In this article, we explore home decorating rules, their importance, different types, dos and don’ts, and how to incorporate personal style while incorporating these rules. A vignette is a way of placing home decor and furniture so that the pieces look harmonious and visually appealing. There are five basic decorating rules that interior designers should follow: symmetry, asymmetry, and radial symmetry.
The principles of interior design include balance, harmony, rhythm, proportion and scale, emphasis, contrast, and details. The rule of three suggests that things grouped in threes are more natural, harmonious, and visually appealing. This principle can be applied by decorating in multiples of threes.
The Rule of Three and Odd Numbers are two essential interior design rules for creating functional rooms. The rule of three states that odd numbers look better than even numbers, and it is important to consider both practicalities and aesthetics when designing a living space.
In addition to these rules, interior designers often use designer jargon to explain the top industry terms worth knowing. These rules help create functional rooms by balancing unity, variety, and negative space effectively.
In summary, home decorating rules play a crucial role in creating a comfortable and visually appealing living space. By following these rules, you can refine and elevate any room, create a sense of balance, and create a visually appealing environment. Remember to always follow the rules of your chosen style and consider the unique needs of your home.
📹 5 DECORATING RULES You SHOULD ALWAYS FOLLOW
I know we like to break decorating rules around here most of the time, but these 5 rules are SUPER HELPFUL to creating spaces …
What is the golden rule in interior design?
The golden ratio is a design principle found in nature, such as the whorls of a pinecone, petals of a flower, or swirls of a seashell. It has been used for thousands of years in famous artwork and architecture, such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Notre Dame and Parthenon. For interior designers, the golden ratio can be a reliable tool for achieving balance through color proportions, furniture placement, and complementary accent pieces.
Symmetry or intentional asymmetry is vital in designing a room to attain cohesive functionality and visual appeal. The ratio is simplified to 60:40 or 60/30/10 rule, which can be used to create a perfectly curated, cohesive, and comfortable environment.
To create a balanced room layout, assess the floor space covered by furniture and strike the right balance by having nearly 60 of the room covered by furniture, with 40 being clear. Squares, circles, and arcs play a crucial role in adding intrigue to interior spaces. Circles symbolize unity and infinity, while bold geometric shapes can bring visual interest. For example, curved dining chairs can complement hard angles, while more linear chairs can add structure to round tables.
What is interior design guidelines?
Interior design rules are essential for creating visually appealing spaces. Balance is key, ensuring no single element dominates and distributing visual weight throughout the room. Symmetry is a classic approach, while asymmetry relies on harmonious arrangement of elements. Scale and proportion are crucial in interior design, as oversized furniture or tiny accessories can disrupt harmony. Interior designers must consider the scale of each element to create a cohesive and visually pleasing environment.
The 60-30-10 rule for color is often used when selecting color schemes, breaking down the use of color into percentages: 60 for the dominant color, 30 for the secondary color, and 10 for accent colors. This approach creates a balanced and harmonious color palette, preventing overwhelming or monotonous visuals. The dominant color covers walls and large furniture, the secondary color is used for upholstery and drapery, and accent colors add pops of interest through accessories.
What is it called when you decorate your house?
Interior decorating involves enhancing existing spaces with aesthetically pleasing elements like furniture, wall-coverings, accessories, and rugs. Interior decorators do not work with architects to create new spaces but rather embellish existing ones. There is no formal training requirement for interior decorators, as they focus on surface appearance. Many have degrees in related fields or have entered the profession as a hobby or career change.
Credentials and licensure are not required for professional practice, but courses on color, fabric, room layouts, space planning, and furniture styles are available. Organizations like the Certified Interior Decorators International offer coursework and certification.
What is the act of decorating called?
The term “decoration” is defined as the act of enhancing the visual appeal of an object or surface by the addition of embellishments or other design elements. Examples of such decorations include those used on cakes, Christmas decorations, and table decorations. It should be noted, however, that decorations such as curtains, frills, clothing, jewelry, and mirrors are not permitted. Alternative applications include the use of these materials as water jar decorations or ritual masks.
What’s another word for decorating your home?
The terms “beautify” and “embellish” are synonymous with “decorate,” which signifies the enhancement of an object’s appearance through the addition of aesthetic elements, such as color or design. Although they are occasionally used synonymously, “adorn” suggests that the enhancement is derived from an inherent beauty. Both “beautify” and “embellish” are related to the concept of enhancing visual appeal when confronted with a lack of visual interest or uniformity.
What are the design guidelines?
