Elevating Your Home Styling
Elevating Your Home Styling: Expert Tips from First Time Mum and Influencer Alice Riley
Alice Riley, home and lifestyle content creator and new mother to her gorgeous baby boy, Brody, shares with us her top tips on home styling...
Your home should be a place that you are excited to come back to. Somewhere that makes you feel at ease, safe and happy. Home styling plays a big part in creating this feeling. When there is so much choice on the market for home decor, styling can feel overwhelming, and our homes can end up feeling mismatched and uninviting. Here are my top tips for styling your home.
- Let your home be a reflection of yourself. If you are usually motivated by bright and bold colours, let this guide you in your choices. If you’re like me and enjoy a calming feel to your decor, then stick to neutral tones.
- Try and maintain the same two colours throughout your home (three maximum). This helps to create a theme and will encourage a warm, homely and inviting feeling.
- Keep most of your walls a neutral colour such as white and accessorise with colours. This is a lot more cost effective and easier to change. If you’re anything like me, I get bored easily!
- Add different textures to a room. For example, stack several scatter cushions in front of each other either on your sofas or beds, each with different textures and patterns to create a sophisticated look. I usually have bold looking cushions at the back then plain/softer patterns at the front.
- When decorating your nursery, stick to one theme. We went for a gorgeous teddy bear design and style. This stops you buying unnecessarily as you’ll only tend to buy things within that theme.
- Storage is massively important for styling your home. Ensuring you have plenty of storage means less mess and being able to keep your home looking sleek. Hidden storage is my favourite, for example the Ikea shelving units with basket inserts are a great way to hide children’s toys yet keep them easily accessible for your little ones. For more advanced storage ideas, there are options such as converting part of your staircase into a lift storage compartment. Ottoman beds are a great way to store away any excess items, clothes etc. Also, we made sure our cupboard under the stairs was cleared and free of space before our baby arrived so we could easily store our iCandy Peach 7 pushchair in there.
- Organisation is key! I’ve always been a super organised person, sometimes too much, but this has helped me to style my home as it means I ensure every item has a “home”. Ensuring you know where each item lives not only means it is out of sight, keeping that home looking freshly styled, but it also means less stress, something we could all do with during family life!
- Take one room at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself with tackling too much change as this can encourage you to rush and in return does not create the look you desire. Instead, start by creating mood boards or Pinterest boards so you can fully decide on what you would like first.
My biggest tip would be to get yourself onto social media and search for what you like. There are hundreds of beautifully decorated homes with accounts on social media. This is where my journey began, by being inspired by others and in turn, creating my own home account. When we spend so much of our time in our homes, it’s important that they boost our oxytocin and help us feel relaxed after a busy day.
Hopefully these tips inspire you when styling your home and help it to become a pleasurable experience rather than a stressful one!