5 Ways to Make a Visual Impact with Interior Design

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I love making my home feel cosy beautiful and if I can do it on a budget I’m even happier. Fortunately my other half is a very handy handyman and can turn his hand to most things. But not all interior design calls for this. Sometimes it just takes a bit of thought and imagination.

I am going to give you just a few ideas of things you can do around interior design that can really make an impact in the home.

CLADDING

Cladding is very on trend and I do love a bit of cladding. My kitchen has never had the walls tiled and as I do a large amount of cooking as you can imagine they get dirty. So we decided that we would like to clad it and paint it in an eggshell finish so it can be wiped clean. There is also the added advantage that if we decide to change the colour theme of the kitchen we can do this with a coat of paint at any time.

Another reason for choosing cladding I have to confess is that it’s very cheap and creates the feel and style we desired.

There is a wide range of cladding available, some made of wood, some mdf and you can buy it bare or ready primed and in a variety of lengths and widths. And it can be stuck straight on to the wall with an adhesive. It is surprisingly easy to do with the maximum impact and minimum cost!

WALL ART

When I’m decorating or designing a room I already know what type of thing I want for the walls. Whether it’s a large statement piece of art or a particular style, or perhaps sometimes it can be pictures grouped together with a certain tone of theme. Deciding what you put on your wall can really impact on a room. But also deciding what wall to put artwork on can make a big difference.

Always spend time holding the pictures in place, experiment with different heights and different walls. Putting a picture on the right wall can lengthen a room, but the opposite is also true . So always be mindful if you don’t want to make a room feel small or narrow. Make sure where you place a picture impacts for the right reasons.

If you decide to put words on the wall in either a frame or as a decal be mindful of the fonts that you use. You want them to be pretty but legible. Click here for free fonts.

SOFT FURNISHINGS

Now as my husband knows very well, I love a cushion, or two, or three or more when I can get away with it. (“You can have too many cushions” no one ever said!) Cushions and soft furnishings can really make an impact on a room and change it from boring to welcoming. It can give a sense of opulence and comfort.

Also cushions can be used to give a room that pop of colour to brighten it up. Also if your room is mostly neural tones then by using cushions and throws you can add a colour to the room and that can be changed relatively cheaply to another colour without the expense of redecorating the entire room!

UPCYCLING OLD FURNITURE

Living in a throw away society nothing gives me greater pleasure than finding ways to reuse things. And when it comes to old and tired pieces of furniture it’s surprising how a bit of time and a lick of paint can’t turn something old and uninteresting into something that can be a feature in a room.

When I upcycle furniture I tend to use an eggshell finish which requires a primer. But you can use chalk paint which can be put straight on to most furniture and covers well. Changing the handles on cupboards can bring them bang up to date and doing this to a piece of furniture can change the whole look of a room. Old dark pieces of furniture painted can really lighten a room and make a dramatic change on even the smallest of budgets.

RUGS

Adding a rug to a room and have a really dramatic impact. It can really bring the whole room together.

As a child thinking of rugs they were always small fluffy oblongs that were put in front of the hearth in case some wood spat an ember from the fire, to save the carpet.

Or they were big intricate and busy designs that were placed on a flagstone floor, of which you could just see the stone peeping around the edges. Rugs were beside the bed to stand on when you got out of bed because the Lino was cold.

But now rugs can be just there because they are beautiful and make a room feel cosy and complete.

They don’t have to be patterned or even fluffy, jute rugs are fabulous and they can give texture to a room.

Interior design does not have to be expensive and the only limit is your imagination!