To me, dressing up your home can be a bit like painting a picture, it is brilliant fun and I love getting creative and finding new ways to make my home look more unique and cozy. But it can be hard to know when that picture is actually finished. Keep painting and before you know it, you can ruin your masterpiece! This is exactly why I follow a minimalist philosophy. I love to make my home the best it can be, but without overdoing it. These minimalist home decor ideas will help you achieve appealing, clean home design and decoration.
Minimalist Home Decor Tips
If you love a modern design aesthetic, minimalist home decor is for you! If you love a more traditional look with lots of bric a brac, minimalist home decor is not for you!
Why Minimalist Style For Home Decor?
Living a minimalist life is a great way to make the most of the space you have. Having less furniture makes your home feel bigger and more airy. It also saves money and allows you to invest in a few really nice things rather than a lot of OK ones.
As an added bonus, you can make your life easier by de-cluttering. Cleaning and keeping your house tidy becomes a doddle and having fewer possessions even lowers your stress levels. So what have you got to lose?
(image credit: wiki commons)
How To Get Started Creating a Minimalist Look
The first step is simply to de-clutter; consider this the spring clean of a life-time. An easy place to start is with clothes. You can also get a lot done in the kitchen or in any ‘junk’ cupboards you happen to have.
For every category of item, make three piles:
- Things to keep
- Things to trash
- Charity shop
Keep the ‘things to keep’ pile as small as possible, be ruthless and only keep things that you use regularly, or things that are valuable or sentimental. If you really want to, consider boxing some items up and storing them in the attic.
Keep your trash bin pile as small as possible and give away as much as you can. When my wife and I did this we filled an entire room with things to go to charity. We even gave away a lot of furniture!
Finally, ring a few local charities and see if any of them will collect. If you have enough stuff for them, they will probably be willing, and that will save you several trips to the tip.
Reduce Furniture
Once you have thoroughly de-cluttered you can start to consolidate all the stuff you are keeping. You will almost certainly find that a few cupboards are bare and a few sets of drawers are empty. Move everything into inbuilt storage and then into your favorite furniture. Get rid of all those empty storage bins and filing cabinets.
You may then find that you have some emptied out furniture. Or you may notice that really, you don’t need 7 chairs in that one room. If you can reduce your furniture down to just what you need, the whole room will appear so much more spacious!
That is why when they stage houses for real estate sales, they get rid of all clutter and use only a few key pieces of furniture with just a few stylish decor items.
Any items that are in good condition can be sold to raise money for nice new, functional items.
You can save a lot of space by buying functional furniture. Here are some examples:
- Murphy bed: replace your spare bed and create space
- Bed with storage drawers: helps eliminate random, unorganized stuff under bed
- Wall mounted TV stand: replace the TV cabinet all together
- Extendable dining room table: so it doesn’t always have to be full size
Minimalist Decorating
Once you have downsized all of your furniture and gotten rid of all of your clutter (and probably given the house a pretty thorough clean at the same time) you can start thinking about how you want to decorate your new, minimalist home.
Make sure all your countertops, desktops, and dresser tops are clutter free too! Decor should be limited to one or two pieces on these surfaces or even the decorations can start to clutter.
You don’t have to re-paint or anything major, but now might be a good time to reassess which ornaments you really need on display. You can also have a think about how you will arrange your new furniture for the best impact.
Here are some ideas:
- Hang up photos
Invest in some nice frames and avoid photo stands on tables and shelves
- Get a big mirror
A well placed mirror brings light into a room and makes it feel much bigger
- Color blending
Buy furniture to match the colur of the walls & make a room feel bigger
- Curtains & light
Ensure curtains can go all the way back so that they don’t block windows
- Avoid dead space
When arranging your furniture, avoid making any pockets of space unusable
Do you have a minimalist home decor style? What do you love most about minimalist home decor?
Related Posts:
John says
Love it! I am a huge minimalist especially after moving last year realizing all the stuff we had. Since then I am keeping it nice a clean, simple and open. Love these tips and ideas here. Going to use this as inspiration!