Transform your living space with these simple yet effective DIY home decor styling tricks. Elevate the look of your home with these must-have decor styling tips and DIY ideas.
Utilizing Small Art for a Designer Impact
Large artwork is important, but there’s also a time and place for small art. Collecting tiny art pieces can be great for styling. Small art can be purchased brand new or found through thrifting antique pieces. These add character to your home and are perfect for styling shelves. They can be hung on the back of bookcases or leaned against the wall for a relaxed, layered look. These are also a good size for styling kitchens and bathrooms. Small art can be leaned against the backsplash or used to style on top of a range hood. Art in a kitchen draws attention, and small art implements different color palettes, wood tones, and metal finishes.
Strategic Placement
Small art looks great in large rooms like bedrooms. Strategically placing a small art piece above the bed can look intentional and designer. Narrowing in on a small piece makes an impactful difference. It is recommended to strategically look for small art pieces because it is more affordable and easy to find through thrifting, antiquing, or buying brand new. This can really make a designer impact in your home.
DIY with Rubb and Buff
A fun DIY supply to always have around the house is rubb and buff. Rubb and buff can instantly change the look, finish, and style of a piece and give a realistic metallic finish. Rubb and buff comes in many different colors, like gold leaf, ebony, antique gold, and silver leaf. These are tiny bottles because a little goes a long way. It is simply put on hardware and buffed in with a paper towel or cloth. This gives a realistic metal finish and can be purchased for an affordable price. The antique gold can be used on a console in an entryway. If a new console table comes with hardware that is not preferred, rub and buff the hardware to make it pop and look more expensive. A piece can be taken from silver to gold or black to silver in seconds. Use rubb and buff before buying all new pieces, unless the entire style of the piece is to be changed. This is a budget-friendly solution to refresh your home.
Unconventional Furniture Choices
Instead of traditional coffee tables or side tables, consider using alternative pieces like trunks, benches, ottomans, and stools. These decorative and functional pieces can be used instead of traditional tables. Baskets with lids can be used instead of traditional tables to have extra storage and give a unique look. Trunks can be used for a heavy, substantial look. Using unconventional furniture around the house creates a unique style. The functionality of a space is maintained while bringing in interesting unique items. This will make a huge difference and set your space apart.
Benches in Narrow Spaces
In narrow spaces, search for a bench instead of a coffee table because that will create more space in your home. Benches are not always marketed as coffee tables, so look towards items that create that same height and give that lengthening, narrow look that will add functionality and give a unique style.
TV as Wall Art
In a curated decorated space, the TV being a big black square can take away from the overall look. If a frame TV is not available, search Vintage art or art live streams on YouTube. There are hours of art displayed on the screen, so the TV can be turned into wall art. This will display one art piece for hours and is great when having company over or wanting to make the space look like it has a frame TV. This is a DIY, easy, free thing to do to give a designer look. Find art that has darker colors so you don’t get that blue bright coming from the whites and the light colors, it will make it look more realistic. If there is a mounted TV, this is a trick to make it look like art on a budget.
Styling Underneath Console Tables
Console tables are perfect for small areas like entryways, behind sofas, or hallways. If there is already a console table in your home, remember to style underneath it. Styling underneath it makes it look designer and finished. It is the perfect spot to style stools if you’re looking to create extra seating or for an entryway to have a stool to pull out to put shoes on. It’s a great opportunity to add pattern, color, and different fabric options. It’s also a great spot to add extra storage with large baskets. Baskets look amazing underneath a console table. Make sure that they’re tall large baskets to get the scale and proportion right. A stool and a basket can be used, double stools can be used, and double baskets can be used. It’s the perfect spot to just add extra functionality in your space while also looking stylish. If there are any consoles around your home that are just decorated on top, think about styling underneath it.
Paint Color Cohesion
To create a cohesive look around your home, paint colors should work well together. Use a paint deck to your advantage. If a color is liked, that color can be chosen for one space. If a similar color is desired for another room, work your way down or up on the paint deck. All of the colors on this strip will be in the same tone, so they’re really going to work well together without them looking like the exact same color. Deeper tones or lighter tones can be used to create a unique experience in each space, but they all stay within the same family. This is a great color guideline to style your space with items that are within the same tone.
Risers and Pedestals for Elevated Styling
A decor piece that everyone can use in their home to elevate their styling is a pedestal or riser. These are perfect for creating dimension, height, and adding an extra layer of texture and color. Risers act as a grounding point, almost like a tray or an area rug, and they ground decorative pieces. Placing smaller items on a riser helps to create a more put-together, curated look without it looking too messy. Use risers if you want to style any of your surfaces. The same thing can be done on a larger scale with pedestals. Pedestals are a great way of styling a space and elevating and putting attention towards something special like a vase or sculpture. Pedestals add that extra dimension into your space. They’re not totally necessary or functional, but they really are decorative and make for a wow factor. To take a space from looking regular to designer, add a pedestal and put something special on top like a large vase with florals. Risers and pedestals bring height and attention to smaller items.
Shopping Your Home
When shopping around for decor, items should be picked that will work in multiple rooms of the home. Keeping a cohesive color palette makes decorating easy because when buying an item, it is known that it can work in almost every space. Refreshing a space with items that are already owned can be done by strategically picking items that will look good in any space. This could be a throw pillow, an area rug, or a side chair. If items can be easily moved from one room to another with a cohesive color palette, it will always make it easy to refresh the space. This doesn’t have to be just three different colors, it can be like 10 colors. This can be multiple neutrals, different shades of brown, and different contrasting colors. All of your accent colors can be brought in, but just make sure that you repeat these colors throughout every room to make it very easy to integrate and change up your existing decor. To swap things in and out, they will work with the color palette and it just makes decorating and refreshing your home super easy.
Lighting: Go Big or Go Home
When choosing lighting, whether it be lamps or ceiling lights, always go bigger. Never go small and dinky with lighting because it really is the thing that pulls your space together, almost like an area rug. An area rug grounds what’s down below all of your furniture and that area rug should be large. The same thing goes with your ceiling, the light fixture should really sprawl across the ceiling, grab all the pieces below, and make it feel like it’s all together. If there is a small light fixture, it can really narrow in your space, so go with something larger. Large pendants always look better than small ones and large lamps always look better than small ones as well. Small lamps are perfect for tucking underneath cabinets and putting in bookshelves, but lamps on surfaces need to be large and substantial so they really match up with your furniture size.
