to the design of their homes. Everything from living room ceiling lights to the colour of your kitchen cabinets can have an impact on how any individual room feels. A lot of the time it's the little details that elevate a home from just okay to looking truly amazing. One of the most simple things you can do to add small details is to use acrylic photo frames. You can add artwork, family photos, keepsakes and more. These little details can really make your home feel like yours and personal.


Think about flow
One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people make when considering their home's design is that they treat each room as though it exists separately from all of the others. Sure, each room is it's own contained space and should have its own distinct personality. But you shouldn't forget that each room should also flow into the next as much as possible. If you walk into a room and something about it just feels wrong, there's a good chance that it's because it lacks any sense of flow into the other rooms around it. Think about the kind of movement that people will typically take through your home and try to create spaces that allow for that kind of flow. It's a subtle change, and it's something that most people wouldn't even notice on a conscious level. But if your home lacks a sense of flow, then you're going to feel it, even if you don't know why.

Don't be afraid to experiment
When you're trying to give your home a sense of its own identity, you need to make sure that you're not playing it safe too often. Doing that is just going to lead you to end up falling into the trap of only ever decorating your home on a surface level. Make sure that you're willing to try different room arrangements, different colours throughout the house, and even think about ways that you could adjust the structure of the house itself.

Of course, it's pretty much always going to be true that the process of designing your home as well as decorating it is going to be a challenge. After all, putting up a few pictures here are there is always going to be easier than taking the time to really understand what makes your home the best possible place to live. How much time and effort you're willing to put into your home is, of course, always going to be up to you but it's a good idea to think carefully about what it is that you really want of your home and what you're willing to do in order to achieve that.