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Do you want to enhance the rooms in your home, but you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on it?
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We all want to live in homes that look amazing and well designed, places that make us feel comfortable after a chaotic day at work, inspired, in a good mood, and that represents the best of our personality when we receive a visit. A place that feels that is truly meant for you.
I, being a designer, often find myself thinking about it, and after looking in furniture stores, magazines and websites I end up thinking that maybe someday, when I become rich, my home will look exactly as I imagined. If you find yourself thinking that way, don’t worry! You don’t need to wait until that day to make your home look amazing.
In reality, there are many decoration tricks to enhance your home and give it that finished look that you are looking for. For example, you can use inexpensive accessories such as wall art (prints) and throw pillow to give your rooms the exciting look that you are looking for… instantly!
And plus, this is a great opportunity to display your creativity, play with concepts, colors, and textures that make you feel cozy and giving you a sense of self-love. As these items are not that expensive, you don’t need to play safe here. You can experiment and try until you find that wow factor that you are looking for.
Where to Add Wall Art and Throw Pillows
The best thing about this is that throw pillows and wall art can work in almost any room of your house, so this is a great opportunity to enhance your whole home within a budget. You can use pillows in places like sofas, chairs, beds, even in benches and baskets. That would let you personalize your dining room, living room, bedrooms, playing rooms, and any other place that is meant to be comfortable and relaxed.
Art Work can be placed literally in every room, even in the bathroom. This will let you improve and personalize your whole home!
If you need advice about the colors you can use to decorate your home, check out this post: Create a Home that Reflects your Personality and Lifts your Spirit.
How to Design Your Spaces with Wall Art
The most important aspect of displaying artwork in your home is buying items that you love. It doesn’t matter if they are expensive or even unique, what really matters is how do you feel when you are surrounded by them.
That being said, if you find yourself stuck in the thought of how to arrange them, I can share with you some aspects of design and composition that can help you decide which kind of arrangement would work better for you. You need to take into consideration the amount of space you have, the color and shape of it, and even the furniture that will surround your display. The characteristics of the artwork itself and the number of pieces you have will be important to consider as well. Here is a list of possible approaches that may work for you depending on those factors.
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About The Display
Single Artwork
This is the most obvious and easiest way to display wall art. It means to hang a single large piece of artwork in a space. This creates a strong focal point in a room. For this reason you will need an ample wall, so the large piece will be balanced with some space around that will let the room breathe.
You can center the artwork, or align it in relation to another important object of your room like a door or a sofa.
Linear Composition
In this kind of composition, pictures are hung in a line, usually horizontally but in some spaces, vertically would work great as well. The idea is to feel the balance between the shape that was created and the elements of the room.
This kind of Design works better with pieces that are the same size and have the same frame, making them into a composition that creates a big united element in the space. This arrangement works better in larger spaces that let you use several elements, because if you try to compose it with two or three artworks, you may not be able to feel the “line”.
Grid
This is the perfect composition for people who like symmetry and order. This look feels classic, but at the same time, it can be perceived as modern and neat depending on the artwork that you hang. To make this style work, you need to choose a group coordinating artworks of the same size and identical frames.
Pictures have to be hung in rows and columns that emphasize order and symmetry. The measurements have to be precise because this composition relies on the sense of perfection and straight spacing.
The grid composition works especially well for collections with many pieces, which can make this arrangement of wall art particularly striking. This method works well for walls with a little or a lot of space, just by adjusting the height of the pieces in the wall, or the spacing between them.
Focal Point
You can create a focal point in your wall by flanking a bigger piece of wall art (or another oversized decorative item), with a collection of smaller works. This composition works well for anchoring large furniture like a bed or a sofa. It gives an interesting gallery wall look to your space.
Cascade
You may have noticed that many gallery walls start from the center and radiate outward, like the focal point we just talked about. In this particular case, the artwork starts from a straight line at the top of the wall and decreases its intensity going downward. This look has that classic “gallery wall” feeling, but with a more modern approach. This method works well with different sizes of artwork such as prints or photographs, using the bigger or stronger items up, and the smaller and lighter down.
Clustered
This composition is freer than the ones explained before. The spaces are more organic and loosely defined than in the grid, and you can use different sizes of artwork, with different frames or finishes. It has to remain an asymmetrical but balanced composition.
You can use an entire wall or a part of it, and you can also add pieces later on, which is harder to achieve with a more structured kind of composition. The spaces between the art pieces have to be carefully considered to avoid a messy look, and it is ideal to use frames with similar thickness.
On Shelves or Leaning on the Floor
In this style, the artwork is not hung on the wall, but leaned on a shelf or architectural feature, or even on the floor. This gives the installation a very free feeling and it lets you change the artworks frequently.
