Home Decor

A Simple Guide to the Most Popular Interior Styles and Their Features

The topic of home decor and interior design is a never-ending story. Modern urban, mid-century, traditional, … and the list of styles can go on and on. With such a diverse range of options, it can be pretty difficult to decide which one will work best for your space. Especially when you aren’t very familiar with their distinctive characteristics.

Even though there’s a large number of interior styles, a few of them stand out as the most prominent and most commonly found in modern homes. So, if you want to keep your space up-to-date, here’s a quick rundown on the most popular ones right now and their features.

Modern Urban Style

The modern urban style is perfect for sophisticated city dwellers. It’s the ultimate for cosmopolitan living, combining hints of contemporary, modern and industrial influences. As a movement in interior style, it started in the 20th century with the expansion of urban living. Nowadays, it’s always on-trend thanks to its enviable emphasis on comfort. This style is especially great for an industrial loft or a modern apartment overlooking the rooftops of the city.

The range of urban contemporary furniture features clean and crisp lines and geometric shapes. It usually comes in a neutral colour palette, especially in black, white and grey. Regarding the materials, we can say that it’s made of “cold” materials, including light-coloured wood, metal, steel, glass and even plastic. And when it comes to the used, leather, vinyl and faux leather, PU leather, and microfiber are the most common ones. This modern style is all about creating a soothing and serene, yet attractive and luxuriously decorated home featuring a lived-in sense of charm for everyday life.

Source: archdaily.com

To complete your urban decor, you can introduce accessories including plants and botanicals to keep the space light and refreshing. This is also a quick and affordable way to bring in colour. You can also bring in additional hits of colours by using accent pieces like petite stools and side chairs in deep tones (greens and blues) or by selecting decor pieces like coloured throws and pillows for your sofa.

However, if you choose this style, you should keep accessories to a minimum, since this style is all about simplicity. Hence, if you’re a fan of simple and modern design at the same time, the urban contemporary furniture and decor style may be your ideal option.

Traditional Style

The traditional style is the ideal home decor style for those who love classic form and enduring beauty. It reproduces the classic decor with European and French flair. This style emphasises elegance and simplicity. The principal features this style is known for are:
▪ deep colours and wood tones;
▪ lavish decorative details;
▪ luxurious materials;
▪ variety of ornamental elements;
▪ impressive craftsmanship.

Traditionally styled homes have a distinct visual cohesiveness in colour palette and materials. Traditional furniture features classic silhouettes, with curved lines and claw and bun feet. When it comes to the colours, there’re deep wood finishes, rich shades of brown, cherry, espresso, merlot, black and white. Tables, chairs and sofas are usually made from dark woods and are ornately detailed with carving and curvatures on their legs.

The windows are similarly designed with scalloped edges and fringe accents. The traditional style puts accents on decorative details like mouldings, panelling, intricate embellishments and throw pillows.

Source: thespruce.com

Scandinavian Style

Scandinavian design is marked by cleanness, simple lines, minimalism and the use of earthy materials. What makes it especially aesthetically pleasing is the lack of clutter and light ambience. It favours bright and airy spaces.

Wall-to-wall carpets are rarely seen in homes designed in Scandinavian style. Instead, hardwood floors are used in every room except the bathroom. The floors everywhere in the house are light in colour, as is most of the backdrop in the home. So, even the walls are typically either white or light shades of grey. Blue textiles are used on sofas, rugs and bedding in order to bring a splash of colour into the home. Scandinavian can also be combined with rustic design to give the space some extra warmth.

Transitional Style

The transitional design style is a blend of a variety of different styles to create a timeless look that’s all its own. More precisely, it is a mix of both traditional and contemporary design. Therefore, transitional furniture can feature straight and sophisticated lines like those found in modern furniture, or have rounded lines with ornate carvings like in traditional pieces.

This is a distinct vintage-influenced modern style with some specific pieces such as the Eames chair and tulip tables The furniture is generally warm and inviting with comfortable upholstering made of leather, linen, chenille or velvet. About the colours, you’ll see dark browns, taupes, tans and creamy whites. The transitional style uses intricate decorative details and throw pillows.

Source: overstock.com

Mid-Century Modern Style

Mid-century modern style is the decor style which is known for the most iconic furniture pieces  in modern design. It’s characterised by simplicity and functionality. Homes designed in this style have a seamless flow from the inside to the outside thanks to sliding doors, picture windows, skylights and patios.

The furniture is entirely unique, featuring statement pieces like marshmallow sofas and egg chairs. The walls are often dressed up with graphic wallpaper featuring bold geometric patterns and funky colours. This style is defined by minimalist silhouettes, sophisticated lines, handmade and hand-painted elements. The main material the furniture is made of is wood, sometimes with natural wood grain patterns. The fabrics and textiles are in solid colours which range from neutral to bold.