Design guidelines are essential for creating a positive user experience by guiding designers to adopt principles such as intuitiveness, learnability, efficiency, and consistency. Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich’s Ten User Interface Guidelines, established in the 1990s, are a valuable resource for designers. These guidelines have been applied to products by successful companies like Apple, Google, and Adobe, demonstrating how their design teams incorporate these rules into their design process.
The guidelines emphasize the importance of visibility of system status, ensuring users are always informed of system operations with an easy-to-understand and highly visible status displayed on the screen. This ensures that users are aware of their system’s operations and can make informed decisions about their needs and expectations. By following these guidelines, designers can enhance the usability, utility, and desirability of their designs. This article aims to teach readers how to apply these guidelines in their design work to improve the usability, utility, and desirability of their designs.
What are the principles of home decoration?
The seven principles of interior design, including balance, unity, rhythm, emphasis, contrast, scale and proportion, and details, are essential for creating harmonious interiors that convey character. These principles help achieve harmonious spaces that convey character. Balancing in life is crucial for a more rewarding existence, and interior design concepts can achieve this by understanding stability. Three types of balance can be applied depending on personal preferences:
What are standards in interior design?
Design standards in architecture and interior design are guidelines, regulations, or best practices that establish criteria for the planning, design, construction, and occupancy of buildings and interior spaces. These standards are developed by industry organizations, government agencies, professional associations, and other authoritative bodies to ensure safety, functionality, accessibility, sustainability, and aesthetic quality of built environments.
Building codes are legal regulations that govern the construction and occupancy of buildings, addressing structural integrity, fire safety, accessibility, plumbing, electrical systems, and energy efficiency. Accessibility standards, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), establish requirements for making buildings and facilities accessible to people with disabilities. Environmental standards promote sustainable design practices and minimize the environmental impact of buildings, addressing issues such as energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor air quality, materials selection, and waste management.
Health and safety standards aim to protect occupants from hazards and ensure a healthy indoor environment. Design guidelines provide recommendations and best practices for achieving functional, aesthetic, and cultural objectives in building design, such as building orientation, massing, facade design, landscaping, and historical preservation. Furniture and fixture standards establish criteria for selecting and specifying furniture, fixtures, and equipment for interior spaces, addressing factors such as durability, ergonomics, sustainability, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
What are the three basics of decorating?
In order to guarantee the success of the decorating project, it is essential to concentrate on the functionality, ambience and character of the space in question. It is advisable to consider the impact of potential changes, such as painting or rearranging furniture, on one’s family and lifestyle before implementing them. It is recommended that one looks for inspiration in magazines and chooses rooms that appeal to them.
What are design rules?
Design rules are constraints on layout geometry to maximize PIC components’ yield in high-volume manufacturing. ScienceDirect uses cookies and cookies are used by the site. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B. V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. Open access content follows Creative Commons licensing terms.
📹 Easy Home Decor Tips to Make Your House More Inviting
Simple and Easy Decor Ideas to Make Your Home More Inviting! *** It’s easy to spruce up your decor! Fresh flowers, candles …
I agree with most of your tips. I personally like the LED “daylight” light bulbs. I live in a small apartment with only a few windows and little overhead lighting outside of the kitchen and bathroom. Both me and my plants appreciate the the extra help. Pretty lamps/shades help the blue/white light not feel so sterile. And I supplement with candles when I’m going for a specific mood.
Thank you for mentioning the functionality of a room, so many pictures I see look great but don’t appear to be “usable” space. I have to admit, other than natural light, daylight bulbs make me happy. I do keep some fixtures with warm bulbs but those are on overnight. Whatever make your house a home! Tfs!
So helpful! I’ve been feeling kind of paralyzed as we begin to update a room in our home. We’re putting in built-in shelves and I’m going back and forth about color… We have white bookshelves in two other rooms and I’m playing it too safe bc I’m just overwhelmed by possibilities. Thank you so much for these great ideas. I’m already feeling more excited and have some direction now for how to think things through.
I agree so much with rule #4- functionality. Many designers place 4 very pretty hooks in the back entrance for a family. I don’t know about you but I live in Canada and I have at least 12 coats to myself. Ski, wool, trench, parka, rain, jogging etc…. are part of my collection. We need a CLOset, and a big one! Hooks would look messy in no time!