If you’re considering stacking shelves, you have to make sure the height of your largest picture on each shelf will fit and work well in the space. Then you can add smaller pictures, even in front of the bigger ones if they look good to you. Placing artwork on the floor has this same freedom, but with an added sense of casualness.
This style looks better on hardwood floors than it does on carpets with designs, and it is a great option if you have a very large piece that would not fit good in any wall.
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About The Themes
Match
This is when your gallery wall has a high degree of uniformity in the artworks, meaning the same kind of graphics like in a collection, the same frame, etc. A combination of sizes in a matching color and finish will create a cohesive look, and if you don’t want it to be too structured, you can avoid using the most rigid types of arrangement.
Common Theme
A common theme is a midpoint in which things can have a certain degree of uniformity, but with more freedom than the match. A common theme could be for example a Nautical Theme, Photos of Faces, Sea Landscapes, Insects, etc. It could be a theme of your interest that you have been collecting for years. They could have different sizes and also different frames or finishes, but the fact that they speak about the same subject gives them a cohesion to integrate the group.
Mix
In this method, you can show different kinds of wall art, like oleo paintings, prints, photography, pencil drawings, watercolors… whatever you like. And you can also use different sizes and frames. You don’t even need to have items that speak about the same subject at all. The only thing that makes those artworks be together is that you love them and reflect a summary of your preferences and personality. In order to make this work you need to have an eye for design, because it can be tricky to make this look feel integrated instead of chaotic. If you are able to make this work, it is a very cool and unconventional way to decorate your home.
How to Enhance Your Spaces With Throw Pillows
Throw pillows are one of the easiest and least expensive ways to add style instantly to your home... and the good news is that you can add pillows to almost every room of your house. From sofas to chairs, beds, and benches, you can add style to your bedroom, dining room, living room, playing room, patio dining space, and many other places that your creativity might find. They provide a look that can bring life to any room, as well as the comfort and coziness that you need to be relaxed at home.
Although sometimes it takes a trained eye to put together a well-designed look, I will provide you with some guidelines to start experimenting with until you find the perfect formula that works for you. In the end, you may break these rules and still find something that you love, and in this case, you should follow your instincts and go with it.
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Tips for Decorating with Pillows
Use an Odd Number of Pillows
Odd numbers look modern and artful, so if that is what you want to achieve, try to put one, three, or five pillows depending on the size of your furniture and the look you want. One or three larger pillows will look better than a larger amount of small pillows. There is something called the rule of three, that can help us arrange and compose the pillows. It goes this way:
Pick Three Colors
You have to create a color theme, using three colors that are already being used in other parts of the room such as furniture, walls, bed covers, etc. in order to achieve a cohesive look in the room.
Pick Three Patterns
Mix and match three different patterns, only if each pattern has at least one of the colors that are in the same family. You need to pick the largest pattern first, which should contain the three colors of your theme. That is the pattern that will lead the composition. The other patterns that will go around it, may contain only one or two of the theme colors.
Pick Three Pattern Sizes
Patterns should have different sizes or scales because you don't want them to compete with each other. One of the patterns, usually the biggest, should dominate and the others accompany it. The smallest pattern could be just a textured solid color.
Use Even Numbers
If you prefer a more traditional look, an even number of pillows like two, four, or six, will give you a balanced and symmetric look that feels clean and organized. To achieve this, the pillows have to be somehow similar. This can work especially well on your bed or couch.
Consider The Sizes
Standard square pillows of about 18 inches, go very well on sofas with classic dimensions. Bigger pillows of about 24 inches can create a more casual look.
The Filling
Whether it is a feather fill or synthetic fill, the appearance of the pillows will change. The feather fill is softer, looks lush, and is more expensive. A synthetic fill is going to be stiffer, hold the shape better, but look less lush than the feather fill. It is a good idea to consider how the patterns or designs of your pillows will look in the different kinds of fillings that you can choose from.
The Textures
The importance of textures should not be overlooked. You can generate tactile contrast using opposite textures together; for example, you can use smooth and rough pillows on the same couch to create an interesting touch effect. There are many textures to choose from like silk, velvet, knit wools, leather, fur, straw, among many others. Remember that you should keep your color and pattern theme working while playing with textures.
Keep Unity
Although the pillow on a chair doesn’t have to match perfectly the group of pillows on the sofa, it has to be related in some way, like the color theme or the pattern style. By doing this, the space will feel well finished and unified.
All of these tips and rules are meant to give you an idea of how to decorate your home with affordable accessories like wall art and throw pillows, giving it a professional and well-designed look. Most importantly, this will help you reflect your own personality in your home, in order to make it the perfect space for you, and an amazing place for others to visit. All you have to do is search for your inner designer, get creative, and start having fun!