How To Help A Home Interior Feel Less ‘Artificial’

There’s a strange disconnect between the decorations used in a showroom and a home that’s actually lived in. This might seem obvious of course, the home has people actually moving around in there, using the space, and adapting its surroundings as time goes on. But we’d also argue that there’s something more happening here, perhaps something that cannot be replicated unless we know how to define it.

If you’ve ever tried to fill a home with decoration as a matter of urgency, perhaps after extending a property, renting a non-furnished apartment, or redecorating a space anew, it’s not hard to think that the decorations placed in there are a little more clinical than they could be.

This is especially true with modernist builds, or modern apartments, as often minimalism and neutral colors are found throughout. It can be nice, then, to try and make such a space feel less clinical and more homely, less artificial and more real. This involves a range of efforts that in the following article, we will try to discuss. While this isn’t an exact science, the artistry behind such a practice could help you out next time you try to decorate your space appropriately:

How To Help A Home Interior Feel Less ‘Artificial’

Don’t Be Afraid To Have A ‘Lived In Home’

It can sometimes be that when you implement storage space, or place books in a certain order on a shelf, or fill out an open shelving square on a bookshelf, or lay your table ready for each evening meal, that you think you need to adhere to some perfect aesthetic in order for the space to look worthwhile.

Fortunately, that isn’t true. It’s fine to have firewood placed next to the wood burner, or to use a wire egg basket shaped into a chicken, or a fruit bowl with real fruit in it, or flowers that only last a week or so. Allowing for your home to feel lived in without being perfect can both help you save time cleaning up after yourself too much (this is important if you have children who may leave toys in the living room or on their bedroom floor, as cleaning them up at the end of the day, rather than constantly, is a healthier approach), and also provide you a sense of appreciation, knowing that your home is unique thanks to your normal means of living in it from day to day.

For instance, allowing the smell of beautiful food to waft throughout your house as opposed to trying to bust those odors immediately, or using odor-destroying sprays to care for your house pet smell rather than never allowing your dogs to enter certain rooms, all of this can help you take a load off your mind.

Open Storage Space

There’s a real tendency for many home decorators to hide away all of the belongings and appliances you may have, but there’s no real reason to limit yourself like this. Sure, a space can look cleaner and tidier if all the Blu-Ray box sets are hidden away under a television cabinet, while your record collection could be hard to sort when out on a shelf as opposed to in a drawer near your record player – but why not use some of your belongings to decorate the space, too? 

The idea that you need to hide away every single household item you have to help the room feel bigger can only leave you sitting in an empty shell of a space. So don’t be afraid to indulge in placing some of your favorite objects around the room, be that a cool souvenir you pick up on vacation used as a bookend, or placing vinyl covers and LP’s on a wall to showcase some of your favorite artists, or just having an open-plan television cabinet with many different storage compartments to showcase your retro video game consoles, a home is brought to life by the tastes of the people in it, so don’t be afraid to balance your storage and presentation a little more.

Celebrating The Family

A home is a place where a family will live, no matter how big that family may be. So if a home is good enough to secure you and keep you safe and comfortable, why shouldn’t it be a place where you decorate with familial memories and tastes?

It might be that having professional photographs taken of your family and lining the hall with pictures of everyone who lives there, framed and lit by overhead lights, could be a lovely means of adding some personality to the home. 

Perhaps you could also add some artistic measures, such as painting over your inner door frame you used to mark the heights of your children as they grew, or painting a family mural, or having a family tapestry made and hanging that with pride. Perhaps your daughter is a photographer and has some wonderful shots of your local village you can print professionally and hang, or maybe your son is an athlete at school and has several trophies you could place in a glass cabinet of your living room.

Your family is the most important thing you have in this world, and so it can’t hurt to allow your home to reflect that love and those memories a little bit more. This is a decorative element that is always sure to satisfy.

Indulgent Decorations

Indulgent decorations can make a tremendous difference regarding how comfortable and content you feel. For instance, think of a feature wall, and the darker decorative tones you can use to give the space a little more character (particularly if you’ve been using light tones throughout the household). 

You can tell your friends asking about your new wallpaper that you found them here, and that the different tones used have been matched with your cushions and other trimmings around the room to provide that gorgeous feeling of utter balance. Or you can choose a premium silk bedding set that silk keeps our body cool with its breathability and temperature-regulating properties. It does not easily stick to our skin, keeping us dry and fresh. Silk is soft, comfortable, and feels luxurious on the skin, making it a much-loved fabric worldwide.

An approach like this can also add a little zest to your home as well, helping you avoid the overly clinical means of matching the perfect color tones for each space. While competent design and a uniform aesthetic can work wonders, it’s good to take that and twist it with your own tastes from time to time.

Warm Tones

You might have noticed that certain showrooms are brightly lit, for obvious reasons. But the color tones of such lighting can pose a problem from time to time, especially regarding how clinical and clean the space looks. Sure, a bright white light can work well in a bathroom, but what if you just want to relax at night, or watch television with your partner on a winter’s evening?

It’s good, then, to choose smart lamps, floor lamps and other lighting fixtures that offer more of a warm glow, as opposed to using lamps that feel a little too bright. Some lamps are dimmable and can provide a range of color tones, which can also provide you with some utility. In some cases, smart lamps can even connect to your voice assistant, meaning that asking your device for a particular color tone while reading in bed could take nothing more than asking the light to do that.

Comforts

Finally – comforts. This is how you may choose one kitchen bar stool over another, or how you decorate your sofa, or the L-shaped pillow you use to keep you comfortable on your side in bed (this is also amazing for expecting mothers).

Don’t be afraid to add home comforts. They can help us bust stress and feel the most peace after a long week dealing with the outside world.

With this advice, you’re certain to help your home interior feel much less artificial, all for the better.