How to decorate your home yourself: 9 rules and ideas to make it more beautiful

You know, the shared goal is to create a home with taste, welcoming, practical, functional and aesthetically welcoming.

People go to great lengths to buy furniture and accessories by taking advice from the shopkeeper or a friend, but the result is not always satisfactory.

“I have tried my hand at furnishing my home, but I think something is always missing”.

“I have already bought all the furnishings, but I don’t think that a great personality shines through”.

“I did everything, but can you tell me if I need to add shelves and what can I put on them?”.

“I need the architect to complete the look of the house and buy the accessories“.

These are the requests and affirmations I hear most often.

Have you also started furnishing your home and are you looking for ideas to improve your already furnished apartment ?

Furnishing your home yourself: the mistakes to avoid (and how to fix them)

Furnish your home by yourself

It is known that every great journey starts from a small step, but in these cases it would have been better to have done a few dozen less!

Not everyone has the opportunity to be followed by a professional in the field of furniture.

So let’s see what are the most common mistakes and those to avoid such as Ebola to create a cover environment.

Don’t design the light

Sore point: most DIY homes have a lighting system that leaves a lot to be desired , indeed, which is nothing short of embarrassing.

Basic lights in the center of the room, nothing particularly interesting or that catches the attention. Chandeliers everywhere, ceiling lights of dubious taste and grandmother’s appliques.

Even those who buy a new home and do not specify to the builder who wants something more will find themselves with the usual light points with no escape.

I often found myself on construction sites where there were not even under-cabinet lights in the kitchen or with less than the minimum wage in the living area!

This is an important element to take into consideration because it will greatly influence the aesthetic performance of your interior.

For example, many don’t like suspended ceilings and don’t like non-recessed spotlights either. This is a problem when you want to create something beautiful and have a single light spot in the center of the room.

My advice is to shop around to understand what lighting alternatives you have, or to have the light designed by a professional.

Choose colors at random

Mistakes to avoid in DIY decor

One of the mistakes to avoid in home decor is choosing colors without referring to a palette .

The risk is to have too few in a room or, on the contrary, a patchwork of materials and colors. The color of a wall should be chosen on the basis of three criteria:

  • The corrective effect it can have in the room. I wrote a post dedicated to this topic.
  • The need to make a corner more spectacular or fill a void.
  • The desire to combine colors with the furniture or create an accent wall .

In any case, to give an example, it is not correct to take a color that you like and spread it all over the house or parts of it, not caring about the rest.

The effect will always appear not designed, therefore discounted or mismatched.

There is a section in this blog , constantly updated, that explains how to choose and combine colors and materials. I advise you to read it!

This article below is very important for those who are approaching DIY furniture and have to set up a color palette.

Place the furniture only on the walls, around the perimeter of the room

The arrangement of the furniture should be functional, not ballroom style.

Leaving too much space in the center to place everything on the sides is not a good strategy because it won’t save you space.

Often times this habit of putting everything aside also causes a disproportion of the furnishings. Too large sofas on small walls or floating tables in an empty space.

The contemporary furniture also brings with it a studied space organization .

Try using cartons and floor clutter to simulate an interior layout. I know it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either!

A recommendation: do not call the architect when you have already decided everything. Try to contact him when you have the first doubts to avoid the crisis.

Thinking of doing without a style

Any architect or interior designer who has to approach the definition of an interior starts from the end , that is, from the style he wants to recreate in an environment.

Thinking of doing without it, combining furniture that you like taken here and there without a common thread is a beginner’s mistake.

As well as trying to recycle all the furnishings from a previous interior. The interior is like a nice dress. I don’t think you hope to wear it for more than 10 years.

The advantage that an architect guarantees you is an overview that perhaps you cannot have.

To make your life easier you can search as many inspirations as possible on the net about the interior you want to create. Obviously it is not necessarily easy to put it into practice, indeed, generally it is not because the spaces are always complex, but it is at least a guide to not buying the wrong furniture.

Once you have found the right inspirations, if you don’t want to mess around you should ” inspire yourself faithfully ” that is to copy the most beautiful in the photos.

Be in a hurry

One of the most wrong attitudes when furnishing a home is to want everything immediately .

In reality, decorating is a slow and gradual process, especially when doing it yourself.