Interior Doors: A Simple Guide to Choosing Them

What’s the first thing you notice about your interior décor? My guess would be the furniture. Particularly the focal points in every room, like the sofa and entertainment unit in the living room, the bed along with the bed frame in the bedroom, the bathtub or shower in the bathroom, the dining set in the dining room … And yet, even though not less important, few of us pay attention to hardworking pieces such as the doors. Read More →

Guide to Double Roller Blinds: Get Privacy & Light Control in Style

When we relax inside our homes, we want to be free to be ourselves and enjoy 100% privacy from neighbours and people passing by, right? Luckily, there’s a thing called blinds. They obstruct the view into our homes and also prevent uncomfortable glare from coming in.

However, it feels good to let some sunshine in now and then. Plus, natural light helps to make the home more energy-efficient. This why homeowners who want to enjoy the best of both worlds, privacy and natural light, opt for the versatile double roller blinds.

Rustic Elegance: A Simple Guide to Decorating a Farmhouse Dining Room

With packed schedules and fast-paced technology that constantly competes for our attention, the modern world can get overwhelming. While looking for ways to escape the daily stress of our busy, high-tech lives, many try to decorate their interiors in a sort of rustic, farmhouse style as a way to bring their homes back to a much simpler time. Read More →

A Simple Guide to Understanding How Electric Roller Blinds Operate

Although dynamic and generally stressful, nothing can beat the benefits of today’s world. From the possibility of surfing the net whenever and wherever you want to the invention of tumble dryer, air conditioner and what not, everything is simplified and modernised. In light of that, once again, manufacturers have surpassed themselves when it comes to inventing new things, this time with electric blinds.

Can you imagine creating a romantic mood without even leaving the bed? Or darkening the room when putting your little one to sleep without getting up from the rocker? Well, nowadays all these things are enabled thanks to the use of remote-controlled motorised roller blinds. These types of blinds are a fantastic addition to any space as they can provide the needed level of privacy while being extremely stylish and appealing. Read More →

A Simple Guide to Decorating With Homewares

Can you say your home feels yours unless it’s filled with items that best speak of you? I highly doubt it! This is the secret to making a home homely and even if you can’t exactly afford to go for a grand uplift, you could pull it off by filling the gaps with homewares as they’re the accessories that add the finishing touch same way jewellery does with our outfits.

Considering there are many options of contemporary accessories home decor can be whatever you want it to be but you can’t just buy based on an impulse, you have to put some thought into it to decide what it is you need to best reflect your personality.

Of course you’d also have to use your budget to help narrow down your choices but it shouldn’t be the only factor. For instance, think first how certain pieces affect the cosiness of your interior; do they add to it or do they make for a mess?

Cushions are a great way to increase the comfort as are rugs and while it’s okay to match or mix and match try to avoid too much mixing and matching because you could get visual clutter and imbalance instead of harmonious ambiance; in other words, overstyling is a no no and it’s best to stick to carefully choosing the colours and patterns.

When you have bare walls and want to fill them with some liveliness you don’t have to resort to accent walls with wallpapers and go through all the trouble and extra expenses of installing them as there are contemporary accessories home decor could do well with like artworks and the stylish and functional wall clocks that steal the attention with their design and craftsmanship like the Nomon clocks.

One way of making the choosing easier for you is finding out what the current trends are, like biophilia, inviting more of nature at home, the tendency to decorate with dusty pink, and anything handmade from furniture to cloths to show off your skills and further personalise the place, but you don’t have to stick to trends exclusively or at all if they don’t represent you best.

One last aspect: Do you have enough brightness in your home? When you don’t have enough light it’s easy to get a dark gloomy outcome that messes with your mood so even if you don’t have as many windows as you want you could always use bright colours and mirrors placed to reflect the natural light from windows to do the trick.

A Simple Guide to the Different Types of Tableware

Who says that tableware is boring?! Nowadays, manufacturers have surpassed themselves when it comes to creating tableware which means that today’s models can be everything but boring. With the huge choice of table ware, now you can make every meal a special occasion. But before making any rash decision, there are some important things you should know in order to make the right choice.

As we all know, tableware or also known as dishware is used for dining purposes and serving food, and it includes a variety of items like all kinds of plates, bowls, glassware, cutlery, etc. Table or place setting is the term used for the dishes, whereas glassware and cutlery used for both formal and informal dining. The setting and arrangement of the table, as well as the table decoration, mainly depend on the occasion, so with this comes the need for the different types of table ware. They are available in a range of materials, out of which tableware made of ceramic materials is the most commonly used form. Read More →

A Simple Guide to Why Prefabrication is the Future of Cabins

Lifestyles aside, having a place where we can relax in nature is something we all need. Having a chance to get away from the everyday city hustle and chaos is something we all crave from time to time, and the easiest and quickest way to have that is by investing in a prefab cabin. Read More →

Say Goodbye to Tripping: Restore Order With These Shoe Storage Solutions

If you have a large family, you understand just how easily your entire house can be turned into a never-ending chaos if even for just one day everyone decided to leave their shoes wherever they pleased. Even if that’s not on purpose, chances are your little ones don’t really pay much attention to all your requests to keep their things organized. I know mine don’t. Walk in the door and there are the shoes that your kids took off when they came from school and were ‘too tired’ to properly place; walk into the kitchen and you will probably step on someone’s indoor slippers; head into your bedroom and oops – there are the heels that you wore last night. It is indeed a never-ending shoe-story. Read More →