Interior design: ideas and inspiration
Everyone wants to live comfortably, have an individual home and be able to live out their living ideas. With the following tips and inspiration you will definitely be able to create a great interior design !
Individual interior design: in demand throughout life
Just as life changes, so does the home. A child has their own room, moves into a shared apartment as a student or their first mini-apartment. Well-considered interior design ? Oh well, it has to be practical! Then comes the first real apartment, perhaps moving in with your partner.
This becomes your own house with a children’s room. Room planning has to be reconsidered again and again , new furnishing ideas and great options are needed to make the most of the available space. We are looking for living ideas that combine modern interior design with personality and ensure that a house becomes a home.
The whole of life is characterized by the search for the perfect living space and once you have finally furnished yourself optimally, you constantly have to improve something here and there. Or create a fresh impression with new decorations . It would be unimaginable if you had to live in the same apartment with the same furniture and the same wall design for your entire adult life!
Just as life is subject to change, living space is also subject to change . Since new ideas and inspiration are always needed, you will find some helpful tips, options and furnishing variants below:
Tips & tricks for interior design
No matter what style you choose for the interior design, everything is rounded off with a personal touch . To give this touch to a room or even the entire house, photos and pictures that remind you of beautiful moments are particularly suitable. Vacation photos, the wedding picture or simply great snapshots – these hacks will help you attach your memories.
Find the right style
First of all, everyone should think about how they want to live. Is the industrial style preferred or can an old apartment also become really cozy? Is modernity desired or should traditional or conservative things be included in terms of living technology?
When deciding for or against a style, everyone should first know how the individual directions are defined:
- Industrial style:
This style is particularly suitable for living in a loft or factory apartment. It’s about distributing different accents and decorations throughout the apartment, which creates an intentionally untidy impression. If the rooms are very large or there are only a few pieces of furniture in a room, individual parts or decorative items are of course the absolute eye-catcher. Modern interior design will always try to set such highlights and integrate them into the living style. Reclining sofas can be found here that feature strong colors. The pieces of furniture are anything but delicate, and the wall design is also rather robust and oriented towards industry. Gray is usually the predominant color, with colorful splashes of color only appearing as contrasts. - Classic Style:
This home style is designed to create the impression of a symmetrical space that is elegant yet meets formal requirements. Many pieces of furniture and decoration are reminiscent of bygone times and earlier furnishing ideas; the rooms have architectural details and are furnished to a very high standard. Everything fits together, there is no clash of styles here. This style stands for high value, for the extravagant and for quality. It is usually found in old apartments , where wonderful effects can be created with the classic furnishing style thanks to the high ceilings and large rooms. - Minimalist style:
This is often equated with uncomfortable furniture that is only available in small quantities in the room. But far from it! The few pieces of furniture may be correct, but they should still exude comfort and create a calm and stress-free atmosphere. There shouldn’t be any clutter here, so the minimalist style is hardly suitable for families with small children. This style fits perfectly into urban life!
So if you’re always looking for new ideas for your modern living space , you should definitely choose a style. Important: A mix of styles is also possible, but this should be done really skillfully and not just mix two contrasting styles .
Furnishing in large rooms
Large rooms offer almost endless possibilities when it comes to interior design . However, they must be filled vertically if the ceiling is very high, otherwise the interior design will have more of a hall effect. Large rooms can be divided into different zones, which in the case of a living room, for example, can be the lounge zone and the work area if there is no separate study in the house.
The different areas are separated with shelves or sideboards, and a side table provides enough storage space for the round sofa. Maybe this room could also be used as a music room? Modern music chairs or large speakers can take the music fan into other spheres; the large space ensures a good sound of good music.
It is important not to make the individual zones appear separate, but rather to connect them with each other, which is possible, for example, through decoration.
Set up small rooms
In many apartments, the living space is really limited and there is not enough space to be able to set up sideboards and stools, tables and armchairs as desired. Here, spatial planning has to perform small miracles and implement new living ideas. Tiny rooms thrive on color, light and ideas about how furniture can make the room appear larger. A simple way to make rooms appear larger is to skillfully place mirrors and play with the light.
Bright windows are important; these are ideally positioned so that they face the mirrors. This maximizes the spatial effect. Be careful with blinds and curtains, they limit the room and quickly make it seem smaller again. The interior design must also be approached carefully with regard to the furniture : open furniture is ideal for very small rooms, because closed fronts limit the space.
Use flowers as decoration
Flower lovers agree: No house is a home without flowers! They may not be completely wrong and so even in apartments where the resident doesn’t have the proverbial green thumb, there are some potted plants that perfectly complement the interior design.
They may not be included in spatial planning right from the start, but they soon turn out to be indispensable. They fill corners and decorate the window sill and bring a little life into a dreary industrial loft. Very large flowers in particular fill a room with energy and also ensure a better indoor climate.
Achieve modern comfort
Two things seem to come together here that don’t harmonize with each other. It’s about modern furnishings on the one hand and comfort on the other. As with the minimalist style, modernism is assumed to be incapable of appearing cozy, although that is of course not true. Modern pieces of furniture are often large and bulky – it is best not to choose too many of them and then place them freely in the room. At the same time, large armchairs and living areas are often very comfortable and invite you to spend a comfortable evening for two or with the whole family.
A small side table is helpful, but doesn’t take up too much space and doesn’t ruin the modern look. What is absolutely necessary: wall decoration ! This quickly shows that someone lives here and, above all, who it is. Because hardly anything is more individual and personal than the decorations that are hung on the wall or placed on sideboards. They support modern interior design and at the same time give it a personal touch.
