Hey everyone! Looking for any interior decorator aficionados out there. For as long as I can remember I’ve never been able to decorate spaces where I live and would love some advice!
I’ve been at my current home a few years and my living room is painted, but the walls are empty. We have some furniture (couch, entertainment center, key ring holder) and our TV but you really wouldn’t be able to tell who lives there or what type of people we are. This is the case for all of our rooms.
Does anyone have or know of any guides/tips/suggestions for making a space feel more “lived-in” or “home-y”? I’m not sure where to start aside from family pictures, but then get stressed about messing up our walls or something “looking wrong” and having to redo/undo it all. Any way to get past that mindset as well is definitely welcome!
Any help is appreciated, thanks everyone!
I feel hanging shelves and putting tchotchkes on em really add a lot of personal touches. I went with some geometric shaped shelves that I placed in a pattern on the wall and put some object de arte on em and that did a lot of good for making it feel more homey. I’m embellishing a bit on “object de arte”, I got a go set, a red wax elephant, a Star Trek ship and a small plant on there, just some stuff that relates to my interests and a few splashes of color.
If you’re nervous about putting holes in the wall, some wire frame shelving units can work, too, and you can get them in all sorts of shapes and sizes these days. If you search using the keywords “geometric” or “asymmetrical”, you can easily find some designs that help break up the flat lines of a book case style shelf that I feel adds a dynamic feel to the decoration.
Lastly, if you can splurge for it, there’s always the classic paintings. Find an artist you like and go for a print or two. I went with stuff by Kandinsky, but I really like that sort of abstract, dynamic piece, to my boyfriend’s chagrin, so maybe talk about it with the people you live with first more than I did (he’s come to tolerate it plenty fine though and we get compliments all the time so haha I win).
I do really enjoy geometric and abstract stuff so I’ll have to look into them, we really just want to give our home some more personality so it feels like home. We have some artwork but never know which room they really fit in since they’re all kind of different moods and aesthetics.
To parrot some of the other comments, the holes needed to hang artwork and photos are very easily covered up with a lil spackle (or even toothpaste!) and paint, but also command hooks work very well for hanging things even up to ten pounds, and come off cleanly if you remove them slowly and according to the instructions.
I’ve hung paintings in spots and later decided they don’t look right there and moved em. Sometimes it’s helpful to put it up to see how it works in the space and move it later.