How to accessorize your home

Accessorizing your home is like putting icing on a cake, adding jewelry to your outfit, or adding a lime to your Margarita. It just finishes off the whole space and makes the design feel finished. So, learning how to accessorize is crucial if you want your room to look it’s best.

Here are my top accessorizing rules of how to accessorize correctly and get your home looking like it came out of a decorating magazine.

Keep function first

Over accessorizing every open space in the room is going to make it look cluttered and keep you from using the space for what it was intended for.  Leave room for putting your feet up, putting a cup down, and being able to pull a book off a shelf. There is no sense in having a beautifully designed room if you can’t comfortably use it.

Remember back in the day when people would have a formal living room with the furniture covered in plastic? No one was allowed to use that room. It was for company only. What was the point of that? You should be able to have a beautiful room and be able to enjoy it!

Make sure that when you accessorize your room you are not sacrificing function for style.

Less is more when accessorizing

If I had just one rule of how to accessorize, it’s this one. It’s best to show off only the things that work together in the room. Anything else will feel out of place and add to the feeling of clutter.

This reminds me of my parents. If they had something, they displayed it, with no regard to style or function. Here’s a great example…My dad bought a painting of a cat at a thrift store and hung it on the wall next to the tv. It didn’t go with anything in the room and he doesn’t particularily like cats. He just thought it was a good deal and there was space on the wall so he put it there.

Think about this. If you have a lot of items that you love…like I do myself, you don’t have to display them all at once. Rotate some items in and out and it will keep your room from feeling cluttered and give the space a fresh look without having to buy anything new.

Surround yourself with things you love

Pick accessories that will make you feel good when they look at them.  It could be items that were handed down or your favorite new purchase. The point is that you want your home to be a reflection of who you are and what you love, not what everyone else is doing. As long as it works in the room and you love it…use it.

Keep collections together

If you have three or more of something, then it qualifies as a collection.  Don’t put them in different places and spread them around the room.  Treat them as one unit and group them together in an arrangement on a table, in a basket, in a bookcase, display case, or shelf.

Smaller accessories grouped together will make a much bigger statement than they would alone. Separating pieces of a collection won’t have much of an impact in the room and will feel lost. And if you don’t group them together they will make the room look cluttered.

Group other like objects together

If you don’t have a collection of items don’t despair.  Find things that have either the same color, the same shape, are made of the same material (wood, metal, glass), has the same theme (kittens, farmhouse, Christmas), or items that have the same function (kitchen utensils, garden tools, or fitness) .  When you group these items together you can make seemingly unrelated items work together.

Creatively cluster objects

There are a couple exeptions to the rule above.

One, group items in odd numbers to give a more casual feel.  Odd numbers just naturally look more comfortable.

Two, avoid lining up your accessories in a straight line to avoid a boring arrangement. Place the items at different heights and levels (tallest in back). You want your eye to move in an up and down fashion, not straight accross.

When placing your accessories, think of a triangle. Your items should fit comfortably in a triangle shape like the image below.

If it looks or feels wrong, then it probably is

If you get an uncomfortable feeling when you look at your bowling trophy next to your porcelain poodle, then go with your gut. It probably isn’t working. You should pay attention to your feelings.

If you think something isn’t working then shake things up, try something different, and move things around until you love it. You’ll know when you get it right. Trust your gut.

Ignore all these rules

The last thing I can teach you about how to accessorize is it really is okay to ignore all the rules and do what you want. It’s your home and if you like it and it makes you happy then do it 🙂

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