How to make your home decor feel more cohesive
[scene]: You’re religiously scrolling through your favourite home decor influencer’s IG account for inspiration before you head to Homesense. You have a camera roll full of #designinspo screenshots. But for some reason, your decor finds don’t feel like they "click" as well as theirs do. What the heck? [end scene]
Curating consistency in your home without shelling out big bucks for an entire overhaul can feel like a tricky balance to achieve. But fret not, with focus and a few key principles it’s completely possible!
Here are my top tips to help your decor give you that cohesive, Insta-worthy vibe you crave.
Define your design style
If you take only one of these tips to heart, let this be it. Stop and spend some time reflecting on what style you truly gravitate toward most (your soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in a piece of furniture). It’s very easy to be distracted and lust after every trend you see executed on social media or HGTV, or in the latest design mag. It’s also totally normal to love more than one.
But the more you hone in on what really speaks to you, the more easily you’re able to achieve it. If you’ve heard terms like “mid-century modern” and “Scandinavian” but have no idea what qualifies as such, Google images and Pinterest are fantastic ways to get a visual understanding of different design styles. Again, it’s totally okay to combine two design styles - just make sure you have a clear understanding of what it is you’re pulling from each. For example, a Scandi-mod style might pull the muted wood tones and cozy textures from Scandinavian design, and add the clean-lined furniture profiles of mid-century design.
Stick to a colour palette
Focusing on a colour palette will help you avoid feeling that disconnect while walking from room to room in your home. It doesn’t necessarily have to be all neutrals, but grounding the core colours of your palette in the neutral spectrum simplifies the achievement of cohesion. Think whites, beiges, greys and black as a base, and then layer in whatever complimentary accent colours you love.
Defining a palette lets you pull any number of those colours into any given room while maintaining the overall cohesiveness.
Pro tip: when choosing colour, consider what are the long-term investment fixtures, furniture and decor pieces and what are the less-of-a-commitment things that can be changed/swapped out. For simplicity, stick to neutrals for the former and colour (to the extent you wish) for the latter.
Get strategic wiTh accessories
This tip combines the principles of the ones above and applies them to the curation of your finishing decor and styling choices. It’s super easy to make these types of purchases impulsively (“it’s only $’x’…it’s too good to pass up) or in an ad-hoc fashion (“I need ‘x’, this fits the bill…this will do”) and that can lead to a disorganized vibe when you combine them all together in your space.
Not to say you should never jump on that cute vase you spot at Homesense, but as a general rule try to have a set of criteria to help you assess an item that catches your eye and evaluate it objectively. Here’s where you’ll want to pull from your identified design style and apply the colour lens. You might want to stick to one-two element(s) from each of these categories as your criteria:
material: glass, metal, ceramic, natural fibre, wood, etc.
design: clean lines versus intricate ones
finish: shiny/polished/matte
Naturally an elevated design combines more than just one of each of these elements but for example, buying a shiny brass vase won’t jive if the rest of the accessories in your home are more matte.
Don’t be afraid to say “thank you, next”
Following appropriately on the heels of the accessories vetting tips, my final tip is resist the pressure to incorporate something just because you love it. If it doesn’t adhere to your chosen design style, if it’s not within your colour palette and if it’s an accessory that doesn’t meet your criteria - don’t purchase it! Chances are high even though you love it on its own, you won’t love how out of place it will feel in your home.
It’s normal to love lots of home decor options for any array of reasons. If you’re hoping to make your home decor feel more cohesive the big takeaway from these tips is to refine your editing eye. And if you’re still in doubt, that’s where hiring a home stylist (like me!) can help.