I bet you want your house to feel like home, to look stylish, cohesive, and pulled together, just like your favorite homes on HGTV, Pinterest, or Instagram.
But you don’t know where to start. Or you’ve tried and you feel like you’ve wasted so much time and money. Maybe you’ve Googled all the things and instead of helping you, that left you feeling more confused.
If that’s you, I want to help.
Here’s how to decorate your home in 5 simple steps!
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How most people go about decorating
Most people try to decorate like this….
They see a room they like on Pinterest and they think maybe that’s how they want their space to look. They pin the picture and keep scrolling. Then they see another room they like. And another and another. The problem is each space has different colors and styles. Now they’re confused.
So, they spend some time on Google, searching for ‘how to decorate’ articles. Cause, you know, maybe those will have the answers. But the 195,000,000 results that come up are “11 Foolproof Decorating Tips”, or “52 Best Interior Decorating Secrets” type posts that are filled with great ideas for various parts of decorating, but none of them say where to start decorating or share which steps come next. Which equals more frustration and confusion.
Then they try to make their home look like an Instagrammer’s house they like. They go out and buy paint, a new rug, and some pillows. Maybe a new lamp or two for good measure. But when they get them home those things just don’t look right.
Maybe they go out looking for pieces and become so overwhelmed with all the options that they just can’t choose anything. So they come home with nothing. And they’re back to square one.
Or they want to use what they already have, but they can’t quite pull it all together. No matter how they rearrange the furniture and accessories the room still looks off.
Now they’ve wasted oodles of time and money, and they are no further ahead.
They’re left scratching their head, asking “Why can’t I just figure out this decorating thing already?“
Does that sound familiar?
I wasn’t always good at decorating either
I wasn’t always a good decorator. I didn’t know how to decorate our house at all.
Sure I could recognize a pretty space when I saw one. But I definitely couldn’t create one.
Wanna know why?
Because I was decorating all willy-nilly, trying to follow all the tips and tricks in no particular order. Just like the not-so-hypothetical person in the story above!
Don’t believe me? Look at this photo from our first house:
No balance – there is nothing on the left to visually balance the cabinet on the right.
No texture – save for the wall-to-wall carpet.
The colors are off – warm pain and wood but a cool carpet.
And what is that “garland” across the top of the photo frames?!
(You can see more of my previous decorating in this post if you’re curious.)
The problem was I was just reading random articles and buying this here, picking up that there, trying this paint color on that wall.
But there was no order, no organization, no step-by-step “do this first, then this.”
So I buckled down and learned all that I could. I:
studied photos of homes that I loved to find all the beautiful details.
visited model homes.
scoured design and decorating magazines and poured over high-end catalogs.
even completed an in-depth program in interior design from a popular New York design school to fill in any gaps I may have missed on my own. (Which was, quite frankly, rather boring.)
All of this took me years.
But with all that practice and learning I finally – finally – figured out how to put everything together to make our entire home cozy and beautiful.
Here’s a visual of how I decorated our first house, versus how I decorated our third house:
And our current home:
Does any of that sound familiar? Are you stuck with spaces you don’t like in your home? Are you wondering how on earth to do this decorating thing?
Well, here’s exactly how to decorate your home in five simple steps.
How to Decorate Your Home in 5 Simple Steps
Step 1: Find your unique style DNA
Finding your unique style DNA helps your design choices become clear and confident, turning scattered ideas into your unqiue, complete, and cohesive style.
You can do this by purposefully gathering inspiration and looking for similarities in style, color, pattern, shape, texture, and materials.
Step 2: Plan your space
Form follows function, which is just a fancy way of saying things have to fit and serve their purpose, and then they can look pretty.
Create your floor plan and arrange your furniture based on the uses of the room, the people who use the space, and the room’s focal point.
Then utilize any existing furniture pieces or new pieces so that they fit your unique style DNA and your budget.
Step 3: Add curtains, rugs, and lighting
We underestimate the design power that the right area rug, well hung drapery, and some good lighting have in a room while we overestimate the power of all those pretty little things that we want to bring home from Target and Home Goods or Home Sense, or anywhere else.
After you’ve got the floor plan sorted, the curtains, rugs, and lighting come next.
Step 4: Decorate the walls
That means paint, art, feature or focal walls, trim wall treatments – anything like that.
Like a builder patiently waits for the foundation to set, decorating your walls only after the essential elements – the furniture area, rugs, drapery, and lighting – are in place ensures that you get your decor right without any more time or money wasted.
And although it may seem counterproductive to paint after your furniture is in place, you really can’t choose your paint colors well until the previous steps are done. Similarly, you can’t choose the size of art that you need until the curtains and other things like that are in place.
Step 5: Add accessories
Accessories are the finishing touches in a room, the final step, the small details – not the starting point or the main thing.
Buying little tchotchkes and candles and figurines or other decor can scratch a retail therapy itch, but if the rest of your space isn’t finished, those decor pieces and accessories are only going to cause stress and mess.
Wait to choose accessories until the rest of the steps are done and then don’t overdo it.
Unless your room is really large, you really only need:
a few throw pillows
1-3 vignettes or collections, and
a centerpiece on a coffee table, dining table or dresser
You want a room that is finished, but not overdone or cluttered.
Accessories are the finishing touches in a room. The final step, the small details – not the main starting point or the main thing.
Summary
Decorating your home can be really fun if you do it in the right order:
Find your unique style DNA
Plan your space
Add curtains, rugs and lighting
Decorate the walls. That’s the paint and the art.
Sprinkle in some accessories.
That’s it. That’s how you decorate your home in five simple steps.
Leave a comment: Where are you stuck in your decorating?