Tag Archives | Minimalist Design

Stress Free: Minimalist Bedroom Design Ideas

A minimalist design style is a good choice for a bedroom, since the space needs to be relaxing. When it comes to minimalist bedroom design ideas, one design style to get inspiration from would be Scandinavian. They use a lot of whites and greys and decorate the spaces with textures, plants and wooden items. Even if you go with a minimalist bedroom design, you can still style the room how you want – rustic, shabby chic, bohemian, etc. There are just two main things to keep in mind when creating that minimalist bedroom – 1) get rid of clutter 2) color management.

Designing with Color

The bedrooms in the mood board above mostly use neutral tones. Such as grey just like the bedroom in picture (1), tan, or white (2). These would be popular color palettes for a minimalist bedroom. This doesn’t mean you can’t use a color like red or teal to decorate the room. But if you do, you need to focus the color scheme down, and make sure everything in the room sticks to it.

Say you want to go with a purple or grey bedroom color scheme. You’ll need to take out pieces in the bedroom that go against the color scheme. A red pillow is distracting and ruins a purple color scheme. Bold colors that stand out in the room take away from the minimalist and zen feel of the space. You want things to blend in as much as possible, and nothing to dominate.

Visual Clutter

What is visual clutter? Visual clutter are pieces in the room that distract you and take away from the overall design scheme of the room. You want to create a clean design, and have the eye continuously moving around the room.

Avoid using bold patterned items like floral curtains and bedding. When it comes to the curtains you want them to blend in with the room. So look for a color that blends well with the wall color.

This is what makes built in cabinets and closets great. Not only do they make efficient use of the bedroom space, but they will be designed to blend in with the design of the room. Taking up less ‘visual space’.

Since the bed is the biggest piece of furniture in the bedroom and takes up the most amount of space, it plays an important part in the styling of the room. Here you want to go with a minimalist bed design. A platform bed is the way to go – just like the one in picture (3). Most platform beds don’t take up any extra space other than the mattress that sits on it. They don’t have decorative and curved headboards or footboards – making them ideal for a minimalist bedroom.

Bedding also plays a big role in the styling of the bedroom. Invest in good looking, and well designed bedding. Simple textured fabrics do well in adding style to the room. Check out the beds in pictures (4) and (5). See how the colors blend together, and there is a textured design.

Getting Rid of Physical Clutter

You have to get rid of clutter if you want to create a truly minimalist bedroom. Some people like to take their time, day by day slowly get rid of the mess and items in a cluttered bedroom. Other people like to do it all at once – grabbing large garage bags and chucking everything out and organizing all at once. Another way to go about it is to pick a room, storage closet, or a separate space in the house where you can chuck all the unnecessary items into. This quickly lets you create a clean and clutter free bedroom – and you can deal with sorting out the clutter pieces later.

Figure out where the clutter problem areas are in your bedroom. Then figure out ways to curb the clutter. Bedside tables can be places where a lot of clutter can build up. One easy solution is to get clutter bowls and trays. By simply grouping items into these trays or bowls, you quickly clean up a space.

For a step by step guide, have a look at my post here: Stress Free Living: How To Declutter Your Bedroom

Storage Ideas

Try and store everything away. Books, clothing, dirty laundry – keep it all out of sight. Have storage boxes under the bed, but only if they can’t be seen. Having a hook on the back of the door isn’t such a great idea since it can be seen. But a hook on the inside of the closet door works.

If you have open closets, you might want to find ways of closing these off since they add to the visual clutter of a space. Closet curtains or doors will work.

Lighting Design

Modern homes use recessed ceiling lights because they are hidden away in the ceiling – seen in the bedroom in picture (6). This creates a clean and elegant look. Ideal if you want to create a minimalist bedroom style.

Another lighting tip is to hang your bedside lamp on the wall, and have the light switch integrated into the wall. What this does is leave more bedside table space and gets rid of the wires.

Decor Pieces

When it comes to decor pieces in a minimalist styled bedroom, you want to go with as few as possible. 2-3 meaningful and well thought out pieces will do the trick. In many cases, a lot of the items you have around the bedroom, from the bed and bedding to storage pieces, will act as decor pieces if you invest in good design.

Look for textured items. I talked about textured bedding above. Other textured items include wicker storage baskets, plants (7), a wooden stool. Go with abstract art pieces that are either monochrome or black and white (8). 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10

Stress Free: Minimalist Living Room Ideas

I believe you have to be careful when it comes to minimalist living room ideas and interior design. It can be hit or miss. You can easily end up with a bare living room that feels empty, and that’s not the goal. It needs to be a relaxing and clutter free space. It still needs to have style. You can have a rustic living room (seen in pictures (2) and (3)) or go with an industrial style and still keep in minimalist. For me it really boils down to A) being clutter free and B) color management.

