How Do You Decorate Your Home?

[clones_rebellion]

This is a little embarrassing, but I have no clue how to decorate the walls in my house. Most of my rooms have beige paint. Blech! I have one or two random pictures on the walls and a lot of nothing. I am so tired of looking at plain, boring walls, but I have no idea what to put up. My hubby is a bit particular and I know frilly, cutesy stuff would not fly. (Well actually it would, he would make it fly out the door! ) We both like old fashioned things, steampunk, Victorian world traveler, elegant but simple. Where can I go for ideas? Do you have any ideas? Any interior decorators here? Please help me!

[wyndeboo]

this looks like some cool ideas


http://www.apwarts.com/steampunk-home-decor/the-office-that-has-most-steampunk-vibe-nick-largely-due-72426/

[foalpatrol]

Wall decals are a cheap way to brighten up a wall, many are reusable and they don't damage the walls (in case you're renting).  Here's a couple of suggestions:

http://tradingphrases.com/steampunk-gears-large-wall-decals.html
http://stickerbrand.com/products/vinyl-wall-decal-sticker-tentacles-os_mb316

[Aadra310]

Hey, that sounds like my house- beige walls! 

My husband and I moved 2 years ago and we are still working on home repairs but I am soooooo ready to do some decorating but I'm stuck, too!  I've done some browsing on pinterest for room ideas- that might be a good place to look... if you don't get sidetracked like I do!

[kaoskat]

Well......on the walls there aren't shelves containing ponies, transformers, or dolls, I hang posters and pictures of my pets and sponsored kids......

[STLGusty]

My "decorating" (if you can even call it that) for the house is pretty much this:

Every room has white walls (yes, I wanted them white ).  Each room, though, has a different color curtain (maroon, dark blue, beige-y/white, and...shoot.  Some other color I can't remember!).  These are kind of the colors I TRY to base other items off of in each room.  Unfortunately, this rarely is the case.

On the walls in the family room/dining area, we mostly have pictures (like 11x16-ish) from our vacations.  We enlarge one picture every year.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?!), we are running out of space so we'll probably start moving some down the hallway next (we just have a ranch style home - nothing fancy or big).

I love TREES and LEAVES, so anytime we can work in that kind of element/picture, we do.  For example, the thing that goes over the fireplace has a leaf pattern.  We have a metal artwork thing of leaves on the wall behind our couch.  We have two metal branches with leaves flanking the left and right side of a large mirror in our foyer.  I also have a few "wood press pictures" (I don't know what else to call them?  It's like wood that has a picture pressed onto it) that are tree and flower related. 

I'm also a clock person.  We have a very large clock in our family room (flanked by pictures of our travels, as aforementioned).

For the most part, the color scheme we go with is more natural/earthy.  We have white walls, but oil-bronze metals, browns and blacks, maroons, hunter greens, and beiges. 

I'd love to really design and organize our house a lot more...but I'm cheap.  LoL

[Beldarna]

We have white walls and it took us three years of living here until we started to put things on the walls. Luckily my boyfriend is a photographer so we printed out the most beautiful of the pictures he'd taken at the time (that we could agree on) and bought black frames to unite everything. One wall is only of our furbabies, another wall is only of us, and the rest are nature and town pictures. It makes it so much more personalized when it's our own pictures that's up there.

[Icecrystalline]

oooh, oohhh, favourite topic! Thank you!!! I'm the decorator in my house, I live with my mamma, she has entrusted me with painting and redecorating the kitchen this summer!

Personally, the best place to start is a colour scheme.
Choose wisely, because some heavier colours can make an already dark room impossibly dark, whilst other shades can make rooms impossibly cold feeling (think ice blues).

I chose a blue (and no, what they say about matching blues isn't always necessarily true, I have lots of blues, and they are extremely complimentary, but pick a major blue focal point, and work around the blue colour wheel from there, up a blue shade and down a blue shade are too 'safe areas' to go when picking them!)
Then once you're happy with your 'base' colour, you can at this point pick another complimentary colour. I chose a darker blue for a beam in our kitchen, and ice blue for the main walls, but left one wall cream. Sounds odd, but it works. Cream is always a good neutral, and you should really always have a neutral, to help balance out the colour.
Next, pick your decorative colours, I call these 'offsets'. My offsets are silver, black and white. These are colours that are used during picking items to go in your newly painted room, colours that the objects are, such as a beautiful vase, holding flowers.

If you're looking for elegant but simple, with genres such as Steampunk thrown in, why not go for a modern twist? Clean white walls with a feature wall with a wallpapered section in this sort of print:
http://www.wilko.com/content/ebiz/wilkinsonplus/invt/rp00039/rp00039_l.jpg

Or if you're not a clean white walled kinda girl, why not try a very complimentary elephant grey for the majority of the walls?
http://www.warm-glass.co.uk/images/products/elephant-grey-opal-2mm-0206503923.jpg

As for carpets, you need to consider who's going to be walking on them. If you've got dogs, thinking about cream is out of the question, but your photo suggests a kitty! Keeping the floor minimal is good, how about a pine/beech effect vinyl?

http://homedesignlover.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/3-modern-living-room.jpg

Lastly, the interior objects, and I don't know if you're looking to go that far and switch up all the objects/the majority. This doesn't have to be done all at once if you're on a budget like we are, gradually introducing second hand objects that match your scheme can help keep costs down. Trying charity stores, thrifting etc can really pay off.

Going for Chocolate coloured sofas is nice and complimentary, but also paler colours like cream, but making it STANDOUT with bright coloured, Victorian printed cushions. Our sofas are cream and the other is beige. We have the theme I mentioned (blue, silver, white) and our cushions are all different patterns, broken up by a plain cushion between each one, made of different blues. I can send a photo if you're interested in achieving the look?

Hope this helped, I'm not an interior designer, but it's always been an aspiration.
Icey x

[achab1984]

It really all depends on what kind of look that your looking to get. I like to do a lot of searching on Google and look at pictures Some people like to have white walls and put hits of colors here and there in the room with pillow or a chair. I don't have much on my walls right now either, but I am in the process of changing things in my house.   

[ashes]

Pintrest should also have some ideas.  Also statement pieces like lamps and using items like a vintage trunk for a coffee table can really add character.

While I love color, for my home I like to be surrounded by calm colors, so it's a lot of neutrals with pops of turquoise.  It's somewhat modern country coastal.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I have a GIGANTIC sketchbook that I filled with cut-outs of things in interior decorating from magazines and ads that I like...  maybe you should start something similar and see what things repeat themselves and plan a new décor! 

[Kiwi]

Our walls are a neutral colour (haven't touched them since moving in), but we have calendars and pictures up. I have one framed Group of Seven print, and a large clock from my grandparents' house, in the living room.

pics are available at http://www.computerpony.ca/gallery/random/g-townhouse.html (need to upload more current photos, most are from just after the move).
I would like more colour (especially upstairs), but can live with it.

[slj84]

My living room.  It's still a work in progress.
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[clones_rebellion]

My living room.  It's still a work in progress.
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Wow! That's beautiful!

[slj84]

Thanks!  I'll have to post the before when I bought the house.  It's changed a little since I added a cat.  The shelf is now where the tree was and a 7 foot tall cat tree is where the shelf was