Some people like blue light. Sunlight on a cloudy day is very blue; that’s why blue Jean’s look very rich on cloudy days. If you live in Seatle and have a lot of windows, blues, periwinkle, violets and turquoise will look rich during the day. Warm artificial lights like 3,000 Kelvin LEDs washing over cool colors couldl look dull but warm colors will just “light up”. I don’t like the way my skin looks under cool lights (e.g., 2,600 kelvin) and I would never want to even see myself naked under cool lights. My contractor talked me into cool daylight LEDs because it made the Carrera marble in my new bathroom look crisp and fantastic. Needles to say, my first shower in that room was an emotional disaster and I immediately switched to warm light. There is a lot of research saying that cutting back on blue light, especially from electronics (smart phones, tablets, televisions) helps people get to sleep faster and better. Instead of wearing blue-blocker glasses every night, I block blue light on my devices and use warm dimmable light to light my home. I now enjoy brushing my teeth in my warm dimmed bathroom light–it’s similar to candle light (very hygge). Warm light is all about staying in harmony with our circadian rhythm. 😎
I so agree with you about making sure rooms are functional. Our midcentury house in Lawrenceville had a small dining room and we knew that it would not work for us. We are gamers (DnD, board, card, etc) and we entertain every weekend. So, we made the adjacent living room – one of the biggest rooms in the house – our dining room. It really only entailed having a chandelier installed over the table and having a doorway created from the kitchen/family room. One of our boys is only here on weekends and over holidays, and we needed an office/craft space, so his room does double duty. We also had the wall removed between the small kitchen and family room when we moved in because we spend most of our waking hours in the kitchen. The once-dark and closed off kitchen now seems expansive and allows people to chat with me while I cook and clean. These relatively small changes have made our house WAY more functional for both our family and our guests. As for functional decorating…with so much traffic, our synthetic rugs over the original hardwoods just make sense. Our slipcovered sofas and chairs allow us to eat popcorn during movie night and not worry about it. Our satin finish walls may be glossier than I’d prefer but they wash up great no matter what my children do to them! As for lighting…yeah, we fail there lol
OMG! I just bought the LED lights for my dining room because I am wanting to paint it a dark(ish) blue but it’s a smallish dining room and was afraid my lighting with 9 bulbs was not bright enough. I put in the LED and it’s so bright, I can dim the lights but I’m not really loving it. I think I’m going to try some different warm white non LED bulbs, maybe the ones that are clear bulbs would help? I’m having a very hard time deciding on the blue. My kitchen is SW Storm Cloud which on the swatch is very grey but on my walls with all my windows it’s definitely blue. I want something that goes with that. I feel it needs to have a grey tone to it. I picked SW Distance and it ended up having a purple tone to it and I hate that. Any suggestions?
Valentina! I really enjoy your website and I learn from you. I agreed completely with 1-4, but I really have to disagree with 5- lighting- I need bright light. I need to see. We have done the yellow lights I. The past and I much prefer the daylight lights. We have lamps, Can lights and over head chandeliers. But in all of them are daylight LEDs- it’s what we prefer. Funny thing I accidentally purchased yellow lights and I plugged them in and hated them… we took them back. Keep doing you! 😃
Firstly I am so happy to have found someone that makes me feel less weird! I spend hours obsessing over shades of dark teal and pinning different moods. I look at hundreds of lamps before I hit on the one I want for the space. I have given up asking my husband for the hundredth time whether this shade of grey is better than this one. All he says now is ‘I trust your design sense’ 🤣 He really knows how to keep me quiet. I could (and now do in lockdown) listen to you all day and I love the way you basically teach design disguised as just having a friendly chat. I think you build a sense of community and also give permission for people to be passionate ( to a fairly extreme level!) and celebrate that passion. Who else gets so excited about going to IKEA?! Anyway I never post comments but I felt you definitely warranted a long rambling one! Never lose that crazy passion! London, UK
Great article! The inclusion of multiple levels of light is so crucial! Whether low levels, task lights, candle (or battery), sconces to flood a wall or plant, inside an armoire or on a shelf it enhances any room. A bright, centered ceiling light is good for cleaning a room only. Otherwise, have dimmers installed. Agree with you, Valentina, no blue tints in LEDs. It makes everyone appear seasick!Yucky!
Valentina, I’ve been binge perusal your articles for a bit now. What is your nationality? You remind me of my bisabuelo. He was Spaniard, quite the handsome fellow. He had the most beautiful eyes, rivalled by my Papaw whom was half German and had the most beautiful electric blue eyes I’ve ever seen (besides one of my doctor coworkers) You are beautiful and have a great in/output advice for those of us that can’t afford millionaire taste but middle class budgets. Like the old adage goes “Perro flaco soñando con bistec” Translation… “Skinny dog dreaming with steak,” LOL Doesn’t sound right when you translate it but brings the point across. 😁 Love your website!
