Decorating your apartment can be a fun way to express your personal style, but if you've only got a small space to work with, your dream décor scheme can quickly turn into a nightmare. Rather than feeling the need to fill every nook and cranny in your apartment with furniture and, well, stuff, adding even a few small touches, like the perfect accent piece or a great, cozy rug, can make a room memorable and wow-worthy.
So in order to really take a minimalist approach to home decorating, make sure you say yes to less with our tips.
To really get into the minimalist frame of mind, concentrate on having as few pieces of furniture and decorations as possible and rather focusing on enhancing the already existing décor elements in your apartment. If you have a bright coat of paint on the walls, choose a simple rug that picks up some of those vibrant colors and you’ll only need a few pieces of simple furniture, jazzed up with a cute throw or some pillows, to create a lovely room.
Read more: Add Color to Your Space Without the Commitment of Painting
And speaking of furniture, a truly minimalist room would only have a few essential pieces of furniture. For example, a living room might have a couch, another chair or love seat, a coffee table, a couple of lamps and a television in a small entertainment stand. A bedroom might have a simple bed or futon, a dresser and perhaps a night stand.
Read more: Top 5 Ways to Decorate a Small Living Room
The key to decorating with less is more in mind is to keep things clean and natural, making sure the senses are never overwhelmed or over stimulated. If you often find your coffee table buried under a stack of bills, magazines or books, or if the decorative odds and ends are collecting dust on your shelves, it’s time to start selectively editing. Don’t get us wrong: sometimes all it takes is taking a giant trash bag to your belongings, but more often than not, it just requires figuring out what you can and cannot part with. That monkey-shaped lamp with the tacky fringe lampshade you picked up at a yard sale is probably something you can live without.
Read more: Unexpected Places to Find Decor Inspiration
Rather than tossing a few decorative pieces on a table or mantle, take a more organizing approach by grouping similar objects together, like mirrors, vases or magazines, achieving a deliberate sense of decoration rather than a scattered, just-left-it-there look. For example, try picking out a few colorful vases to place in your windowsill, or cluster a grouping of framed photographs on your wall. But make sure to keep it from getting too crowded. In other words, don’t decorate with 12 of something when three or four will do.
Read more: Decorating with Sentimental Pieces
Another important part of decorating in a minimalist fashion is to keep floors and all flat surfaces clear. Except for your furniture, your floors should be completely clear, meaning that nothing should be stacked or stored on the floor. As mentioned in the previous tip, all flat surfaces should remain clutter-free, save for a few deliberately-placed decorative pieces.
Read more: How to Optimize Space in a Small Apartment
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