Using Technical Interior Design Concepts to Style Your Home

Image via @thedesignfiles

If you don’t have a natural knack for interior design, putting your home together may be daunting. Some of us can get swallowed up by the inspiration pictures we find on Pinterest, stuck on the “I like this but I don’t know why” phase, and never take action because it seems like too much time, effort, money, or risk. Instead, we fill our home with pieces that may be safe, even if we may not love them.

That’s because so much of the interior design world can feel gated, only accessible for those with a natural talent or a traditional design degree. If you don’t fit into one of those two buckets, putting together your home from scratch can feel like an impossible task, one that you’re not capable of doing successfully.

At Dune, our goal is to make a styled, happy home a possibility for everyone. We curate handmade and vintage finds that add a touch of personality to any room. We truly believe that you don’t need to have professional experience in design in order to create a home that you love, but we know that having a grasp on some basic interior design concepts can be a helpful starting point for homeowners at any stage of decorating.

Our philosophy comes from our founder, Cire’ Cross, whose formal education is in interior design. She uses the skills that she picked up in school, and through her experience as a professional interior designer, to conceptualize Dune’s brick-and-mortar shop which has been recognized many times over for its overall aesthetic, as well as her own very Instagrammable home. Today, she’s breaking down her go-to interior design concepts that can help you style your home, and giving you some questions to ask yourself as you get started in the pursuit of a design that fits your personal taste and the flow of your life.

A Few Questions to Get You Started

If all this talk of interior design has motivated you to make a shift in your home, we’re here to get you started. Before we jump into those technical design concepts we mentioned, let’s start with a few simple questions that you should ask yourself about the space you want to style.

How do I want to feel in this space?

Interiors aren’t just a matter of visual appeal to us. Whenever we take a look at a room and envision its possibilities, we are thinking of the emotions and moods we want to invoke, and stories that we want our design to tell. If it’s a bedroom, perhaps we would look for design elements that are calming or restful, while a home office may require pieces that are energizing and inspiring. Setting your expectations for the room that you’re about to style will give you a mental image to focus around instead of zeroing in on a specific piece of furniture or wall treatment. That kind of thinking is what can send you down a rabbit hole of finding one specific item (forcing you to hit pause on your project until you can hunt it down) instead of attempting to achieve an overall look for the space.

What is the vibe or style I’m looking for?

Everyone’s taste is a bit different (we like to call Dune’s “minimalist bohemian”), so we recommend you head back to your Pinterest boards and Instagram saved images for just a moment. What are the overarching themes between all of your inspiration photos? Are you drawn to neutral rooms with natural accents? Or, perhaps you’re seeing more of an eclectic or bold trend throughout your ideal spaces. Hone in on the similarities and define your style. This will add a bit more dimension to the intangible feeling you settled on in the last question.

With these two concepts in mind, you can begin to build a mood board for your designated room. Mood boarding is a critical step in the design process, as it allows you to take the abstract ideas that live in your head and get them on a piece of paper (or a digital mood board) and see how each piece looks together. Gather images of rooms that fit your desired emotion and design style and unique objects that align with that same path and collage them into one cohesive moodboard. This physical conglomeration of your ideas and inspiration will make it simpler for you to stay “on track”, giving you a singular vision to focus on and keeping you from becoming distracted by items you may come across along your design journey that don’t necessarily fit your style.

Technical Interior Design Concepts to Style Your Home

Your mood board will serve as the physical manifestation of your grand vision for the room you’re designing. Now, you’ll turn to the main components of interior design to get specific about how you bring your vision to life.

Color

Color is a great place to start. Whether you’re looking to make a major change by painting walls, or you simply want to change up supporting tones through your furniture or accent pieces, color can dictate the entire look and feel of your space. Go back to your answers to the questions about - how do you want to feel in the space? What vibe are you going for? Try out a word association-style game with yourself to see what colors come up for you when you’re answering those questions. If you’re drawing a blank, turn to color theory (there are many great articles out there on the subject that can be found through a quick Google search) to point you in the right direction. 

This design value is not only about which color you choose, but how much color you use. If you want a minimal, but homey space, you may want to stick with neutrals. A more eclectic room may have more than a handful of bold colors mixed into the palette. When in doubt, head back to your mood board for clarity.

Visual balance

Visual balance refers to the sense of evenness throughout your room. This design concept can be applied to varying proportions in your home, or even the positions of the items in your space. In graphic design, this is typically achieved through “white space”, or intentional emptiness that offsets strong design elements and gives the eye a rest. In interior design, you essentially want to make sure that nothing in the room is completely overwhelming or underwhelming. For example, you could balance a large, deep set sofa with a proportional coffee table and rug, but choose light fixtures that aren’t as bulky. Or, if you want, say, house plants to be the stars of the show, you can choose furniture and accent items that blend into your wall color to create visual “blankness” and balance.

Texture

If every piece in a room had a slick, shiny texture (leather furniture, metallic finishes, lacquered floors, etc.), it would feel fundamentally one-note. Same goes for rooms that integrate only matte items! Look for opportunities to layer different textures into your space for a professional feel. Antique brass candlesticks look great in the same room as ceramic planters, and thick knit throws can soften even the most masculine of leather furniture. Other opportunities to use unique textures include: throw pillows, wall hangings, window treatments, frames, and even wallpaper. 

Lighting

When we talk about lighting, it’s often in reference to natural light. A room with many windows provides optimal light throughout the day, but not every room can be so lucky. Using strategically curated lighting can make a space feel intentional instead of haphazard. If, in the first set of questions, you said that you wanted your living room to feel moody and cozy, you can use dimmable lighting to make that statement. Wall sconces can add a vintage feel, while sleek chandeliers and ceiling fans can add modernity to an older home. The tone of your lighting matters too - warmer lighting is great in bedrooms and living spaces, while brighter “daylight” bulbs can work well in bathrooms or offices.

The Rule of 3, AKA “The Golden Ratio”

Styling is typically the design element that trips people up the most. They can choose the right pieces for a space, but get stuck in how to arrange them in the most optimal way. Luckily, I have a foolproof trick.

The Rule of 3, or “The Golden Ratio”, is a much-used technique in interior design. It basically states that objects arranged in odd numbers (three, in this case) are more visually appealing than other arrangements. You can take this rule even a step further by dividing your room into thirds in your mind (or on graph paper if you’re more of a visual learner) and arranging the layout along those lines. This trick is also used in photography to create a balanced, interesting shot. 

As you’re styling your room take this rule into account. Is there a way that you could resituate items on your shelves to be in groups of three? Could your furniture be rearranged to follow the golden rule, yet maintain your desired flow? This one simple trick could take your home from a collection of things to a focused, intentional space.