Ideas for Home Decorating
There are so many ideas for home decorating out there that the prospect of sifting through them and finding the style that is right for your spaces can be a little daunting. However in the end, all decorative endeavors come back to one thing, creating spaces that are lived in. This means that beauty is important, but even more important is that the beauty you create supports the function of the space. You want the decorative atmosphere of each room to support the utility of that space.
The first thing you should understand about home decorating is that every space is made up of different physical and visual elements. These elements are arranged in various patterns, in order to create the atmosphere of the room. Some of these are inherent, built directly into the architecture, while others are mobile and transient, consisting of accents placed within a room by the decorative coordinator.
The physical nature of the space is probably the most overt decorating element in any room. The way the walls are arranged, the way that doors and windows are set into these walls, and even the shape and nature of the ceiling, are all vital to the way that room is going to be used. These are also very difficult aspects to change, requiring advanced construction methods that can be extremely time consuming and costly.
One idea for home decorating that will allow you to change the structure of a rather large space relatively easily, is the use of simple room dividers. These are pieces of cloth, trellis, or strings of beads that can be strung along the center of a room using either the floor and ceiling, or a free standing structure, as their base. The idea is to subdivide the larger room into smaller compartments, like well decorated cubicles, allowing one giant hall to take on many different divided aspects.
The architecture of a room, and of the entire house, is intrinsically related to the nature of flow. That is, the way that people move into, out of, and through a space. Flow is important for keeping a room feeling free and active. When you clutter up a room too much, or block off doorways, windows, and other access points, you make a space feel claustrophobic and trapped, which can ruin the nature of the room entirely.
Another basic element of decorating is color. The colors that fill a room are very powerful and subtle influences on the way we feel within that space. By understanding the nature of color, and how it impacts on a person’s psychology, you can create spaces which speak to the deeper nature of an individual.
Ideas for home decorating that involve color usually require the use of coordinating tones. This can involve many different complimentary colors, alighting one upon another to create a single color based theme for the space. On the other hand, the use of contrasting tones can help to make a certain color “pop” out of the walls, giving it a dramatic impact on the nature of the space.
In general, dark tones will tend to make a space feel smaller, with the walls closing in on you. This can be a good thing in an oversized space where everything feels distant and foreign from one another. The use of lighter colors has an opposite effect, causing walls to recede backwards, opening the space up and making it feel free and wide and empty.
Illumination is another important home decorating element which can be used to great effect within a space. Many ideas about lighting décor involve the usage of multiple sources of light, some bright, some dim, in order to create a layered effect within the space. This allows you to take control of the way that light fills a room, letting you choose whether you want a dark and smoky atmosphere, or a bright and brilliant illuminated spectacle filled with energy.
Sometimes a lack of light is just as important as its presence. When trying to create an intimate atmosphere, having only a dim glow allows you to cast sultry shadows on the wall, while the point of glow itself will simulate a campfire of warmth, around which people will tend to huddle seeking comfort.
On the other hand, filling a room with illumination will tend to make it feel energized and active. This is especially true if you can use windows, skylight, and the sun itself to cast a glow throughout the room which is cheerful and excited. Here the use of colors will influence, and be influenced by the light, with darker colors soaking it up and thwarting the illuminated effects, and lighter, brighter, more vibrant tones creating an even greater sense of illuminated beauty.
One great idea for home decorating is to draw the entire house together using a similar element or series of elements. This can be a picture, or a type of clock or wall hanging; it can be a certain pattern, or a color, or any consistent element which is used in every room in the house. This can be done in contrasting colors, or it can be consistent, it can be a theme such as nautical items, or rustic décor, but it can also be as simple as having art in the same style posted in each space. The idea is to create a sense of consistency in a subtle way that people will pick up on more subconsciously than overtly, as they move through the house.
If you are having trouble finding inspiration, you can always look for ideas for home decorating in various home and garden magazines. There you will find pictures of the way that professionals design and arrange the rooms they create. You can then take elements from these designs, and apply them to your own home.
Home decorating shows can also be a great source of ideas and inspirations. Often these shows will give you examples of how to implement small construction projects and crafting jobs in order to create beautiful elements within a room. You can even sometimes use these projects as springboards to your own creative concepts.
Finally the world around you is an amazing source for ideas. Art and architecture, nature and plants, all have beauty within them that you can learn from. Becoming a truly great home decorator is about incorporating beauty from every aspect of existence into the flowing, living nature of the spaces that you are creating.