Decorations for one season only
While most pieces of furniture are purchased for many years, decoration doesn’t have to be that way. This can also change seasonally. When people come back from vacation, they put their holiday souvenirs in the living room and keep the memories of the most beautiful weeks of the year for a little longer.
They redecorate for winter, and for Christmas everything is bathed in a soft light. They welcome spring with new flowers and small decorative items . In short: Seasonal redecorating gives you the opportunity to try new things again and again and finally put up all the little things that would previously have become too much.
Distribute seating everywhere
There is usually seating in the living room and kitchen, perhaps in the winter garden or in a room where guests are received. But different seating furniture can be found throughout the house! A modern interior design places chairs in the kitchen, the good Chesterfield sofa in the reception area (unfortunately only possible in very large houses or apartments), armchairs and couches in the living room. There can also be at least one stool in the bedroom.
A bench can be placed in the hallway, offering the opportunity to rest after coming home or to place the children on it before leaving the apartment. In addition, the bench is of course a storage option , of which there can never be enough in the hallway anyway. When planning the space for a new building, it is important to include enough seating furniture and/or options for accommodating it.
Don’t forget the bar stools that can be found at the counter in the kitchen and often make the normal table and chairs unnecessary. Can there be enough seating ? Most people find that this is not the case and also recommend placing some particularly comfortable pieces. How about an XXL bean bag in the living room or in the reading area of the lounge room? Different seating furniture is designed for different living styles and makes the house a home.
Set up tables
Seating is particularly important in interior design , but tables should not be forgotten either. The two are inseparably linked and, depending on the room, represent a solid unit: the kitchen table cannot do without its chairs, the side table in the living room needs a sofa or two-seater next to it. At the latest when someone uses a stool to replace a table, everyone should realize that tables are missing in the house or apartment. It is therefore important to complete the interior design with tables.
However, the size of the room is important, because a small living room cannot be blocked by a large coffee table. If the room is full of the table as well as the armchairs or the sofa, something has been done wrong: it is better to choose a small side table instead, which acts as a storage option and a connecting piece between the individual elements of the living room.
A large living room, on the other hand, can have a coffee table that is really large and serves as an eye-catcher. When the residents of the house meet with family or friends, this piece of furniture is indispensable and allows games to be played together as well as placing drinks and snacks on a private cinema evening.
In the bedroom, a dressing table will cause great enthusiasm, which can be increased even further if the table is sufficiently illuminated and thus offers optimal conditions for dressing up in the evening.
Go for designer furniture
There are designer pieces of furniture where the viewer really has to ask themselves what they are supposed to be used for and where the front and back could be. At best, such pieces pass as art objects and even then it’s hard to do anything with them unless someone is into wondrous interior design ideas and strange objects. But then there is designer furniture that simply has everything and can do it all. They are of extremely high quality, fulfill their purpose, are decorative and exude a lot of charm.
Interior designers believe that every apartment should have at least one piece that can enhance the rest of the interior if it is not yet stylistically consolidated. However, some designer furniture is a real lone wolf and doesn’t harmonize with other furniture at all. They must be able to stand alone and work on their own so that no one steals the show and, conversely, they do not impair the effect of the other pieces of furniture.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a designer lamp or a designer table . If such a part is to be allowed to move into the apartment, it is ideal if it can move into its place first. This makes it easier to see which pieces of furniture fit in and which style they should fit into.
Focus on colors
Everyone has known about the effect of colors since school at least. Blue should be in the work area, green has an optimistic effect, while red should be stimulating. Experts recommend using complementary colors if the interior design needs to be particularly expressive. What is meant here are shades that can be found on the other side of the well-known color wheel. But if you want to neutralize the effect of the colors, add white.
Colors appear particularly harmonious when they are next to each other on the color wheel. Green and yellow can be combined very well, red and pink as well as blue and orange also look good, although it always depends on the intensity of the colors. Nobody should paint everything in bold colors or particularly brightly on a whim. It is almost certain that such experiments will hardly pay off and a new coat of paint will soon be necessary.
Tip: It is better to always try out a color or a color combination on a surface first and then see how it works. Ideally, this should be done at different times of the day and with different lighting conditions in order to get the best possible picture.
Modern wall design with classic elements
Nobody has to choose between modern and classic furnishing style when designing the walls . In old buildings, for example, it is possible to combine stucco with a very bright and eye-catching color and use the two to contrast with each other. It can actually be much nicer to combine the different styles with each other than to generally just rely on individual styles, which can ultimately seem uncomfortable. It is important that everyone always brings their own personality into the interior design and thus makes the entire design individual.
Design rooms differently
Not only do great ideas for individual living always differ, but they should also design different rooms differently. Of course, no one will design the children’s room in a similar way to the living room, because bright and eye-catching colors can prevail in the former. Focusing on contrasts in children’s and teenagers’ rooms brings life to the walls and allows for furniture that the children can feel comfortable with.
The living room can be a contrast to this and appears as a classic room in brown or beige, with individual touches of color and special highlights . Perhaps it is also the study, which presents itself as a personal space that is very individual and allows conclusions to be drawn about one’s personality. It is always and in any case important that the residents feel comfortable and that the rooms are not furnished according to the specifications from magazines or according to tips from interior designers, but exactly the way they want them to be.
Before you start designing the interior , everyone should know how each room is to be used and how long it will be used. A children’s room is designed with a lot of love, but it is clear that it will need to be renovated again in just a few years.
The bedroom, on the other hand, is usually furnished or designed once and then remains in this form for many years, if not decades. The kitchen is constantly being redesigned depending on the level of wear and tear . Wherever renovations are carried out relatively frequently, it’s worth having a little courage to use color or new ideas that might seem a little crazy at first glance.