Do you want to create a beautiful home that reflects your taste and lifestyle? Learn how to choose your home decor style to help you craft a home that mirrors your personality.
Scrolling through Instagram can be an exercise in inspiration but also lead to lots of home envy. I always ask my sister why she has a disparate collection of curiosities, and not the elegant French country-style homes she keeps pinning.
How do people manage to create lust-worthy homes? Is it all about choosing and sticking to an interior design style?
Choose a home decor style by deciding what suits your family and lifestyle. Create a mood board and choose a color palette. If you love relaxed neutrals, go for a coastal or organic modern aesthetic. For pared-back interiors, choose Scandi. Lovers of bold colors and prints should choose maximalism.
4 Simple Tips for Choosing a Home Decor Style that’s Right for You
Decorating your home is straightforward if you have a strong sense of the look you’re after.
However, if you’re a decorating novice, it’s hard to know where to begin, especially if you long for a modern farmhouse kitchen, an Art Deco bathroom, and an industrial kitchen! I’ve broken it down to help you choose a home decor style.
#1. Find Out What Suits You
Insta-worthy homes aside, your home should reflect those who live there and be a comfortable match for your lifestyle. Before latching onto a random style that takes your fancy, consider the following:
- What are your favorite colors? If you love bold, jewel shades, a misty-colored coastal style home won’t suit you. Instead, go for a tropical look.
- What silhouettes appeal to you? Do you like big, blockish coffee tables or delicate, ornate chairs?
- Are there any materials that work well for you? Are you longing for plush velvet cushions to sink into after a hard day? Do you have boisterous children who call for robust, washable slipcovers?
- What lifestyle do you have or aspire to have? Do you spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food with friends? Do you tend to entertain in the living room or dining room?
- What atmosphere or vibe do you want to create? Are you relaxed or formal? Traditional or Boho?
- Are there any aesthetics that appeal to you? If you’re drawn to a style of interiors, perhaps you can choose elements that suit your lifestyle and budget.
- What items do you already have that you want to retain in the new look? Do you have a sofa or rug you love and that can inspire your new aesthetic? There is enormous value in sentimental items that have been passed down. You’re also doing your pocket and the environment a favor.
#2. Look for Inspiration
Only once you’ve explored your personal taste and lifestyle needs, look at interiors in markets, stores, magazines, Instagram, and Pinterest for inspiration.
I love wandering around art galleries and museums, finding inspiration in still-life paintings and the gorgeous interiors of the past.
By all means, enjoy looking at what’s a current trend. However, it’s always wisest to choose what suits you rather than slavishly following fads. You should also consider a classic look that won’t date easily.
#3. Create a Mood Board
Use your research and reflection to create a mood or vision board. You can do this online, but having a physical foam board to map your home room by room is helpful, creating a vision for each space.
The board could include fabric and paint samples, wallpaper, photographs, postcards, and even inspiring quotations. Remember to include furnishings you already have; you can upcycle, recover, and repaint items to suit a chosen aesthetic.
#4. Choose a Color Palette
If you’re motivated or inspired by color, choosing a color scheme can help you find the home decor style that suits you. Your mood board may already lead the way to a choice of colors.
Of course, you can always go for the safer option of a neutral scheme, but you’ll miss out on the potential benefits of color in your home. Color is known to lift mood and make you more productive and energetic.
A combination of three colors is what I usually advise, along with most interior designers:
- Choose one dominant color to form the foundation or background. This is the color you’ll paint your walls or flooring, making up 60% of the palette.
- A secondary color forms the next 30% of the palette, to be used for furniture, upholstery, and drapes.
- Your third color is an accent shade to add warmth, create interest, and balance the two main colors.
There are no fixed rules for choosing a color scheme. Instead, choose colors that appeal to you, whether warm, cool, contrasting, or monochrome. Your choice of colors will be unique and make your home personal.
What are the Different Styles for Home Decor? (Popular Design Aesthetics)
Let’s look at some of the most popular design aesthetics that have stood the test of time and a couple that are trending. You then decide if one of these suits your home.
Coastal Style
This relaxed style is inspired by beach-side living, with the most recent incarnation being the Coastal Grandma aesthetic. You don’t need to decorate a beach house to embrace the coastal aesthetic. These interiors evoke a vacation’s informal, laid-back mood.
- Color Palette: Colors inspired by stone, sand, sky, sea, and mist, including all shades of blue.
- Materials: Natural fibers, including rattan, wicker, linen, cotton, rope, bare wood, jute.
- Key Decor: Shells, macrame, whitewashed walls, slipcovered furniture, daybeds, distressed furniture, cozy throws.
Variations
Common variations include:
- Nautical coastal style, where you would include ships’ lanterns, prints of anchors or boats, and introduce flashes of navy and red.
- Tropical coastal style, with turquoise and aqua blues, coral pink, and plenty of botanical greenery as a color and decor item.
Scandinavian or Scandi style is inspired by the pared-back, airy, cozy spaces of the icy north. You don’t need to be Danish to create a bright, welcoming home that embraces nature, simplicity, and brightness rather than clutter.
- Color Palette: Light and dark neutrals with bright accents of blue and yellow.
- Materials: Natural fibers and textures, like linen, cotton, wool, fur, pale wood, jute.
- Key Decor: Furniture with clean lines, bold graphics, a combination of vintage and contemporary pieces.
Variations
With its tendency to airy, clutter-free interiors, Scandi style often dovetails with:
- Minimalism, which takes the pared-back look to an extreme, with modern materials such as chrome, plastic, and leather
- Japandi, with the addition of Japanese-inspired interior design.
- Mid-century modern, which Scandinavian designers also inspired in the 1950s.
Maximalist Style
At the opposite end of the design spectrum, maximalism is a bold aesthetic that embraces color, pattern, texture, and freedom from conventional design. However, the elements are carefully curated rather than simply thrown together.
- Color Palette: Avoid neutral colors and embrace jewel tones, spicy and earthy colors
- Materials: Layer lush textures, like velvet, satin, and silk, and richly patterned wallpaper and rugs
- Key Decor: Combine vintage and contemporary items, add eclectic pieces from antique and junk stores
Variations
Maximalism often overlaps with the following:
- Vintage Boho: This hippie-inspired style includes bright colors and patterns, with an emphasis on tie-dye, fringing, crocheted items, and sixties colors
- Eclectic: The eclectic style, with its combination juxtaposition of aesthetics and layering of textiles, can often be maximalist. However, the color scheme and amount of clutter are not always as over-the-top.
Organic Modern
This decades-old aesthetic has experienced a renaissance as the love of nature-inspired design, sustainability, and a focus on the environment have flourished. Organic modern relies on nature for its design, materials, shapes, and textures.
- Color Palette: Choose any colors from nature, although a neutral palette is popular. Greens, blues, and earthy terracotta are also popular. Avoid all unnatural colors like neon.
- Materials: Natural fibers are ideal, for example, exposed wooden surfaces, rattan, raw linen, stone, metal, hides, and reclaimed and recycled materials. Avoid plastic or acrylic items.
- Key Decor Items: Soft, organic-shaped furniture, plants, free-standing stone sculptures, wooden furniture
Variations
Organic modern interiors often overlap with contemporary Boho’s similarly neutral palette. Contemporary boho styles include more patterns and prints, as well as macrame.
Final Thoughts
Choosing a decor style for your home starts with your personality, likes, dislikes, and lifestyle. Be guided by which color palette you enjoy and the feel you want your home to have. For example, go for a coastal theme if you want a relaxed, informal vibe.
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