Combining Style and Function in Your Home Decor

 

A  lot of the time, when it comes to doing up our homes, we have to make the tough decision between style and function. It feels like we can’t have beauty and practicality in the same space, but is that really the case? I would argue that, although it often does feel that way, it is not. If you’re creative with your home decor, it is possible to flawlessly combine style and function to create a home that looks good, feels great and meets your needs all at the same time.

With that in mind, here are some simple tips for combining style and function with your home decor, allowing you to create a home you’ll truly love:

Laminate Your Floor

There’s no denying that what you choose to decorate your floors with is a big deal because, not only do the floors take up a large, highly-visible area within your home, but they also experience a lot of wear and tear. So, how can you combine style and function in this area?

With Laminate flooring! Laminate flooring is great for the average floor because, not only does it, for the most part, capture the style and beauty of expensive hardwood floors without quite the same price tag, but it’s pretty durable, and it is possible to remove just a small portion of the flooring and replace it, should it become damaged. For that reason, some would say it is the perfect merger of style and function within the home!

Cover the Walls with Washable Paint

If you have pets of young children, in particular, it can feel like a never-ending battle to keep the walls clean and crayon free; you can’t even think about hanging wallpaper because you know it will soon be covered in dirty marks, ‘interesting’ drawings and maybe even the odd claw mark! The good news is, buying high-quality washable paint, enables you to decorate your walls beautifully, creating the kind of look you know you’ll love, while also ensuring that you can easily keep the place clean and tidy. Try it, it’s great!

Make for Multi-Use Furniture

One of the biggest problems many homeowners face is that of not having enough space in which to do their living. This primarily presents itself in a lack of available storage space, which causes the home to become cluttered and untidy. Thankfully, there’s a simple fix for this in the form of multi-use furniture. Things like storage ottomans and beds, couches that can be converted into beds and the like can help you to create an attractive, cohesive and comfortable home that always looks clean, uncluttered and fabulous, without having to give away most of your earthly possessions. Amazing, right?

Throw in Some Fitted Furniture

As well as making use of multi-use furniture, if you have a limited amount of space, using fitted furniture, which has been designed for the space you have available, making the best use of it to minimize lost space caused by corners, nooks and crannies is not only a great way to make your home look more ‘designed’, but also to maximize the amount of available space you have for living and, yes, perhaps even storing the stuff you’d rather have out of sight, too.

Egyptian Cotton Sheets

Egyptian cotton sheets might be more expensive than your average bedding, but if you’re trying to combine style and function seamlessly within your home, they are well worth your investment because, not only do they look good and stand up to repeat washes better than the rest, but they are also great at helping you regulate your temperature when you go to bed.

Enjoy an Oversized Ceiling Fan

These large ceiling fans from Modern Fan Outlet are perfect for those places that tend to get hot, such as the kitchen or living room in the height of summer. Not only do they really do a good job of keeping the room cool, but because they are so expertly designed, and because they fill up so much of the ceiling, they are an attractive and impressive feature in their own right.

Choose Clean Lines

When you’re buying furniture, if you have young kids, elderly family members or even pets, it’s a good idea to choose pieces that have clean lines because they tend to have far fewer sharp corners or edges that could cause an accident. This isn’t a hardship in any way, shape, or form, because, as you can see from this clean, contemporary coffee table from Hayneedle, clean lines are extremely beautiful! I mean you’d be happy to have this piece in your home, right?

Solid Stone is Superior

Combining style and function in the kitchen isn’t always easy, but one thing that will make a big difference is switching out individual tiles, which can so very easily be chipped by a falling object or an errant knife, for solid stone countertops made from beautiful materials like marble or slate. It’ll make your kitchen look better, and it’ll be easier to clean, as well as being less prone to breakage, so what’s not to love?

Bathroom Mat

In the bathroom, if you don’t want the place to be a death trap, you will probably want to make the place as slip-proof as possible. You’ll be glad to know that this doesn’t have to mean compromising on style because there are lots of matte non-slip tiles which are every bit as beautiful as those in the home, and if you can’t find any you love, you can always use a product like SafeGrip’s non-slip treatment to make the tiles you do love a bit safer! Isn’t modern technology grand?

Decorative Baskets and Boxes

Another way to meet your important storage needs without filling your home with lots of unsightly bulky furniture or cheap looking plastic boxes is to invest in decorative baskets and fabric boxes, which offer a softer alternative for your storage needs. These boxes and baskets can be stacked in corners, used to hide clutter on shelving units and even stacked under beds for a pretty stylish solution that’s practical too.

Double Up

If you have a big family, then your kids might have to share a bedroom. Traditional bunk beds might have been pretty ugly space hogs, but don’t worry because that is no longer the case. Thanks to the likes of Storkcraft you can ensure that there’s enough space for all the family while keeping things pretty.

If you only have one child, but their room is small, and they find it difficult to accommodate friends or do their homework effectively in there, you could also consider purchasing one of the many cool platform beds which come with a sleeping area on top and a desk or couch area below, into their room for the ultimate in style and function.

Use Bookcases to Divide the Room

If you live in an open-plan space, a good way of using bookcases that keeps them on the right side of stylish is to use them as impromptu room dividers, that way, not only can you use them to store your books/trinkets/bric-a-brac safely, but you can also give them more purpose by using them to delineate different areas of the home.

Make More Use of the Walls

It doesn’t matter how big or small your property is, chances are, if you need more space and increased functionality in your home, the walls are available to you. Using the walls more by adding hooks and hanging your more decorative items of clothing such as hats and scarves on there is a great way to add elements of style while being extremely functional, for example.

Use the Ceiling

Using hanging planters is a great way to add plants, which as you will probably know have calming and air purifying properties, into a small space where there might otherwise not be room for them. They also help to make your home look rather unique and interesting too.

Switch Things Up with Fabrics

Fabrics are one of the best solutions for combining style and function because simply throwing a piece of fabric over a worn couch or an uninspiring bed can instantly boost your style credentials, but more importantly, it can be easily removed and cleaned or repaired when necessary – which is not quite so easy to do with your average couch fabric!

The bottom line: there really is no reason why you should feel compelled to combine style and function in the home. There are so many fantastic products on the market right now, which makes it possible to have both, especially if you’re a creative thinker who can look at a piece and find a few different ways of using it. So, take your time to think about what you want from your home decor and then take some more time looking for products that meet your needs. This post is a great place to start, but it is by no means the last word on the subject.