SO amen to this! Focal points YES! Black and whites. YES! Plants. Yes! We have eclectic style and LOVE candles. Blue lights are a complete no no in our home. Fire is so important to us and to mankind, we get lost in staring into a fire esp us here in South Africa… have you EVER seen a cold fire? No? Well then NO blue/white lights! 🇿🇦
Haha me on the other hand, I can’t stand “yellow” lighting (with the exception of candlelight) it just makes me so sleepy and lethargic and I feel…dusty. I aim for a “soft white” or neutral clean light versus where it looks blue, but I can’t do anything that truly looks yellow. (And I would argue that sunlight doesn’t look yellow either–though yes, a candle does.)
Valentina, loved your article! I’m subscribing right now. What are your recommendations for lighting to do artwork? The home I’m moving to will have a window nook facing south and I’m planning on putting a desk or drafting table in the window to catch natural light, but any recommendations on bulbs for capturing true colors? Thx! I’m going to follow on IG too 👍
I really love your articles and that you’re here in Atlanta (I’m in Suwanee)! I’ve been sending your articles to several of my friends who are working on things in their homes. I also love that you included a picture of a floor lamp that I have in my living room! I have lots of lamps because unfortunately natural light is scarce in that room which can be as painful as the blue light of which you speak. 🙂 Getting ready to paint some shade of white thanks to you. Thanks for what you do! P.S. I have a great color app on my phone called Color Inspiration Tool. It gives you color swatches from the top paint companies, creates palettes (lets you change the hue and number of colors), and other things. I find it super useful.
Love you said that a room has to be functional apart from being pretty. I cannot stand going into furniture shops and try sitting on tons chair s and sofas and they are very uncomfortable 😣 Any chance you can help pls with two things? One is here in the UK a lot of houses are very body with low ceilings. How to make these with pain,wallpaper etc look like bigger rooms with taller ceiling? Two is I live in a very nice house witch is not my style at all. Very Nordic style. I love French, old Victorian cosy rooms with dark walls and guild frames. How and can I use it in this kind of house? I feel so uncomfortable mixing styles Thanks 😊 xxx
That cold blue light makes me crazy! It’s so sterile. Years ago as the LED lights came in and were all so awful I used to tease my husband that I was going to start hoarding incandescent light bulbs! I’m so happy that there is now a warm option. But I really do like the lower electricity cost now and realize that it is very important for our environment. 🙂
Higher kelvin IS appropriate for an office space during the day when you need to be productive. So in my home office I have higher kelvin. I don’t want 2000 Kelvin in an office. That is appropriate for the bedroom to wind down before bed but definitely NOT an office. There are alot of great articles on how to choose the appropriate Kelvin for a room. I think this goes a LONG way in feeling more comfortable in a space. More of a warmer look for some spaces, cooler lighting for others.
Your “rant” 🙂 on function over form was spot on!! It needs to be shouted from the (well-styled) rooftops. It seems far too many designers have dreams of Architectural Digest photo shoots rather than livable homes in mind. I also TOTALLY agree on yellow lights. I work for a church and many years ago we moved from a rented storefront to our own purpose built building. I told the building committee, “fluorescent lights quench the Spirit.” If you’re not a Christian, never mind. But, rest assured, I think God agrees too. LOL I’ve viewed a bunch of your articles before today, but as of today I’m a subscriber.
Very thoughtful article. I love the color coded book shelf idea!!!! I have to work on that one. Lots of great tips. You are adorable. Looking forward to the next one. I like to group like things about my home. A cluster of white vases on my shelf, colored glasses on mantel. I have many antiques from family members and like to have them around.
Loved the tips!! Some I do already but I definitely will be doing more w/ my books as you have suggested and create a vignette of my own! One tip I do that I can pass on is in my house I leave one picture window w/o curtains (south facing) and have several plants on a tiered shelf and cuttings in water growing in cool glass jars and in between old cut glass jars filled w/ marbles /baubles etc for color! Thanxs can’t wait for your next one =)
Good reminder tips! I agree, they make a home more homey. 🙂 I love tulips…I have to use fake flowers because of allergies, unfortunately. 🙁 Check out Candles by Victoria for unique candles. I love her candles. I would also love to see before/after photos of your house. 100 years old…I bet it is so cool! Also, I would love to see book hauls/reviews, if that’s something you’d be interested in doing. Fellow book lover, here. 🙂