Stylish & Cozy: Bring Life into Your New Home

After an extensive process of packing and moving to a new place, the final step you need to take is to make your new living space actually liveable. Aside from adding functional elements and storage solutions that make life easier, you also want to make sure that your new house truly feels like home. Achieving a sense of warmth and coziness, or as the Danish would put it, making your home more hygge, is by far the most exciting part of the moving process. Here are a couple of decorating ideas to help get you started.

Add splashes of color

The easiest and probably the most inexpensive way to make your new home feel more lively is to add some color to the mix. Painting the walls in color you’re particularly drawn to will bring a sense of familiarity and add some character to the room, making you feel more connected to your new place. Unless your favorite hue is neutral, you should strive to incorporate colors in smaller doses. For example, punchy hues such as red and yellow are considered ‘loud’, so they’re better suited for accent walls rather than entire rooms. Another way to inject some color into your home design is by adding pops of color. This can be done by incorporating smaller decor pieces such as vases, pillows, accessories, and accent chairs. These will add just the right amount of color and freshen up your space, but you may want to rely on the 60-30-10 color rule to ensure you get the best results.

Adorn your walls with art

You’d be surprised by how a couple of selected pieces of art can influence the vibe of a place you’ve just moved in. Aside from being an effective way to add character to an otherwise plain and dull room, surrounding yourself with items you deem beautiful is a sure-fire way to make you feel more comfortable in your new home. Oversized wall art pieces are bound to make a statement in a room and act as a focal point when there’s none, but gallery walls are equally eye-catching as chunkier pieces. If not, you can always bring in a couple of family photos to personalize your new place even more. If you tend to change your mind a lot and like to move things around when you get bored, foregoing hammer and nails is your safest bet, and hanging strips and hooks are a godsend in this case.

Cozy up your floors

When setting up a new home, another design element you shouldn’t overlook is flooring. Nearly any area of your home can be spruced up with rugs, and adding them is one of the easiest and simplest ways to completely transform the feel of a room. But with so many options to choose from, selecting an area rug can be tricky. Why? Because you can only visualize so much, especially when shopping online. However, there are brands that provide free online styling services to help you find a rug that meets your needs. For instance, brands such as Miss Amara let you work with on-hand professionals who can curate a selection of rugs based on your requirements. Not only will a carefully selected underfoot instantly make the room feel more comfortable and cozy, but it’ll also act as an accent piece, making your home look like it was styled by an experienced interior designer.

Let there be light

The atmosphere you’re aiming to create in your home will largely affect the choices you make when it comes to your lighting design. This is one design element that often doesn’t get enough attention yet it can drastically change the perception we have about our living space – when done right, of course. Start by making the most of the natural light that your home receives. Utilizing lighter hues in your color scheme will create a sense of spaciousness and make the room feel bright and airy, but similar effects can be achieved by incorporating mirrors and metallic accessories because of their reflective surfaces. Layering your lighting is another way to make your space feel cozy and stylish. With the help of well-placed lighting fixtures and the right light temperature, you’ll create an inviting living space that promotes a warm, serene vibe that helps you with living a positive life.

Home is so much more than walls and beams – it’s about the feeling you get when you’re there rather than the place itself. Taking your home from liveable to loveable may take a while, but if you know what you’re doing, you can easily cut the work in half. With some interior design how-tos and these nifty tricks up your sleeve, you can make your new house more hygge and turn it into a place you’ll eagerly come home to at the end of the day.

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Written by Lana Hawkins

Lana Hawkins is a stay-at-home mom, writer, and interior design enthusiast. She loves writing about interiors, but her specialty is landscape design. She enjoys playing in the kitchen and cooking for her friends and family, spending time in nature and learning about other cultures by traveling. She is a regular contributor to smoothdecorator.com.

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