Decorating Your Home with a Unifying Style: Part 1

We’ve all seen homes with matching furniture and experienced how that confers a sense of comfort or excitement, but what does it take to make a living space feel like everything belongs? If you’re creative, you can come up with a personal theme for your home that reflects what you like most. What if you want to give your home a Victorian or even steampunk look? How about a something futuristic, sport-themed, or fantastical? Your idea may seem crazy, but what’s crazy to one person is comfortable and homey to another. Many of us rent our apartments and houses, which means there are some things we probably aren’t allowed to do, like paint a room or replace fixtures. Of course, if you want to do these things, you can always ask your landlord and tell him exactly what you have in mind. Just remember that if the answer is, “No,” that doesn’t mean the end of your redesign. You just have to focus on other areas, and fortunately, there are plenty areas you can focus on to reflect your own unique style. Today, we’ll explore ideas for furniture and shelves.

Furniture

Furniture may be the single most important part of unifying a home. If you’ve ever been in a home with a leather couch and living-room seats, and color-matching chairs and tables, you know the sense of unity matching furniture can give a home. Many of us buy one piece of furniture at a time and don’t worry too much about how well it matches everything else. Whether you replace your furniture all at once, or get it piece by piece, keep in mind the new style you want. Fortunately, with all the shopping possibilities online, it’s easy to search under a certain style. You’re likely to get listings for furniture stores, online outlets, and even Etsy shops. In fact Etsy is a good place to search other things that can unify your home, too. To avoid shipping costs, search Etsy Local in your area. There are often brick and mortar Etsy markets set up locally.

Shelves

Carefully choosing your bookcases, night stands, and the look of your kitchen cabinets can add to the unified style of your home. If you watched GSN TV’s reality show Steampunk’d, you know that steampunk as an aesthetic is gaining in popularity. When it comes to shelves, you might want to make or use pipe shelving for your books and curios. You can paint these in copper tones to enhance the effect. Frequent trips to a thrift store like Salvation Army or Goodwill can turn up a great variety of shelving and furniture. You might find items that already fit into the style you want, or you may find something you can modify. For an additional touch of your chosen look to book shelves, add themed bookends.

In Part 2

Stylized furniture and shelves can go a long way toward giving your home the unified look you want, but you can take it farther. In Part 2, we’ll look at wall hangings and decorations.