Home decor is essentially cosmetic. If you are rebuilding or reorganizing your home, decorating comes last in the sequence of events. However, it is also an affordable way to put a personal stamp on your surroundings and make it feel like home.
When it comes to interior design, the vast choice of materials, finishes, colors and patterns on the market today is undoubtedly intimidating. Even more intimidating can be the anxiety that you might get it wrong and thus feel like you lack personal taste. But decorating in an affordable modern style can be fun, creative and fulfilling.
The Decorative Palette
Color, pattern and texture are the fundamental elements of the decorative palette. One of the best ways of coming up with a decorative scheme is to assemble samples and swatches of materials and finishes that appeal to you and assess how they work together. These are often referred to as sample boards and encourage you to think in terms of real choices rather than abstractly.
Color is a natural signifier, a crucial means by which we process visual information about our surroundings. It is literally eye-catching and from a physiological and psychological perspective, effect our emotion and mood. While theory also plays a role in selecting color, what is more important is the reactions to color and our personal associations and preferences. Color perception is strongly affected by the quality of both natural and artificial light. Make sure you view paint samples or color swatches under different light conditions at different times of the day to judge their full impact.
Pattern Repetition is the essence of pattern, and where there is repetition, there is also rhythm and movement. Many patterns, particularly figurative designs, have strong cultural or historic associations that instantly evoke specific periods of styles. Such overtones, which tend to require an appropriate context, may explain "plain" has triumphed over pattern in many modern interiors. Yet on closer inspection, reveal patterning of a less deliberate nature - spines of books on a shelf, shadows of sunlight through a shade or the flecked surface of a granite worktop.
Texture Texture brings a physical dimension to decoration. It invites touch. Where much of daily life is experienced visually, if not virtually, texture has a powerful role as a means of grounding us in the here and now. It is difficult to think of texture without calling to mind a specific material, which is another way of giving a proposed decorative scheme a reality check. This all-round sensory package is what provides a sense of depth and character. Texture particularly comes into its own in otherwise minimal or neutral schemes, where color is muted and pattern is almost non-existent. A variety of different textures, expressed in different surfaces and materials, provides the required punch that prevents the result from being bland and insipid. The shift from white painted plastered wall to white painted brickwork, or from sisal to beechwood flooring, may be subtle but still provide impact.
Lighting One of the simplest, yet most dramatic ways of changing your home is to improve the way it is lit, both artificially and naturally. The quality of light affects the way we feel in a very direct sense; it is also the means by which interior spaces and surfaces are described, revealing texture, accentuating volume and focusing attention on detail. In practical terms, both daylight and artificial sources are necessary for the performance of routine tasks as well as for more specific functions.
