Top 12 Home Décor Ideas For First-Time Homeowners

1. Invest In Good Lighting

In terms of ambiance, lighting can make a big difference. With the right lighting, you’d be able to brighten up your space instantaneously. What’s more, it can make an area of your house more stimulating and comfortable.

However, you need to pay attention to the type of lighting you install in each room. In your bedroom, for instance, dim lighting would be ideal as it gives a more relaxing and candle-like feel. But areas like the kitchen and study room should be adequately lit, so bright lights would be just right. However, for the living and dining rooms, warm lights could be perfect to make the areas cozy and inviting.

Other than artificial lighting, natural light is also essential in a room. So try to accentuate every source of natural lighting and allow it to illuminate your space. 

2. Consider Accent Walls

Wallpapers have a distinctive transformative quality that can instantly elevate the feel and look of your space. Whether you use soft hues or bold patterns, applying wallpapers on your walls or ceiling is a great way to give your space a new life.

To lessen the mess and fuss when applying wallpapers, you can go for peel-and-stick options. And if you’ve grown tired of the old ones and your taste has changed, you can easily replace them with new patterns.

3. Invest In Quality Sofas 

Imagine how lifeless your living room would be without any sofa. Sofas are the anchor of a living room because it’s where you lounge in to watch movies, have TV dinner, nap, and do other stuff. For this reason, investing in high-quality, comfortable sofas would be a wise idea.

When choosing your sofas, consider the scale, size, and configuration to ensure they’d fit perfectly in your living room. High-quality sofas may be quite expensive, but they’re well worth your investment as they’re generally more durable and long-lasting.

4. Hang Wall Arts

If you’re looking for an affordable and easy home decoration idea, hanging art in your bedroom and living room may be the perfect solution. 

For instance, looking at family photos or portraits could cheer you up and reduce your stress. On the other hand, hanging wall arts can allow you to integrate a bit of your personality and interests in your space, aside from giving you the pleasure to stare at things you consider beautiful. Remember, the more you surround yourself with stuff that makes you feel good, the more you’d capture the real feeling of home.

But before you install any art piece, you’d need to determine where everything should be positioned and the right way to hang them. Be sure, too, that the art you choose has the correct scale and size for the wall you’re decorating.

However, it's not always an option to hang artwork on every empty wall in your house. You can also use these empty spaces to put hanging cabinets, which you can use for storage.

5. Maintain A Consistent Style

While you don’t need to implement the same style in all the rooms in your house, it’d be better, for aesthetic purposes, to have a cohesive design. This idea is especially suitable for rooms that are partially separated.

It may be confusing if, for instance, the living room is sporting a monochromatic style while your dining area has colors from the ‘70s. Remember, being consistent with your style would make your home more pleasant and stylish. In case you’re having a hard time picking the right style for your house, you can browse magazines for design inspiration.

6. Set Up A Comfortable Reading Area

If you love reading books, you may want to consider setting up a reading nook in one area of your home. But if your house doesn’t have enough space for this, you can always use your formal living room as a comfortable lounge area.

However, if you can afford a reading area, you can place here furniture that has fabrics as well as shapes that are homey and sophisticated. Other than reading books, you can also use this spot for entertainment and unwinding.

7. Give Canopy A Try

If you want to make your bedroom look expensive and stylish and one that’d make you feel like royalty, consider adding a canopy. A canopy is usually a white gauze fabric that you can beautifully hang on your bed. It can also bring an ethereal look to your minimalist bedroom.

8. Go Green

Flowers and plants could positively affect your mood and reduce stress and could bring more hygge into your life. You can foster all these in your new home by incorporating fresh blossoms and greenery into your space. In your kitchen window, you can place pot herbs in a mason jar. You can also buy fresh flowers and display them on the dining area table.

But if your concern is not having a green thumb to grow plants or flowers, this won’t be a problem. There are lots of less fussy plants that even a serial plant killer can depend on, like parlor palm and philodendron. You can also opt for spider plants and snake plants, which are low-maintenance indoor plants since they can survive days, even weeks, without watering.

9. Make Your Ceilings Look Higher

If your new home has a low ceiling and you want to achieve the illusion of a higher ceiling, you can easily do it by raising your window treatment. For this home décor idea, consider raising your window panels to make illusions of height and provide a grander feel.

Homeowners, especially first-timers, sometimes ignore the impact that window treatment can bring to their space. But if you’re open to this idea, one way to do it is to simply incorporate fabric into your current panels. After finding an ideal complimentary fabric, you can bring it to a local seamstress who specializes in window treatment.

10. Don’t Forget An Area Rug

One of the best things about an area rug is it can truly transform your space. It can help define rooms, ground furniture groupings, as well as add more character to a certain area. For a better overall look, it’d be ideal if furniture pieces sit on area rugs. However, make sure the feet of the furniture touch a part of the rug to ensure a sense of proportion.

But while it’s tempting to place area rugs in the dining room or other focal points of your house, you may want to think twice about doing so. It’s best to avoid placing rugs, especially expensive ones, in places where accidents and spills are more likely to occur.

Though area rugs are easier to clean compared to broadloom carpets, it can still be hard to get rid of stains from the rugs. When decorating your first house, make sure to keep this in mind, particularly if you have pets and children at home.

11. Display Your Collectables

You may be collecting stuff for a long time and can’t decide where to place them in your new home. If this is the case, consider installing floating shelves in your bedroom or living room and start showing off your collectibles.

12. Don’t Place Furniture Close To Your Walls

Floating pieces of furniture away from your walls would make a more intimate space. For this home décor idea, all you need to do is move your furnishings a few inches to completely transform the ambiance in a certain room.

You must have about three feet of walking space around the room. This is actually what you need to become comfortable without bumping into walls and knocking into furniture. As for the sofa and other seating, pull out at least 12 inches from the wall rather than make a wide weird space in the middle.

Final Say

Whether you want to achieve a modern or classic décor when decorating your home, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the available design ideas. But hopefully, the above-mentioned tips have helped you decorate your new home with ease while achieving the outcome you want. After all, nothing can beat the feeling of having a cozy and comfortable home where you can relax, do the things you want, and spend quality time alone or with your loved ones.