Kept Clutter Free

You don’t have to be well organised and make sure every piece has it’s place to create a minimalist living room. Just hide it all away. Out of sight. For me that would be the first goal – shove all the clutter into a draw, get back to it later. Right now just focus on the things you can see in the living.

Coffee Tables

If you really want a minimalist living room then look to have very little on the coffee table. If that is not an option then have something like a wicker tray or good looking bowls to group items together, this helps create a cleaner look (check out my post here for pictures Creative Coffee Table Decor Ideas.

You can find minimalist coffee table designs that have draws underneath. This is good because you can store away items and keep them out of sight. The same can be done with ottomans – there are ones that open up to storage space.

Behind The Curtain

If you have open cabinets, look to close these off with doors or hang up a curtain. Curtains can also be used to divide up the living room. Say you want a home office or home gym, a curtain can be hung up and used to hide away the space when it is not in use.

Make It Count

If you have a hard time keeping your space clutter free, try buying an expensive piece for your living room, like a coffee table or elegant table decor piece. This way you’ll want to make sure everything around it is clean and clutter free so that one piece is able to shine.

Minimalist Furniture Style

If you look at the photos in the mood board, there is nothing really decorative about the furniture pieces. They are upholstered pieces with a very modern sleek design. Note how the colors of the couches are neutral – the color of the couch has a big impact on the look of the room.

Color Management

Apart from keeping your living room clutter free, the other key for a minimalist style is color management. All of the living rooms seen above have few to no color in them – they only use neutral toned pieces. But this doesn’t mean you can’t have a colourful room. Take a look at some of my color based living room posts like red or purple. But the same rule applies there. If you want a red colored living room, you need to take away other colors in the room. Because these pieces will stand out and kill the style you are going for. You need to pay attention to the colors in the room and remove pieces that are not inline with the design scheme you are going for.

Taking Inspiration

A good style to take inspiration from would be Scandinavian – just look at the living rooms in pictures (4) and (5). A lot of their design is heavy in white, while the wooden pieces they use add warmth and color to the space. Adding some plants will also bring in color (6).

Decor Pieces

Even in a minimalist living room you can still have decor pieces – it is recommended. And because you will only have 1-3 pieces, each piece will really stand out and showcase your style. Since you are only using a few pieces, make each piece meaningful and well thought out. Another way to decorate is through textures (like wicker, your pillows, wood grains (coffee table, bowls), and plants). Here are some ideas:

A minimalist art piece (like black and white).
Plants add warmth and color to the room, and the choice of the planter can add style to the room.
An accent wall can be a decor and focal piece. This is when you have one wall in the room that is different than the rest. Say you have all the walls painted in white, one wall can have a concrete texture, or a subtle linen paint effect on it (Textured Wall Painting Ideas: From Faux Wood to Linen Effects).
One thing to take away from the pictures in the mood board is that pillows play a big role in a minimalist style living room. All living rooms need pillows. Make them blend in with the room by choosing the colors that fit your color scheme and have a simple (non-colorful) texture that adds to the decor of the space (7) .
Lighting is also another thing that is needed in every living room and can help in stylising the room. Check out the industrial looking wall lamp in picture (8). Choose simple looking fixtures that have a touch of style to them. 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

Here are some more living room posts for more ideas:

January 4, 2014 in Living Room

Zen Style: Japanese Bathroom Design Ideas

It doesn’t take much to turn an ordinary bathroom into a more Japanese style. The first step is to declutter like crazy. Keep everything so clean and simple that it is beautiful. You want to have a minimalist feeling bathroom, and this means stripping everything down. Once that is done, you only really need one or two main focal pieces to create the right style – check out picture (5), just using a plant and an elegant wooden bench creates that Japanese bathroom design style.

Other than a clean design, the other main design principle when it comes to Japanese and zen bathroom decor is the use of natural elements. The color scheme is based on earth tones, like green plants, stone grey, and wooden tones.

In the pictures above you can see bathroom designs that make great use of wood for everything from the flooring, to the bathtub and sink. Simple ideas like a teak shower mat or bamboo blinds are great pieces to start with. Stones and plants also play a big role in a Zen bathroom. Have some greenery like bamboo plants, while pebble rocks (11) can be used to line the floor or used as decor pieces on the shelves.

And if you want to heighten the senses even more, using an oil burner will spread essential oils around the bathroom. Here is a great looking oil burner. 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11