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5 Low cost design tips for a smart & stylish home

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Do you look with envy at the interior of other people’s homes and think why isn’t mine like that? Style is a question of confidence – the confidence to choose the right things for the right places, without compromising on practicality. With these five interior design tips, you can have a stylish home that oozes with confidence.

1. Every picture tells a thousand stories

They do, don’t they? You look at your family photos and behind each one is a story, either a humorous one or one tinged with sadness. Those family portraits and stories are important and they should be shared. But there is one problem with the look of all these photos: the different frames. A boho style – the mish-mash of frame styles, sizes and colours – is difficult to pull off. It can either look perfect, or a complete mess! Like the mish-mash style? Great, but keep elements of the display the same such as not mixing too many different styles of frames and colours. Stick with similar colours and have one photo that is the star of the show and around which the rest revolve.

Want a new look but with the same photos? There are two great options;

  • New frames – get your display sorted with new frames, all the same colour but in different sizes. However, when hanging keep a sense of uniformity by choosing one large photos and then groups of similar sized photos to complement that one.
  • Photos in frames on shelving – we love photo collections clustered on shelving units, create your own glass shelving using minimalist glass clamps so as not to distract from the items in the shelf.

2. De-clutter and organise

Our homes are stuffed with all kinds of objects but ask yourself this: how much of this stuff do you really need and want? How often is it used? Why are you still hanging on to it? Even if you don’t have a hoarding problem, you will be amazed at the stuff you end up keeping for no apparent reason other than you don’t have time to sort through it all. The time has come to de-clutter, room by room. But, as part of the cathartic process of de-cluttering, you need to create storage solutions. We are not talking plastic boxes, however, stuffed in wardrobes and under beds. We are talking bespoke, built storage solutions that work, are accessible and are stylish. You will be amazed at how affordable bespoke storage solutions are and you will be impressed at just how useful they turn out to be (and stylish too!).

3. Order on the eye 

A big impact on confidence with your interior design style is that you assume from looking at glossy magazines that you simply hammer a few nails in, put pictures on the wall and lay a rug or two about the place to get a designer feeling in your home. They do make it look easy but what many interior design schemes miss is dimension and scale, and that can make all the difference to how your home looks.

  • Artwork on wallslike your photos, artwork on the walls lifts the mood of the room but, there is one snag: it is usually too high. It may seem slightly obsessive but measure your wall and have it no more than two-thirds of the way up the wall. This brings about a sense of proportion.
  • Rugs on floors – rugs are artwork for the floor and the same principle applies. Rugs are often too big or too small for a space, either swamping it or being ‘lost’ in the floor. Again, measure the space where you intend putting the rug and buy one that is in proportion to the area you have.

4. Throw ‘that thing’ away…

We all have one – something that we just can’t part with but that has no use or is past its best. Some of us are braver than others and throw ‘that thing’ away or recycle it. What is ‘that thing’? The thing that you have always hated, always wanted to get rid, always wanted to change. It can be something fairly simple – like the sofa you were given when you first moved in or the rickety old piano that is supposedly an heirloom – or it may be something structural or ‘fixed’ such as the monster fireplace that is beyond ugly. You will need to have a replacement lined up or a plan of action but if you know there is a tiled or wooden floor beneath the 1970s carpet, why are you still sticking with it Check before knocking walls down, but if it can be done, go ahead and get rid of ‘that thing’ that has always irritated you.

5. Experiment

Trends come and go. Some will appeal, some won’t. Some will work in your home and some won’t, but here’s the thing: try them because you may be surprised at what does actually work (even though you bet your last fiver that it wouldn’t!).

 

This blog post is an advertisement feature that has been written in collaboration with a sponsor. The pink links in this post indicate a sponsored link 🙂

2 Responses

  1. Right on point Cassie! Organizing and throwing stuff away is the first step to having a stylish room. You might have kids, pets, and other factors but that will help. I wanted to point out just how important it is to have the right lighting in any room of the house.

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Cassie is a freelance writer with a Masters degree in Lifestyle Promotion Studies and is trained in Personal Money Management. She loves to ‘get the look for less’ so regularly shares thrifty-living advice, DIY interior design ideas and low-cost recipes on her blog.

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