Today we are sharing 10 interior styling tips to update & refresh your home for 2022. We hope these tips inspire you to create a restorative and inviting space that you love.
Interior Styling Tips: Lighting
Lighting changes how we see and feel in a space. This could be as simple as swapping out your light bulbs for a warmer hue or reassessing your entire light scheme. We recommend incorporating a combination of task, accent, ambient, and mood lighting.
Task Lighting
For example, adjustable wall, table, or floor lamps are great for the bedsides, the home office, illuminating dark corners, or anywhere you read and write.
Accent Lighting
Wall sconces and picture lights add symmetry to windows, shelving, and mantels and can gently wash your walls & artwork with a warm glow.
Ambient Lighting
Ambient lighting provides overall illumination, draws the eye up and can add structural interest with chandeliers or ceiling pendants.
Mood Lighting
Lastly, mood lighting can be achieved by adding dimmers on each fixture, including candlelight, salt lamps or installing LED strip lighting on bookshelves and under cabinet lighting in the kitchen and bathroom.
SHOP LIGHTING
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Interior Styling Tips: Smart Storage
The next tip is to clean, organise and declutter each room. Set aside 10-20 minutes each day to sort through your items, creating a yes, maybe, and no pile.
We like to put items away in a cupboard for a few weeks, and if you haven't thought about the items or don't remember what is in there, chances are it is ready to be donated.
Storage Ideas:
Upgrade your existing storage to smart and stylish alternatives, maximising both horizontal and vertical space.
- S hooks to increase hanging space.
- Repurpose a bar cart for your bathroom toiletries and towels.
- Floating shelves to showcase some of your most-loved accessories.
- Beautiful woven rattan and jute baskets to hide away everyday items.
- Disguise functional items by incorporating tissue boxes, waste bins, and toilet brushes made from rattan or ceramic in sleek & minimal designs.
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Brooke Wagner Design
Interior Styling Tips: Signature Scents
A signature scent serves as a personal scent memory, evoking certain emotions and assigning meaning to a space.
Your signature scent could be in the form of a room spray, candle, incense, oil burner, or diffuser. Personally, we love to have a few different fragrances on rotation depending on the season, activity, and room in the home.
Signature Scent Ideas
- Lush soap pump bottle and diffuser in the bathroom.
- A light pillow spray/linen spray for the bedroom pillows.
- An all-time favourite candle in the entryway and living room.
- Be mindful of what your candles are made from, ensuring they are paraffin and smoke-free to avoid any toxins.
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Interior Styling Tips: Accessories
The next way to refresh your home is to personalise your space by accessorizing with something loved, something living, and something with lustre.
Something Loved
The only rule when it comes to adding something loved is exactly that, you must love it! This could be an item from your travels, trinket boxes, ginger jars, decorative objects with age and patina, candleholders, or groupings of coffee table books, which can also serve as great conversation starters.
Something with Lustre
Something with lustre includes anything with reflection, such as crystal glass vases, stemware, mirrored trays, glossy ceramics, or pewter picture frames. These add a gorgeous sheen and shimmer that complement any organic materials and stop a room from looking flat.
Something Living
Something living includes fresh-cut foliage, trailing vines, flowers, or potted plants. Some of our go-to plants are ruscus, branches with lichen, fiddle leaf figs, and orchids. You can also incorporate naturally found items, such as driftwood, coral, or shells grouped in large vessels or bowls.
SHOP DECORATIVE ACCESSORIES
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Interior Styling Tips: Chalk Paint
There are so many ways to re-purpose your existing furniture and decor with paint. Our favourite paint to work with is Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, as it very rarely requires any preparation, such as sanding or priming, and can be used indoors or outside on just about any surface.
Transform your existing look
Consider using paint to revitalize old furniture pieces, walls, bathroom grout, kitchen cabinetry, outdated fabric upholstery, lamp bases, or decor. If you are considering repainting, as a rough guide, one litre of Chalk Paint® covers the equivalent of a small welsh dresser or china hutch.
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Interior Styling Tips: Layering Textures
Throws & Blankets
Add warmth and cosiness to your living area with a plush throw blanket draped over your sofa and armchair, storing extras in a basket or trunk during the warmer months.
Velvet quilted blankets, chunky wool knits, and sheepskins are great for winter, whereas lightweight cotton and linen throws are perfect for the summer months.
Quality Bedding
Update your bed linen with quality-made top and bottom sheets, bedspreads, comforters and of course, comfortable, fluffy pillows. After all, there is nothing better than a night of restorative sleep and having layered bed linen to customise to your level of comfort and temperature.
Plush Towels
resh, quality towels that don't shed, fray, or itch will add longevity and evoke that hotel-like feel.
Natural Materials
Incorporating rattan, jute, natural wood, or stone will ground your space.
SHOP THROWS & BLANKETS
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Hale Mercantile
Interior Styling Tips: Simple Swaps
Repurpose
Repurpose items you already have in new and different ways, swapping your cushion covers between rooms, changing your lamp shades and table linen, re-arranging your furniture formation, and restyling your bookshelves, sideboards, and consoles.
Shop your home
Go from room to room and reimagine the purpose your items could serve. Borrow items from your kitchen and dining collection to style on your bookshelf or sideboard.
Change your hardware
For a small change with a big impact, replace your existing hardware, such as your faucet, door handles, drawer pulls, hooks, and racks. This can add an instant WOW factor and can contribute to highlighting the interior style you are wanting to achieve.
SHOP HARDWARE
Source: Tharon Anderson
Source: Studio McGee
Interior Styling Tips: Zone your Space
Take some time to reflect on what needs your home will fulfill in the year ahead. A home office? Children's playroom? A workout space? Art room? This will be largely personal to you and your day-to-day needs.
Brainstorm creative ways you can zone these different areas, especially if your home is open plan. Adding subtle visual cues that separate each space can aid in the transition from work to relaxation.
Some of our favourite ways to define a space include an area rug, a sheer curtain or rattan room divider, a large potted plant, vertical storage, wallpaper, or even faux architectural details such as wall mouldings and panelling.
Source: Miller Roodell
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Interior Styling Tips: Window Treatments
For an impactful change, update your window treatments. While window treatments add privacy and soften any harsh glare, they can also elevate your home's style by adding character, texture, and softness.
Window Treatment Ideas
Options include heavy drapes, sheer curtains, timber shutters, and roman or Venetian blinds.
If you are unsure of which option is best for you, I recommend you explore our style guides, where we offer suggestions for window treatments based on each decor style.
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Architectural Digest
Interior Styling Tips: Anchor Pieces
Lastly, an anchor piece is a fantastic way to express your personality & tell a story.
Wall Art
Anchor pieces include a wall-mounted framed painting or photograph, a woven tapestry, botanical prints from a series, or a gallery wall.
Mirrors
We love how mirrors calm the mind and evoke serenity by circulating the natural light and providing the illusion of a larger space. Position your mirror to reflect the most-loved aspects in your home, such as window with a leafy outlook or a beautiful light fixture.
SHOP ART & MIRRORS
Source: Suzie Anderson Home
Source: Suzie Anderson H
