When a new year rolls around a lot of people tend to focus on setting new goals, making resolutions or even improving home elements in their lives. Though many people tend to fall off the wagon with their resolutions, it is possible to work on some of your household improvements, without feeling as though you just can’t do it. One of the home design trends that are really hot right now is streamline or streamlining and it’s a great fit for many with their Portland lifestyle.
What is streamlining in home design? Streamlining is the simplification of clutter and overdone spaces. The method of significantly minimizing lines, items and patterns within an area in order to reduce resistance. It preserves the flow of movement with ease and provides a sense of peace, clarity and an efficiency of function.
So how do you use streamline home design and interior style into your rooms for 2017, while still keeping things simple in the process and low in cost?
How To Streamline Your Home Design
Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate these streamline home design characteristics into your home so you can appreciate that peace and functionality sooner and enjoy it throughout the year.
Purge and remove the clutter: Removing the clutter in our lives is paramount to living a more energetic and peaceful life with a drastic reduction of visual stress. This applies to our home design as well. The old adage that ‘less is more’ still rings true and one of the best ways to purge is just to get in there and do it. Start with one room in your house and go through it with a critical eye and a thoughtful mindset. You will need to focus on the idea that if you are not using it or have not used it in a long while it is time to part with it. Sentimental items aside, there should be a drastic reduction of visual things within the space in order to provide that calm state of being.
Raise your energy by adding the right things: Have you ever heard of increasing your energy by surrounding yourself with things you love? Not a stockpile of things you like or think are okay but a small (keep it to a short list) group of items you absolutely love, neatly placed around your room. The idea is that they should make you feel good when you see them and not drain you of energy, bring up negative thoughts or have a broken aspect to them. Select these carefully and then leave room for a few new things later on in the year that you have yet to discover.
Get organized by storing the useful but not beautiful things: Some of our household items we use often or daily and they must remain. Many of them might not be pleasing to the eye and storing them within a beautiful container or strategically placed basket might be a better alternative than leaving them exposed on a table, shelf or counter. Again if you are unsure, lean towards the ‘less is more’ mentality and store it neatly away while still allowing ease for pulling it out for frequent use.
Clear it away if not in use: Lastly, you will find a few items that you will not want to part with because they hold sentimental value or that they are just used too infrequently to make setting them out a priority. These type of items can be hidden away and not easily reached but kept for those once a year or slightly more occassions.
Adding Warmth and Texture with Flooring and Countertops
When putting together a streamline home design it is important to remember to include texture and warmth into your design. An extremely modern home needs a warming atmosphere that can be achieved by installing hardwood floors, wooden cabinetry and many other colorful and textural surface elements. The warmth that wood provides gives an element of natural texture and balances the simple streamlined effect within your home’s space beautifully!
Texture can be achieved with many types of surfaces. Texture is BOTH visual and tactile. Visual texture can include countertop and flooring materials. For example, a nice selection of striated marble or speckled granite countertops will not only give interest to a room but it will also offer pops of color based on the specific materials chosen. Flooring in parallel can provide that same complementary effect. You can decide among many different species of wood flooring which contain various wood grain patterns and colors plus the direction of the flooring product installed and any inlaid finishes can give even more textural traits to the remodeled room. All in all using these types of home materials will offset nicely with the trending streamline design.
It is also good to know that installing new wood flooring and countertops are not as costly as once thought. Depending on the material selected and how much of the product is being installed the pricing can be less of an issue to achieving that perfect zen! Browsing through our showroom might be a great start to getting more ideas and solutions to creating your new streamlined interior design for 2017.
Take action now and we are happy to help, so you can truly enjoy that newly streamlined space rather than regretting you didn’t act on it sooner!
