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Design Elements You Need to Know Before Decorating Your Space

When you first move into your own place, it’s a very exciting experience. You’ve made it through all the rigors of credit checks, application fees, and deposits, and arrived at the promised land of freedom, privacy, and decorating heaven!

Now, before you get too decorating-happy in every room of your new place, you definitely want to make sure you plan everything out ahead of time before you actually move in. One thing you can do to aid in the decor process is to do a thorough walk-through tour of the apartments you visit. You can even bring a tape measure with you to get exact measurements!

You can always look online and get the information you need, but use the apartment searching tool as a means to physically get you to the apartment complex you like, and essentially get you moved in! Once you find the apartment of your dreams, consider these design elements to have every room in your new place look like it came out of a magazine!

The Purpose of Your Rooms

We rarely utilize a specific room for its specific purpose… except for maybe the bathroom… rarely will you eat your meals there! But as far as the basics of living spaces are concerned (outside of fancier named rooms like a game room, loft, and sunroom), every room in your apartment will serve its own specific purpose.

The kitchen is where you cook food, the dining room is where you eat your food, the living room is for entertainment, the bedroom is for sleeping, and the bathroom is, well… where you go to the bathroom and bathe. I say all that to say, the actual purpose of certain rooms, are actually utilized in multiple ways. 

The room where you’re supposed to eat is rarely used for eating. That room is typically used for stashing mail. In fact, the rooms where you sleep and go for entertainment, is actually where most people eat! How crazy is that!

Who Will Be Using the Space

This is an important aspect when it comes to decorating. You have to be conscious of what you put in your living space to be accommodating of everyone living there. It’s really quite simple, but sometimes there are small things you forget about. Let’s refresh our memories.

  • Seniors- With seniors, you’ll want to be careful with rugs, that can potentially become a trip hazard for them. Even in the bathroom. A safe tip would be to place shower floor grips to prevent slips. You can even find cute ones that can go with any themed bathroom decor.
  • Pets- Pets come with a lot of responsibility in general, so during your apartment hunting process, make sure you look at apartments that accommodate pets first and foremost. As far as your apartment decor is concerned, try to stay away from breakable items that are in reach of wagging dog tails. If you have cats, invest in a cat tree, so that they don’t roam all over your furniture.
  • Kids- With kids living in the apartment, they can be a little more accident-prone than adults, and with an apartment being a rental unit, you’ll want to take extra measures in protecting your rental unit. To protect your carpet, consider a nice area rug to protect against spills.

Size Matters

Getting an understanding of how big or how small your apartment is will definitely help you in the decorating process as well. You don’t want to get furniture pieces that won’t fit through your door, nor do you want to keep running to the store exchanging curtains because you keep purchasing the wrong size for your windows.

Sometimes when you’re in the store, you’ll see a furniture piece, or even furniture sets that you know would look great in your apartment, but once you actually purchase the furniture and place the furniture, it can make that living space look overcrowded and small. So to be on the safe side and prevent any headaches, grab a pen, paper, and measuring tape, and jot down the dimensions of the rooms, windows, and doors… you’ll be glad you did!

Design Style

Figuring out your design style is essential to decorating a room… if you don’t know that, then you’ll just be putting all kinds of things together in your apartment that wouldn’t make any sense as far as design and style are concerned.  Take the time out to do a little research on the different types of interior design style you like, and make that style your own.

  • Minimalist- This particular design style is very simple. The color palettes are neutral, consisting of white, black, and variations of grey; very clean lines, and zero clutter.
  • Rustic- Rustic design draws its inspiration from elements of the outdoors and nature. It’s not uncommon to wood and stone with this design style.
  • Hollywood Glam- This design style is also known as Hollywood Regency, and also an ode to everything luxurious. When you think of Hollywood Glam, think of tufting, velvet, crystal, and anything else extravagant and over-the-top.
  • Traditional- The design style of traditional is very popular. You can expect to see lots of wood furniture pieces, fabrics with various patterns and textures, and lots of knick-knacks.
  • Bohemian- “Free spirit” is what you can think of with this particular design style. A person who chooses this design style is probably carefree and lives by their own rules, which is generally none. With a Bohemian living space, you can expect to see bright colors, rugs with inspired patterns from across the globe, floor pillows, and lots of greenery.

Color

Tying in the color with your design style is a fairly easy task. You can incorporate the colors of your choice through the actual furniture pieces, or with accessories. Your accessories can come in the form of throw pillows and blankets, rugs, curtains, and lamps.

Another way to bring color into any room is by painting. Some people will give a room an accent wall. An accent wall is a wall that is the center of attention for that room. People will decorate with pictures to bring their accent walls to life.

When it comes to painting your walls, you first want to check with your apartment complex first to see if they have any type of restriction on painting the walls. Most of the time they don’t have any problems with your painting the walls, as long as you paint the walls back their original color before you move out.

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