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Okay, so like I promised, I’m going to start doing more posts about my home. I will be covering a different part of my home each post and will be giving tips along the way for my readers to understand why and how I made the decisions for my home and give my readers the knowledge to create their perfect home. This week I’m talking about the basics and the living room.

When First Starting to Decorate

When first starting to decorate your home or redecorating your home, you first want to think about what style you’re going for and what styles reflect you. There are so many different types and vibes for decorating your home. Some examples: traditional, rustic, modern, country,shabby chic, farmhouse, mid-century modern, western, glam, and etc. Trust me, that’s not all of them. There are so many different styles and looks. When I first started decorating, I was really inspired by Joanna Gains from Fixer Upper on HGTV. I think that’s pretty obvious and clearly seen here. I want my home to feel warm and cozy. I want people to feel comfortable being at my home and not afraid to walk around because they might break or ruin something. I’m all about that “homie feel” and love anything cozy, so it only made sense to make my home feel that way. I want one day to live on a farm with a bunch of animals, so I wanted my home to reflect that. When shopping for pieces for my home, I went to antique shops, Homegoods, T.J. Maxx, Hobby Lobby, and Target mainly. I looked for country, farmhouse pieces, but I also wanted to mix in industrial and rustic pieces. I feel like it is totally acceptable to mix styles as long as they go together. It might be weird to mix Indian inspired pieces with beach themed pieces. Just throwing that out there… you want the two styles to look good together and make sense together.

Getting the Look and Space Right

Space is VERY important when decorating your home. If you have a small home like me, you don’t want big, bulky pieces or too much stuff. Too much stuff will make it look messy and smaller than it is. You want to pick furniture that will fit and still leave you room to walk around. Because my home is tiny, instead of buying a sofa and loveseat, we bought a loveseat and chair. Three people live in this tiny home, but three seats are perfect and all we need. For the coffee table, I wanted a wood top and I wanted a good size. Ottomans and two short side tables next to each other work well as coffee tables too. You just want to make sure the coffee table is smaller than your couch (or for me, loveseat). The coffee table should ideally be the same height as the seat on your couch. This is why coffee tables make the perfect foot rests.

I have a lot of distressed pieces to get that rustic, farmhouse look. For decorations, I wanted to get pieces that looked good with these distressed pieces. To make your rustic and distressed pieces not look dirty or too manly, I like to buy metallic decorations and flowers. Yes, they are all fake flowers because I’m too broke to pay for new ones every week. Fake flowers are a great way to brighten up the dark space. I also looovvveee candles and candle holders. They’re mainly metallic holders to brighten up the space, but I love the distressed, navy green candle holder on my coffee table that I got from a thrift store. Only $2 and it’s my favorite one. Try to buy small, cute decorations that match your style and fill your space, so you don’t have a bunch of blank space. I love all the little knick-knacks around my home.  My favorites are the bike on our mantle and the lantern on the coffee table. These two pieces go with my rustic, farmhouse theme and also fill the spaces.

I hope this helps! Good luck decorating!

Love always,

Kortney