Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of us are spending time at our homes to slow down the spread of the virus. At the same time, being surrounded by the same atmosphere for months can dampen the spirits.
This post is for those of you who are feeling creative and looking for some useful home renovation ideas to spend your time productively while social distancing.
This quarantine period is the perfect time to develop a deeper and intimate connection with your home. You can boost the mood in your home and make every minute indoors a refreshing experience by paying attention to your home interior.
While thinking about interior design, words like style and flair may come to mind. But, you might be surprised to know that there is a science to great design.
Design experts say that if you carefully follow all the 7 elements of interior design, you can beautifully create a welcoming and inviting interior. Let’s have a look at those basic design elements and see how you can utilize them to set up a great interior in your home:
- Space
Space, being the foundation of an interior, is an important concept to grasp. The space you have in your home cannot be changed so you have to work with what is available to you by staying in those physical boundaries of the room.
In interior design, you have the power to play with three-dimensional space i.e. length (floors), width (walls), and height (ceilings). You can leave this space filled or empty depending on your needs and perspective.
Besides that, space is divided into two categories: positive (space containing objects) and negative (space that is empty/open). It is important to strike a balance between positive and negative space to avoid overcrowding in your home interior.
In a large room, you can split the space into different areas of interest and decorate it accordingly. In a small room, you can put one large object like large pots or huge artwork to create an illusion of larger space. What’s important is making certain you have created a balance of space in your home so that you don’t feel overwhelmed by too much or too little space.
2. Color
Color psychology is of vital importance in a home interior because colors trigger response, stir emotions, and evoke memories in your mind. For example, blue is considered a productive color, red is energetic, green brings peace, lavender drives tranquility, and brown creates safe spaces.
Parallel to that, the kind of color palette you use in your home can make it look bigger or smaller and brighter or darker. Light and bright colors create an illusion of a bigger space while dark and warm colors highlight the dimensions of the space. So, while deciding the color palette for a room, think about how color your choose makes you feel.
- Lines
Lines are split into three categories: horizontal, vertical, and dynamic. Horizontal lines (chairs and tables) bring stability to a room. Vertical lines lead the way to nature and freedom (doors and windows). Dynamic lines add energy and movement to space (stairs). A good design is the one that maintains a balance between different forms of line and brings them together to create harmony. You can rearrange your furniture to change the energy in any room.
- Lighting
Lighting can change the look and feel of a room dramatically by impacting the color, texture, and lines. Although it seems obvious there are some hidden concepts that you might not know about light.
There are four types of lights. Of course, natural light is the one. The other three types of light come under Artificial lighting and they are: task lighting that defines the purpose (lamps), mood lighting that adds ambiance (general lights), and accent lighting that highlights objects (spotlights).
Considering that lighting can affect your mood, your appetite and your sleep cycle, it’s imperative that you are using lighting wisely. The quantity and quality of lights should be accessed before installing them in a room. This will help you to meet the lighting needs of that particular area perfectly.
- Texture
The texture is used to add depth in a home interior and is broadly categorized into 2 groups: physical texture and visual texture.
Physical texture involves touch. while visual texture refers to the illusion of the texture of a surface. For example, you can feel the scene of the painting hanging in your room although when you touch it, it’s just a flat-surfaced picture.
Using rough-textured rugs, blankets, and furniture add warmth to an interior. On the other hand, a shiny and smooth texture is perfect to create a grand and formal appearance.
- Pattern
Patterns are repetitive designs that consist of lines, texture, and form. They come in various types like geometric, stripes, pictorial, organic, motif, and others. You can easily include patterns in your home interior by making use of patterned rugs, wallpapers, and wall furnishings, etc.
No doubt patterns are great to create interest and beauty in a room but they can also make your space look cluttered when not used carefully. So, while implementing patterns, consider the size and style of your room. You can experiment a lot with patterns in a bigger space however, overdoing patterns in a small space will create a messy and disturbing look.
- Form
The form is the physical shape of any room and the objects present in it. It relates to anything which is three-dimensional. Forms are usually grouped as natural or geometric and open or closed.
Natural forms are the one that seems to be created by nature. Opposite to that, geometric forms are the ones that are man-made and contain edges and hard lines. Open form refers to the objects that can be looked into while the closed-form describes the objects that are self-contained.
Before adding any object into a room, always consider the proportion of the space and the scale of the object you are adding. This will help you to create a balanced effect because too many different shapes in a room create an unbalanced look. If you have a good understanding of line and space, you’ll automatically bring a positive form to an interior.