How to Decorate an Apartment.

How to Decorate an Apartment.

Decorating an apartment, especially if it’s your first, can be overwhelming. Following a few simple decorating principles, however, will help you quickly transform an empty space with blank, white walls into a cozy living area that exudes your personality.



Method 1 Upgrading Your Walls.

1. Add pictures and art to your walls to create a homey environment. Select frames that harmonize with the color of your walls and the overall feel you’re trying to create for the room. A customized art piece or family photographs hung in your living room can add a dash of personality to the space.

Look for a frame that matches both the art and other key decorating pieces in the room.

2. Hang a mirror to make your space look larger. If you want to make your room seem larger and make it brighter during the day, position the mirror on the wall opposite to your window. Hang it so that your eyes are at the same height as the mirror’s middle.

Choose a distressed wood frame for your mirror if you’re going for a rustic look in your room.

A simple, black frame, on the other hand, will complement a sleek and modern decorating scheme.

3. Bring color and texture to a room by hanging a tapestry. You can hang a tapestry over the sofa in your living room, above your bed’s headboard, or on any other section of a wall that you think could benefit from a dash of color or the addition different texture. To hang a weaving or vintage fabric, you can use pushpins or small nails or hook-and-loop fasteners. Alternatively, you could stretch it over a frame you’ve hung on your wall.

Self-adhesive hook-and-loop fasteners work especially well on curved walls and have the added benefit of not leaving behind any holes in the wall.

If you want to hang a heavier tapestry, you may want to consider draping it over a rod.

4. Choose curtains that complement your room’s style. Choose curtains that match the color of your sofa and/or walls for a seamless look. Go with solid-colored curtains if you want to enhance the color scheme of your room, or patterned curtains if you want to draw visitors’ eyes toward the room’s window.

You can make your windows seem taller if you install your curtain rods high above the top of the window frame and wider if you extend rod beyond the window’s frame.

If you want to make your ceilings seem higher than they are, go with curtains with vertical stripes.

If you anticipate that you’ll be moving in the near future, don’t spend too much money on your curtains, since they may not fit the windows in your future apartment.

5. Paint your walls to give the room some character. Keeping the walls of your apartment white or beige is fine, but painting them another color can add a dash of personality to the room and complement its overall design scheme. Choose a light color if you want to make a small room feel roomier or a darker color if you want to give the room a more intimate feel.

Before painting the walls of a rental apartment, check with your landlord to make sure that it’s okay to do so.



Method 2 Adding Accessories.

1. Green up your living space with plants. Plants not only make a room seem more inviting and relaxing, but can also freshen the air in your apartment. You can use potted plants as centerpieces on a coffee or dining table, place a small tree in the corner of a room, or mount a hanging plant on a wall.

If you don’t want the hassle of watering indoor plants, artificial plants are a great alternative.

If a lack of floor space is an issue, you can place smaller plants on tables and other surfaces or use hanging plants.

2. Enhance your room’s décor with toss pillows. Adding throw pillows to a couch, chair, or love seat is a simple way to enhance or even alter the entire look of a room. When looking for throw pillows, find colors, textures, patterns, and sizes that either harmonize well with the room’s aesthetic or strike an intriguing contrast.

If the walls and furniture in a room are white or a light beige, brightly-colored throw pillows with bold patterns can add a burst of energy.

Selecting throw pillows of the same color but with different textures or patterns is another way to liven up a space.

3. Cover bland and ugly floors with rugs. A large sisal or jute rug can add color and texture to your apartment’s living room. You can also use small rugs to add color and texture to hallways and other small areas that many apartment decorators overlook.

You can find rugs of a variety of sizes, patterns, textures, and colors at furniture stores.

To find cheaper rugs, check out a local thrift store.

4. Choose table and floor lamps to brighten a room’s aesthetic. Lamps are an important part of any room’s décor. The light they provide can draw the eye to certain design elements, while lampshades, lamp bases, and sconces can serve as attractive decorative accents.

Lamp bases that are metallic, or are made of another reflective material, can make your room brighter by reflecting light.



Method 3 Choosing Furniture.

1. Buy furniture pieces that come with added storage. If space in your apartment is limited, you may find it difficult to find places to store all the stuff you own. Buying pieces of furniture with storage spaces can help keep your living space from becoming cluttered, which will help maintain the original look of your decorated room.

A coffee table with shelves underneath can provide you with a convenient place to keep books, magazines, and other odds and ends.

If you need a place to store extra blankets and throw pillows, consider getting an ottoman with a hollow inside and detachable top.

A bed with drawers below the mattress can be a great space-saving alternative to a bulky dresser.

2. Select scaled-down furniture that will fit in smaller spaces. If you’re looking to buy furniture for your apartment, scaled-down furniture will help make your living space seem larger than it is. Select couches and chairs with narrower widths, and light and airy tables and coffee tables, instead of heavy and bulky ones.

A see-through acrylic coffee table can serve the same function as a solid-wood one, while appearing to take up less room.

If you’re decorating a small space, floating shelves are a great, functional alternative to bulkier pieces of furniture, such as chests and bookcases.

3. Find multi-functional pieces of furniture. If your apartment is small, multi-functional pieces are a terrific option. If you buy a small bench, for example, you can use it as a seat when you have guests over, or a small table where you can stack books.

Getting a sofa that folds into a futon will give your guests a place to sleep when they visit.

Furniture with wheels will give you the freedom to easily rearrange your décor for different occasions.

4. Arrange furniture to create distinct living spaces. If your apartment is relatively small in area, you can position your sofa or book cases so that they act as dividers. This technique is especially helpful when decorating a studio apartment or an apartment with a wide-open floor plan.

By placing a sofa in the middle of a studio apartment, for example, you can create a distinct living room and a bedroom.