Dream. Declutter. Decide. Design. Decorate.
The 5 Steps to creating a home you love.
If you're trying to create a beautiful, intentional home for your family, the first place to start isn’t Pinterest or HomeGoods. The truth is that there’s an order to the principles of designing a space that works; and while those geode bookends are pretty, they’ll just look out of place without a plan. Follow me through the five steps to designing a home you love, and at the end I promise you can still hit up Target for some cute throw pillows that will fit right in.
Dream
Before you can start designing the look of your home, you need to dream about how you want it to feel. Don’t focus on one room yet, but rather think about your home in general. What do you want it to feel like? Who is there with you? How do you feel when you’re in your home? How do you want others to feel? This is your space filled with your people, and you want your signature to be written all over it.
Take some time to imagine and journal about the vision you have for your heavenly home. Is it clean and clear of clutter, beautifully decorated, with soup bubbling on the stove? Perhaps you can imagine a summer pool party with dozens of friends and family on the patio sipping cocktails. Or is it a cozy candlelit dinner with your family followed by board games in the living room? Your home should be a place of warmth and joy for you and your family. What does that look and feel like for you?
Once you have connected with how you want to live and feel in your home, it’s time to clear the slate.
Declutter
I’m not a true minimalist, but I love many of the principles of it while still fitting in time to shop at Target. This quote by minimalism guru Joshua Becker sums up how I feel about it:
Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value, and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.
It’s almost impossible to design and decorate your home in a way that aligns with your vision when it’s overflowing with STUFF. I’m looking at you, geode bookends! When your rooms are overflowing with random items you picked up on a whim or because it was trendy, it’s hard to keep your vision in mind. In fact, that “stuff” can even boss you around, and pull you in a direction you never wanted to go in the first place.
That’s why the second step to creating a home that feels like you is to declutter. Give yourself a fresh start by Decluttering Room by Room, and quieting the space. As you bring the room into a neutral state new possibilities will emerge, and give you flexibility and choice you couldn’t see with all the tchotchkes in the way.
Decide
I think this step might be my favorite, because it’s the most personal. Once you have a vision for your home and have removed all the stuff that doesn’t belong, you get to decide. How do you want each room to function for your family? What does your family need to live well within your home? For example, a dining room can be a lot more than just a place to eat. It may be where three children are homeschooled, or it could be for formal dining only. Is the living room for eating popcorn and watching movies, or is it a kid-free quiet space? You can even change how rooms are used completely. Perhaps the guest room that’s only used twice a year could be repurposed to accommodate something your family really needs the space for.
As you decide how the space in your home is used, you get to decide who’s going to be in it and what they’re going to be doing. It will make 95% of the decorating decisions easier once you know how each space needs to function.
Design
Now that the stage is set, you (finally) get to make it pretty and functional. First up is making the space functional, and there are three things to think about when you do this: butts, beverages, and belongings.
Butts. How many people need to sit here on a daily basis? Do you need secondary seating for when you have guests? This isn’t just for the living room and dining room, either. Do the kids need chairs in their rooms for anything? Do you need an extra chair in your office? Butts are a big deal!
Beverages. If this is a space for drinking in, where can someone set a beverage comfortably? Does the bedroom need a nightstand to place a water bottle at night? Can the person at the end of the couch reach a table?
Belongings. Finally, consider what stuff needs to be in the room. This shouldn’t be hard because you’ve decided how you want the space to be used and you’ve decluttered. Do you need storage for books, toys, utensils, or rain boots?
This step is all about designing and arranging the use of the room and choosing the furniture you need for it to work best.
Decorate
Finally (finally!) you get to go to HomeGoods! Okay, almost. Before you add the final touches to your space, first think about lamps, rugs, and drapes. These make such a difference to a room when done well.
Lamps. Does your space need additional light or task lighting? Lamps are a beautiful way to light up a room… if you use them!
Rugs. If you want to use area rugs in your space, I highly recommend looking up the rules for using rugs in each room. For example, your living room rug should fit under the front legs of the furniture. This will help you choose the right size rug, and avoid the “something looks off” conundrum that can happen when you impulse buy.
Drapes. When drapes are hung correctly, your windows will look bigger and maximize the amount of light in a space. The best advice is to hang your drapes high and wide so you can see as much of the window as possible.
NOW you can add the wall treatments, photos, wall decor, plants, and trinkets to finish the space off. (Yes, you can go shopping.) This is the last step, but it’s where most people start… which is why our spaces get so cluttered and feel disconnected.
I’m excited to create more posts like this, where I’ll be sharing ways to not only declutter and simplify your space, but also ways to help you add layers of texture and beauty to your decor so your home feels totally unique like you.