“With our family spending more time at home as of late, it is so important for us to LOVE where we live. One of our favorite things to do in our home is adding natural elements into our design like wood and plants to the inside. Beautiful wood cutting boards on the counter, wooden candle holders, giant wooden and wicker lanterns, large wooden framed canvas’ of our kids that make a statement on our tall walls, plants anywhere in the home that get good light. We even have a lemon tree! All of these natural elements help warm up our white walls without committing to one color!”
Taryn
VBH Homeowner
Congratulations! You’ve just purchased your new home, and you’re so excited about moving in. This home is probably much more spacious than your last one, and now you’ve got so many new and interesting spaces to decorate. But let’s also be honest, you just bought a new house, and maybe some much-needed furniture, and your decorating budget has… dwindled.
We’ve got some fantastic news – making a new house feel like home doesn’t have to cost much. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve already got lots of things you can use to create that warm, comfortable, inviting feeling we all appreciate in a family home. And any items that you do need to purchase don’t have to cost much.
The key is to decorate your home with items that invoke a memory, are part of a story, or that you personally find beautiful. We all scroll home design accounts on social media to feel inspired, but those are model homes, and the price tag can be staggering. Your home doesn’t have to look like a model in order to feel like home. It just has to reflect you and your family’s personality and style. Here are a few ways to do that on a dime.
1) Make it Personal
Model homes and designer Instagram accounts feature gorgeous, high-end artwork. But for many people, spending thousands of dollars on original art just isn’t realistic. Even reproductions can be pricey. The one thing you do likely have in abundance is photos on your phone. These are the perfect reflections of your family and should be framed and hung!
Look for casual and candid pictures, rather than overly posed ones. The hardest part is often remembering to get them OUT of your phone. An easy trick is to use an app like Shutterstock to order inexpensive prints. A service like Level Frames will even frame the photos for you and ship them straight to your door.
Photos aren’t the only personal items you can frame. A beautiful handwritten note from a loved one, a series of postcards, or even a recipe written in your grandmother’s handwriting make for beautiful and meaningful displays of art.
Kids’ drawings and paintings are also fantastic items to frame. Take their best work off of the refrigerator and hang them in a series in your child’s bedroom or playroom – they are the perfect colorful complement to youth décor.
One last tip to make your home feel more personal is to display your travel memorabilia or collections. Whether you collect coffee mugs, shot glasses, silver spoons, or snow globes in every city you visit, reserve a shelf or two in the house to display them. They’ll remind you of your travels and be a great conversation starter when friends come to visit.
2) Dress Up Your Windows
Though the minimalist design look is in right now, with barely anything more than blinds to cover a window, curtains and drapes instantly create a warmer, more pulled-together space.
Window coverings can be expensive, but we have a hack that only costs a few dollars. Hang cotton tablecloths as curtains. Yes, you read that right! We promise that guests will never know the difference. Shop your favorite big box retailer for the longest tablecloths you can find – usually 108 inches, or 9 feet. Pick up some curtain rings with clips that match the finishes in your home, and hang those tablecloths from a curtain rod! The result is a lightweight, modern-looking, exquisitely long curtain that, if hung at the correct height, will pool slightly at the bottom, creating an effortless, elegant window dressing.
3) Plants, Please!
Some people think interior design is hard, but the easiest and least expensive trick in the book is just adding plants! Don’t overthink it – just head to your local nursery and choose a few that catch your attention. Re-pot them if necessary, then use them to fill spaces in your home that need a little extra attention. You can cluster small plants on a shelf for a modern look, or fill an empty corner with a towering tree. Some of our favorite plants that do well indoors are monsteras, pathos, fiddle leaf figs, succulents, bamboo, spider plants, snake plants, and majesty palms.
Though plants are inexpensive compared to other types of décor, you can save here, too – just take a look around your property. If your new home is landscaped with mature roses, hydrangeas, or even just beautiful long grasses or slender tree branches – clip a few and put them in water in an elegant clear vase. Your home will be instantly transformed.
If you happened to be born without a green thumb, we’ve got you covered! You can still enjoy the look of greenery by incorporating faux plants into your décor. These are not the plastic-looking, painfully obvious fake plants of yesteryear. Today’s artificials are incredibly textured and life-like, and add that same fresh, airy look to any home.
Your new home doesn’t have to look Instagram-perfect. In fact, we think that adding personal touches and creative design ideas makes it better than perfect – it makes it yours. And that’s the most beautiful home there is.
4) Bring the Outdoors In
Natural elements like wood and wicker can really warm up a home and provide lots of visual interest. In fact, bringing natural elements normally found outside into your home even has a name — biophilia — and it’s been known to contribute to productivity and happiness.
When you build a custom home on your land in North or South Carolina, your design options are unlimited! To learn more, please contact us at 405-358-8615 or schedule an appointment today.