Key Principles of Home Decor
Home decor is perhaps one of the most talked about topic, by homeowners. Which is understandable, bearing in mind that both renters and property buyers want an aesthetically appealing residence. And what better way to actuate that than by using house furnishings? While there are many ways of decorating the property, not all decors are suitable for every home. Besides, what works in one room might not be as effective in another. So how can an owner use décor to transform the property? The answer lies in observing the following key principles of home decor.
Style and Theme
An essential principle that you must consider is Style. In fact, it promotes and to a large extent determines other principles such as Unity and Harmony. Every home has a particular theme or style, which could be Casual, Formal, Contemporary, Victorian, Traditional, Country, Tuscan, Black and White, Floral, Rustic, Shabby Chic, Tropical, or Western. You can use different types of décor to actuate whatever style or theme you desire. Similarly, if you are furnishing an already styled or themed room, introducing a decorative piece that complements the style can help enhance its aesthetics.
No matter what you wish to accomplish with your property, it always starts with style. Whether you are decorating your home for yourself, or to sell it, or to rent it, you’ll always start by first determining the style you wish to employ. If working with a professional management company, they may suggest certain design styles and themes based on their experience of what appeals to renters. If looking to sell it, realtors and interior designers may suggest something else. All in all, you must first consider the end goal and then begin with the overall style and theme outline.
Balance
Balance is all about distributing visual weight within a room in an equal fashion. When looking for home decor balance, there are three main styles that you can consider. These are the symmetrical, asymmetrical as well as the radial. The symmetrical kind is common in traditionally styled interiors and involves placing identical objects on both sides of the room, on a vertical axis, to create an impression of mirror images. Modern house designs, however, mostly feature the asymmetrical style, which realizes balance through the use of different objects that have similar visual weight or eye attraction. Lastly, we have the radial symmetry that requires arraying your decorative pieces around a center point. An excellent example of this is a spiral staircase.
Focal Point
A primary challenge when using interior décor is how to eliminate boredom from the design. An efficient way of accomplishing that is by introducing one or more focal points within the room. For the focal point to be compelling nonetheless, it must be both dominant and exciting so as to draw attention and encourage the audience to explore further. Moreover, a well-actuated focal point should not just leave a lasting impression on the viewer. Rather, it should be distinguishable by scale, color, theme, and style that blends seamlessly into the room. Suitable examples of focal points include the fireplace, artwork, an elegant furniture piece, an aquarium, or a flat TV.
Unity and Harmony
When designing a home, you must have the bigger picture in mind. Which is to say, you must think of the house as a combination of spaces connected by stairs and walls, and not just one isolated structure. Such a totality perspective will help you to understand that all chambers within your house need décor that defines a specific theme and style. It doesn’t mean you should use the same decorative pieces throughout the room. That will simply be boring. What it implies is that your furnishings should work and complement each other perfectly, so as to build up the overall house design. An ingenious way of accomplishing unity and harmony is through color schemes, where you select several colors and apply them in varying shades.
Rhythm
If you want your home decoration efforts to be evident, you must ensure that your design offers a continuous, recurring and organized movement of visual patterns. Rhythm, means you need to introduce a sense of progression, repetition, transition and contrasts.
Repetition is all about using the same element such as color, line, or texture several times within a space, while progression involves increasing or decreasing one or more qualities, for instance, gradation size, or color of an element.
Transition on its part is all about ensuring a smooth flow, which enables the eye to glide naturally from one point to another. Lastly, we have contrast, which involves the use of opposing elements to enliven the space. For instance, combining squares and circles, or black and white colors.
Details
Any seasoned interior designer will attest that when it comes to home decor, the devil is indeed in the detail. You must ensure that they are perfect but subtle and not so obvious. However, many people are unaware of this fact, and they end up ignoring “minor” details only to end up with an unsightly looking room. Avoid such disappointments by paying close attention to details when designing your home’s interior and ensure that your choice of décor is the right style, color, scale, and proportion. After all, if you can notice something is wrong with your home’s design, your guest also will.