Here’s why interior styling matters in your home…
Because it’s the finishing touches that make the room.
You can have all the right stuff in your room, but it can still look awful if you don’t know how to arrange it. Interior styling is what takes any spot from eyesore to eye-pleasing.
You can use interior styling tricks all over your home, but paying attention to these five key spots will make your home look and feel better fast. These are quick wins. Arm yourself with my seven simple styling secrets (inside Décorography) and you’ll be able to dress up all these areas in 15 minutes or less.
5 Must-Style Spots for a Beautiful Home
1. Entryway Table or Bench
When you walk in the door I want you to think, “Ahhh. It’s so nice to be home.” Entryways are high-traffic, clutter-prone areas, because first and foremost they need to be functional. Interior styling can help you balance pretty and practical so you’re greeted home to an eye-pleasing space that functions well and feels welcoming.
What if you don’t have en entry? Try to fake it. If your front door opens right into your living room, use a console table to create an entry landing spot. Tuck a few benches under the table that can be pulled out for extra seating or putting on shoes. Use a tray on top of the console to catch keys and pocket change. Styling a special “entry zone” can make coming home feel less hectic.
2. Nightstand
The first surface you see in the morning and the last surface you see at night should be highly personalized and refreshing. Nightstands tend to collect random things, but with a little bit of forethought you can create a meaningful and functional display that you’ll want to keep neat.
I restyled our nightstands over two years ago with a focus on making them meaningful and beautiful. I decorated the nightstands first, before we finished the rest of the room. Other than new lamps, we already owned everything we needed to make our nightstands beautiful.
I am pleased to report our nightstands look nearly identical today in the finished room. We take pride in keeping them beautiful and the finished look makes our bedroom an even more relaxing retreat.
3. Coffee Table, Ottoman, or End Table
Whether you’re a “feet off the table” or “kick back and put your feet up” kind of family, your coffee table or ottoman is the centerpiece of your living area and it should look the part.
It’s ideal to have a surface, like a coffee table, end table, or console table within reach of every seat in your living area. But these surfaces aren’t just landing spots for drinks and reading materials. They’re also an opportunity to personalize your space and set the tone for your living area.
Is this a formal, look-with-your-eyes-only kind of room?
Or a let’s sit around the ottoman and play cards kind of room?
The right styling can help you set the tone and feeling for the room.
4. Dresser Top
Dresser tops are some of the largest horizontal surfaces in our homes and sadly they’re often neglected. They’re a landing pad for piles of laundry, papers, or other random bits. Styling your dresser top is a unique opportunity to make a statement in your bedroom and create a more personalized space.
I used the wall space above our dresser to display some meaningful travel mementos. Then I added some creative, but beautiful storage solutions to organize my jewelry, hide the random pocket junk, and charge our phones.
5. Desk
Whether your work from home or only visit your desk once in a while to pay bills, functionality is most important here. But I’d argue that making your desk pretty can increase it’s functionality (and how much you enjoy working at it). Styling isn’t just about making things look good, it’s about making things work better while looking good.
Want to know the secrets to styling all these surfaces?
In just 15 minutes, using your existing decor, you can make all these spaces in your home look better. The secret is interior styling. I’ve been studying, experimenting with, and teaching interior styling for the past two years. I created a system of seven styling shortcuts that make decorating any surface easy. It’s one of the styling classes inside Décorography, my program teaching you how to decorate your way to a home you love.