Haste causes the following consequences:

  1. It makes you buy furniture that you don’t even know if it will fit.
  2. You buy furniture and accessories at the same time, which means that you are going to your taste.
  3. Buy monochromatic furniture: all gray, all white or other colors that create a flat environment.
  4. You are probably combining different styles.
  5. Paint the walls one color just because you saw it in the newspaper.

The remedy for all this is one: stop.

You have to start with the largest volume furnishings , trying to match them to the colors of the floor and create harmony with the colors of the walls.

Leave the complements at the end, but design those too. Proceed step by step. Do not listen to those who make you anxious, in a hurry and those who give you the discount only by midnight this evening.

The best decision is the one that makes you happy: don’t make sad or unconvincing choices just because you don’t want to see that empty shelf.

In fact, if you are planning to renovate your home, the architect will not be able to help you if you have run out of budget or if you can only buy a few vases or change a light bulb!

How to furnish your home with taste

When it comes to decorating your home with good taste , many enter an unprecedented loop of anxiety and panic.

To create a welcoming atmosphere we often start from an idea of ​​the environment and gradually we realize that it is not so pleasant, so we often try to change something, to run for cover.

We just have to furnish and you know, the dream of Italians is to have a house as beautiful and comfortable as possible, but we start from the assumption that a welcoming, relaxing, serene and comfortable home has characteristics that are repeated, despite the styles and shapes.

It is useless to go around it.

How to make a home cozy with furniture

cozy home

Soft atmospheres and warm colors

The furnishing of a cozy home has 5 basic, essential elements:

  1. The right light , possibly natural.
  2. Presence of “warm” colors .
  3. Presence of exposed woods, metals and enveloping fabrics, not too trivial.
  4. Functionality and organization , limiting clutter.
  5. Presence of not too cheap curtains and accessories , which express personality.
cozy home

White and wood, a winning combination

A NOT welcoming home , on the other hand, has these characteristics:

  1. It is furnished only in cool colors (gray, blue, black, white).
  2. It has a lot of lacquered furniture , smooth hard surfaces or many “glossy” materials that cause a showroom effect.
  3. It has an almost artificial light that does not enhance any environment.
  4. It has no touch of personality or unique characteristics that differentiate it from the others.
  5. It is badly organized , therefore not very functional or uncomfortable.
cozy home

Soft fabrics and warm textures

I get a lot of help request messages.

Especially from those who have already made a piece of furniture and do not feel it is theirs, or who have furnished a house in shades of gray and have a feeling of coldness.

Here, I always suggest that you keep a few details in mind.

cozy home

The woods that make the difference

The woods, that fundamental touch of chic

It is true that in recent years there has been the triumph of white, with an explosion of hyper-lacquered and smooth furnishings, combined with surfaces as smooth and shiny as the “marble effect”.

It is also true that a house in a glossy total look, especially when combined with grays or blacks, goes straight to the ice age.

A cozy home has a visible presence of wood with exposed grain.

Obviously not too bleached or lacquered. Generally a good starting point is parquet. The wooden floor solves 50% of the problems of a depersonalized home, making it easier to create a truly elegant and welcoming space.

Of course, then there remains the question of combining parquet with other materials , but I have already talked about it in this post.

cozy home

The right parquet is a good starting point

Wood, never too yellow or red, is the basis of the idea of ​​naturalness for a home.

Everyone will tell you about accessories, colors and carpets, but the reality is this: wood is a fundamental choice to give your home a round, soft, relaxing and warm atmosphere.

Unless you want to create a quintessentially cool Scandinavian look (which is then “warmed” by soft, long-haired fabrics), don’t choose bleached or overly pickled woods. Choose natural shades of oak, walnut, oak, elm, teak, iroko, merbau, wenge.

cozy home

Combining two woods is not impossible!

The floor is an easy first approach, but if you already have a defined floor, which is not a wood, you can work on the furnishings, inserting open elements or containers in which the wood grain is visible, which gives a sense of refinement and preciousness that no lacquer can give.

