The Life-Changing Magic of Interior Styling

For the next week I’m hosting a free home styling class. It’s called the Styling Secrets Workshop. It will only be available until June 8, 2016. Until then you can watch it anytime that’s convenient for you. Sign up here to get instant access to the free class.

To learn more about the importance of interior styling and why it’s one of my favorite topics to teach, watch the video below.

Click here to watch the Styling Secrets Workshop.

Did the title of this video say magic? As in life-changing magic of interior styling. Okay, I admit it. I am the last person that should be talking to you about magic, because I’m a scientist to my core. But I think you’ll agree there’s a magical quality to interior styling when you see how simple and effective it is for transforming your home décor.

Now, interior styling is also a science because there are guidelines, principles, and formulas—I call them styling secrets—that show you exactly how to make beautiful vignettes all over your home.

Let me show you two examples of often neglected surfaces that could use a little styling magic, and science.

Let’s talk about night stands first. Are your night stands bare or, even worse, a cluttered mess? That’s not what you want to retire to when you go to your bedroom every night. I want you to know how interior styling can help you love your room every time you walk through the door.

What you’re looking at here is my husband’s night stand. I want to point out some of the styling secrets at play here.

• There’s a great visual triangle happening with the lamp, the picture frame, and the flowers.
• We’ve also got some layering and stacking going on with the picture leaning against the wall in the back, and the stack of books in front.
• There’s one more styling secret at play here called grounding, and that’s the anchor point of the small tray for the water glass, and the glasses, the watch, all of the things you take off before you go to bed at night. By having a tray there they automatically have a place to go back to.

Now, I repeated this styling on the other side of the bed for my nightstand. We’ve got a his and her situation going on. They don’t match but they coordinate.

• On my nightstand we also have a great visual triangle with the lamp, to the picture frame, to the decorative boxes.
• There’s also that layering and stacking happening with the picture against the wall and the stack of boxes with the object on top.
• I also have a couple of anchor points on my nightstand with the small silver tray for my water glass and the bowl to catch all of my jewelry and things that I take off before bed.

Ever since I styled our night stands a couple years ago, we’ve never wanted to change them. We always keep them clean and clutter-free, because it makes our bedroom feel relaxing and peaceful.

Now, let’s talk about an even trickier spot to style—the ottoman or coffee table. This spot is so hard because you want it to be pretty and welcoming, but it also needs to be really practical for your family.

I want to show you the ottoman in my living room, and show you how I styled it three different ways.

When you’ve got a tricky spot to style, I like to start out first with the prettiest option. In this version it looks like something you might see at a furniture store or in a catalog. It’s uber pretty and totally not practical if you have kids, or pets like I do. It is great styling practice to try out the different styling secrets. I always like to start with the prettiest option first, and then scale it back to something that’s still pretty, but more practical.

In this option we still have lots of the pretty elements but we’ve taken the height down a little bit and we’ve brought in some more practical items. The next step is to really evaluate what you’ve done and see if it’s practical for real life and does it really fit your family? The truth is this is so pretty but it’s not really our personality.

So we go to version three, where we’re still following all of the styling secrets but we’re really thinking about the personality of our family and what is the right fit for us. We’ve brought in the magazines, and a deck of cards in the bowl, and everything on this ottoman now is really kid-friendly, and pet-friendly, which is perfect for our family.

The beauty of interior styling is that you can play with styling secrets knowing exactly what’s going to look good, and then tweak it until you get it just right for your real life.

A few years ago I spent an entire month dedicated to studying and practicing interior styling in my home. During that time I developed what I call the Seven Simple Styling Secrets.

These are the fundamental styling principles that I believe every homeowner needs to know, because they’re going to help you makeover your home decor without buying anything new, and without being a designer.

If you want to learn the life-changing magic of interior styling then I invite you to join me for the Styling Secrets Workshop. It’s a free is 60-minute video training that will show you exactly how to use the Seven Simple Styling Secrets to makeover your home. Sign up below to get instant access to the workshop video. It will only be available through June 8, 2016.