Whether you’re refreshing the design aesthetic in your apartment home or newly moved in and ready to bring your personal style to your space, decorating your apartment should be fun and affordable. You can set yourself up for decorating success by creating an overall vision, defining a reasonable budget and choosing items that are both functional and multi-purpose.
Here are seven smart design tips to help you decorate your apartment so you can feel truly at home.
Create a vision for your overall aesthetic. Rather than buying furniture or home accessories haphazardly, take time to sit down and create a design aesthetic for your home. You can use Pinterest or simply gather together swatches, tear out pages from old magazines or use words or phrases to describe how you want your apartment to feel. Once you have a vision for your overall aesthetic, you can use this to guide your choices and help you stay on target.
Come up with a budget. The best budget is the one you truly can afford. Look at your savings, discretionary income and determine what you can truly spend on big and small items for your home. Put it down on paper or into a spreadsheet. As you shop, your budget will help you to guide your choices and keep you financially on track.
Start with the big stuff. Identify the items that you’ll truly need and use most, like your larger furnishings, dining tables, home office setups, etc. These may be more costly, but they may also be essential. To save money, look at nearby thrift stores or consignment shops. Watch for sales and coupons at your favorite retailers, and even keep your eyes out on Facebook Marketplace and NextDoor for good deals on gently used items.
Make it functional. Aim to purchase furnishings and decor that truly function in your life, that won’t dominate the spaces in your apartment and will help to create flow and maximize natural light. While you might love an enormous ottoman or bulky bookshelf in the store, if it’s too clunky for your space or doesn’t work with your other furnishings, it won’t function well.
Go for texture. Rugs, drapes, throw pillows and blankets can add pops of color and texture to your rooms without blowing your budget. If you’ve opted for mostly neutral tones, adding in a textured rug or one or two vibrant pillows can really add some energy to your room. If you’re not a fan of color, try adding in a few standing or hanging plants instead.
Multi-purpose furniture for the win. Maximize your space with furnishings designed to multitask for you, like ottomans that also contain storage or modular couches that can be separated to open up seating. Living in an apartment means learning to maximize space without crowding your rooms, and multi-purpose furniture is designed to do just that.