This idea stems from the need to create a welcoming atmosphere and to do so it is necessary to bring a certain naturalness back into the home , which has been lost due to too cheap or minimalist trends, such as total white. So ok with all materials and colors that are inspired by nature. It is definitely the right choice.

cozy home

Colors to avoid mistakes

As I said, one of the main errors concerning “cold” and depersonalized homes is the abuse of glacial colors. Blue, black, white, purple, gray. Above all, the latter are responsible for a truly impactful environment from the point of view of emotion.

And often just adding a sherbet-colored cushion to the sofa isn’t enough to change that. The choice must be made upstream.

A fully lacquered or glossy house, very reflective, totally moves away from the concept of “warmth”, making subconscious images of shops, showrooms and shopping center windows take over.

All this is not due to the color itself, but to the eye of the beholder.

cozy home

Warm color combinations

We are able to accept some colors better and change our perception of them based on an idea or expectation.

The colors become moods, objects, thoughts, shapes. After all, it is not unusual to link red to love and black to hate.

According to the historians of the language at the origin of the word “color” there would be the verb “conceal”: appearances would hide the true essence of things. Color, therefore, comes between us and knowledge.

cozy home
cozy home

Color therefore has the ability to influence our psyche, which is why it should be used wisely. The warmest colors are certainly taupe, beiges, browns, whites and warm grays, but even an indigo or a blue can become warm when combined with rich woods or fabrics in the right shades.

Therefore, a warm house does not necessarily have to be dove-gray, on the contrary.

All of one identical color will soon turn out flat and boring.

Mix well warm, cold and pastel shades, combine whites with darker walls, woods, marbles, fabrics and metals.

cozy home

Pastel shades are also warm

A warm home is a home that is “rich” in well-designed elements.

Choose the right accessories

Many start from this point, that is, from the end. In reality, as I have explained to you, it is only a palliative to break the total iciness of an environment, not a long-term solution. What makes a home cozy is more than a coffee table or a suspension.

cozy home

Metals that break the “all flat”

I’ll tell you some secrets to choose the right accessories , without making the situation worse.

First of all, a piece of advice: don’t overdo it. If your house is all gray and you want to warm it up a little, don’t buy a red painting. Extremely is useless.

  • Better to integrate in more points and with more strategies

For example, you can introduce soft curtains to dampen the plastic effect, then add a long or soft pile rug, cushions and change the suspensions. You can also introduce some natural elements such as plants or flowers or change the sofa.

  • Soft vs stiff

Don’t buy beds, sofas, chairs, ottomans and more that look too boxy or stiff. A fabric is beautiful when it is lived in, due to its creases and imperfections. Only in this way can it give a sense of elegance and comfort. The too rigid is perceived as detached, not welcoming.

  • The correct lights

Often a house appears cold only because the wrong lights have been chosen or the least interesting points have been illuminated. Choose natural lights and create a mix of direct lights and mood lights.

  • Metals redefine

Think of a suspension or some chromed accessory, in steel, rose gold, bronze or the like, such as a mirror. They are important for creating precious reflections in an environment that is too dull and flat. Don’t overdo it, though.

  • Dynamic complements

The accessories are lucky enough to be dynamic, that is, they can be moved or replaced at any time, without major damage. However, you must proceed calmly, without throwing yourself headlong into an unbridled shopping of objects. Define key areas that can be completed with elements such as paintings, cushions or tables and poufs and dedicated to the choice of these, one environment at a time.

cozy home

Precious and soft fabrics

  • Design gems

Nobody reveals it, but a nice trick to reduce the sense of depersonalization is to introduce iconic design objects to relax the eye with less unknown accessories. An eye that recognizes objects or furnishings will be more likely to “feel at home”.

  • Beware of patchwork!

The accessories should be in the same color. We are often led to buy things of various colors and kinds and it is a serious mistake. The color palette of a room must always be under control, to avoid visual clutter.

cozy home

Finally, I want to make you a clarification. With this post I don’t want to say that a total white, total black or minimalist home is evil. On the contrary.

These houses have a very strong concept that must be studied well and first of all accepted by the customer. They are never an architect’s imposition, but always a choice.

Even this type of mood can be elegant and welcoming. 

cozy home

However, when you already have a very well-set house, especially in the furnishings, and you have no way to completely overturn it, you can think about intervening with the accessories, or creating a controlled relooking project, by means of photographic rendering of the result, to get a precise idea. of change.

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