Home Decor Tips – How To Furnish Like A Pro

With our home decor tips, you can furnish every space beautifully to enhance or even completely transform your home to make it the best it can be.

Our home decor tips revealed

But ramping up your space should not be reserved for professionals. That’s why we share our top 4 home decor tips on furnishing like a pro.

Home Decor Tip No. 1: Create a brief for yourself

For your decoration project to be successful, create a clear brief. Take the time to figure out what you wish to achieve by asking yourself the following questions:

• How is it going to be used?
• What do you wish to achieve?
• How is it going to improve daily life?
• What decorating style do I like?

If you find it difficult to determine your style, here’s another home decor tip. Head to Pinterest and browse through its vast amount of inspirational pictures. Pin your favourite images without overthinking, and you will end up with a board that clearly shows your style preferences.

Clear vision for decoration decision

To achieve the stunning space of your dream, it’s essential to have a defined idea of your end goal. You can make confident choices with a clear vision, resulting in a breathtaking room that will impress yourself and your loved ones.

Home Decor Tip No. 2: Identify your space’s pros and cons

Now that you have created a strong decorating vision, it is time to consider the given attributes of your space. Look around the room and think about what you like most about it. Here are a few examples:

• It has a lovely view into the backyard
• Lots of natural light
• I admire the detailed ceiling rose

But there might be a few characteristics you are not so keen on. This could be, for instance:

• It’s a small space
• The shape of the room is funny
• It has low ceilings

Endowed with the room’s pros and cons, you aim to highlight the positives while ideally hiding any parts you’re not very fond of. This home decor tip is all about creating distractions, illusions and techniques of manipulation to bring the best out of your room.

Pros draw attention to a room’s best side

Bring the focus to your beautiful outlook by creating cosy bench seating underneath the window, decorated with fluffy scatter cushions. Another decoration trick is installing velvet curtain scarfs on either side of the window. This will frame your invigorating view of your lush backyard. Either way, it will successfully draw attention to your room’s best side, while this funny shape of the space might become overlooked entirely.

How to create the illusion of a higher ceiling

A low ceiling in your living room can easily be addressed by manipulating your space. Our home decor tip is to choose a wallpaper with a vertical pattern that visually stretches the walls. Furthermore, paint the ceiling in a white colour irrespective of what the current trend may suggest. If you are renovating your bathroom, choose a small rectangular wall tile and lay it stacked vertically to create the illusion of a higher room.

In a nutshell, our decoration advice is to respect and highlight the qualities of your existing space. Never go against its grain.

Home Decor Tip No. 3: Get the proportions right

Do you know which is the most common mistake when furnishing a space? It is to get the proportion right between the room and the furniture. Haven’t we all heard of someone who purchased a dining table that dominated the space, causing the residents to squeeze onto their dining chairs?

Another example is someone who invested in expensive artwork only to find it looked too small, resembling a postage stamp on the wall. But getting the proportions right does not need to be complicated.

How pros determine the proper scale

At Martina Hayes, our interior decorator draws up the floor plan to scale and places the furniture inside before recommending any furniture to our clients. This ensures that the proportions are harmonious.

Simple home decor tip on how to get proportions right

We understand that not everyone wants to measure their space, convert dimensions, and create a floor plan. In this case, we have a simple decoration trick for you. Get the measurements of your desired couch and place post-it notes on the floor to indicate where the corners of the lounge would go. This will help visualize the size of the furniture piece in the space and show how much room is left to walk around it. Once you find the right-sized couch, you can remove the post-it notes without leaving any marks.

But it’s not only about the actual size of the furniture. Its style and build are equally important, too. For a small space, our furnishing advice would be to choose a sofa with legs rather than one that sits entirely on the ground. This makes the room feel a lot more spacious. Same with the coffee table. One with thin metal legs and a glass top looks more appropriate in a compact living room than a rustic timber one.

Home Decor Tip No. 4: Choose colour and pattern consciously

Selecting colours and patterns is a fun and exciting part of interior decorating. Our decoration advice is: Don’t choose colours on a whim. Instead, think again about your vision and the space because the colour will significantly impact how your space feels regarding scale, size and a deeper emotional connection.

With the right choice of paint colour, you can easily manipulate your room, making it feel warm or cold, small or bigger. If your room is rather small and dark, use lighter colours in furniture and for the walls. How do you feel about pastel hues, also called ice cream colours, which can transform any dark space into your cosy little gem?

If you are working from home, you may consider a colour palette that is stimulating and motivating for your mind. Your colour scheme will be different again to that of a bedroom which may have a softer palette to feel more peaceful and tranquil. Wallpaper is another great way to add colour and pattern to a room. So many wallpaper designs will be perfect for your decoration vision. Look at Kerrie Brown, one of our favourite wallpaper and fabric designer in Sydney.

If you wish to create more character in the space, consider artwork. Artwork is an emotional choice and affects all people differently. It can add a splash of colour and a lot of personality to your home.

Get some inspiration for your next home decoration project by looking at some images of our completed projects. Next time you find yourself decorating, we hope you will consider our home decor tips.

If you need help with the decoration and furnishing of your home, please call Martina at 0434 498 450 or email martina@martinahayes.com.au.