A guest post from Conny at Colorful Designer
Everyone has their own idea of what it means to have their ideal home. While your current home may not be your dream home, you can create a beautiful home without the clutter.
Create a Beautiful Home Without Clutter
Have you ever wondered how you could create a beautiful living room just like on HGTV?
Have you ever wondered how to keep rooms well organized?
Are you so over this cluttered look in your home?
All your friends living rooms look totally tidy and beautifully decorated and you are just at a loss how to achieve the same look?
Well, the one thing all of these beautiful rooms have in common is a cohesive and more neutral color scheme for walls and floors.
A neutral white or gray wall color gives the eye a place to rest, space to start exploring the room without feeling overwhelmed. And it gives the furniture a neutral background to shine.
But still, why do these rooms look so amazing and whatever you try to do, just doesn’t feel and look as good?
Actually it is not very hard creating the same look, if you adapt a couple of simple steps every designer will tell you to do.
First analyze what you see right now
Walk into your room and what do you see first?
A crowded shelf, stuffed with a lot of toys, books, different size boxes that are contributing to the cluttered feeling in your home?
A countertop piled up with paperwork like mail and receipts or keys, glasses, and all different kinds of kitchen gadgets?
Or do you see a pretty colorful artwork, a clean and tidy countertop, an organized shelf with pretty boxes and crates?
No? Well, but if this is what you are aiming for you need to know the following steps:
First Step : Organize
In order to create a beautiful home without the clutter you need to follow some simple rules:
Have your countertops organized. Don’t keep a lot of stuff on top of your countertops only because it is so convenient to have. If you don’t have a lot of storage space in your cabinets, get some pretty containers for coffee, sugar, flour, salt.
Keep the things you need all the time on the counters, but hide the content in attractive containers. Create a mail station on the wall, add a cool looking hanging pouch to store all these nick-nacks without a dedicated spot.
Put toys, dolls, and other kids’ stuff in containers with lids or put it in crates on your shelves. Give the kids an accessible area on your shelves which looks clean and tidy after they put their toys away.
Instead of shelves, get a cabinet with doors and drawers. This is perfect to hide the not so pretty stuff.
Second Step: Check Out Your Furniture
Is your living room stuffed with different looking chairs, recliners, ottomans, tables, side tables, shelves, drawers etc.
Is the room just too crowded?
Decide what you really need and get rid of the things that don’t make you happy.
Check your furniture closely, is it too big, in bad shape or not really needed?
Don’t hang on to a piece that doesn’t fit to your style anymore. If you don’t love it anymore, find a different place or get rid of it.
Make space to draw the eye towards one pretty chair, a beautiful picture on the wall, your fireplace – your focal point.
Resist overcrowding! You need easy walkways throughout your rooms. If you are working on a tight budget, decide to invest in fewer but better quality furniture. Leave space for furniture pieces to shine.
Coco Chanel said about accessorizing:
“ Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”.
This quote fits also in designing your home. Know when to stop.
Step Three: Make it Flow Altogether
Create a focal point
Your focal point might be a shiny range hood in your kitchen, the fireplace in your living room or the headboard in your bedroom.
Make space for this piece to be seen, draw the attention towards this piece and make it pretty.
Make the room look exciting
Add something unexpected, but be careful to keep the scale. What looks awesome in a store or in a magazine might look too tiny or too big in your room. So be careful with your arrangements.
If you want to hang up the kids drawings, decide on the same colored picture frame and arrange them in threes and fives. By choosing the same frame with different style art, it still looks cohesive.
Hang your artwork the right height
The rule of thumb to hang pictures is as follows: The midline or center of each piece is between 57 to 60 inches from the floor height.
Aim for the lower end of the range if your family is rather shorter. In rooms with high ceilings, artwork can be hung a little bit higher than 60 inches off the floor.
How should you hang curtains?
It looks really awkward when curtain rods hang too low. Therefore, hang your curtain rods higher and the windows will appear taller, which creates more space. Also long curtains should touch the floor and again this creates more height.
How do you arrange your furniture on a rug?
If you have hardwood floors, add a rug with a pattern and a color scheme which compliments your furniture and the wall color.
There are 3 different ways to arrange furniture on a rug:
1. You have a large rug and all of your furniture is on top of it. This creates a very luxurious feeling of warmth and coziness. But don’t cover the whole room with a rug, leave at least a border of around 12 inches off the walls.
2. Your room is very small and you keep all of the furniture off the rug. But be careful here, often it appears as the rug is too small, so test the scale and maybe layer two rugs to make it look more intentional.
3. Only the front legs of your furniture are on the rug or only part of your furniture is on the rug if it is a big room. This creates a defined space within a room.
If you need inspiration how to refresh a room on a set budget, here are some more tips you can apply:
How to Refresh your Living Room on a Budget
How to Create a Beautiful Home Without the Clutter
You don’t need a lot of money to create a beautiful home. Always remember less is more, leave some white space on the wall, keep the flow within a room and stick to a neutral background.
Add color with accessories like pillows, a rug, a throw, curtains. Rather invest in one good furniture piece than in three cheap pieces.
Start by getting rid of things you don’t love. Start with a neutral background creating a beautiful home without the clutter.
For further help with creating a warm and cozy home you love, check out:
Review of Cozy Minimalist Home by Myquillyn Smith
How to Make Your Home More Cozy
Conny is an interior designer and loves to travel in her small 18’ Travel Trailer with husband Jon and dog Apache. They just moved from the East Coast to the West Coast in their Camper, enjoying every minute of their freedom as empty nesters. She loves to update houses, furniture and also Campers. You can see all her remodels at her blog colorfuldesigner.com
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