At The Home Stylist, we know that you want your home to not only be stylish and beautiful but also a place that works for you and your lifestyle. You need a stylish and functional space. So, how do you achieve this? How do you style a functional home? We have a few ideas…
A functional home is a home without clutter
The fastest and easiest way to make a space functional is to declutter. We’ve blogged about this in the past and often talk about it at our workshops but this is absolutely the key place to start. When decluttering, it’s important that you have an area in each room to tidy stuff away. Storage is not just important in the kitchen!
A functional home has defined spaces
The next step is to focus on defining the space. Today’s trend is very much about open plan living but we still need to ensure that the dining area is the dining area and the living room is still the living room. This can be done by using furniture and accessories in smart ways. Use different rugs to define two spaces like a combined sitting and dining area. Place plants in between two spaces as a divider and make sure your furniture is strategically in one area, not crossing over.
It’s also important to remember that once you are done you should use your defined spaces for the purpose you created them for!
A functional home has good flow
We then need to ensure that the space/room flows. Can you walk around without bumping into furniture? Are useful items positioned close to one another? Before your move in or rearrange your furniture, roughly draw your space on a piece of paper. Sketch out where you propose to place your items and then draw in how you can walk around the room. Ideally, there should be a couple of squiggles going on around the page as there are usually a number of ways you engage with your home.
A functional home has good lighting
Just like decluttering, we mention lighting a lot when giving styling advice. Lighting is so important in so many ways. You can define your space with the right general and accent lighting and you make a space functional using thoughtful task lighting. A mix of all three, in each space really makes a room. This not only ensures that your home is functional but the lighting can really create wow factor too.
A functional home makes the most of all available space
A clever home stylist uses all available space to make a home functional. This means maximising your vertical space. Elevating storage, art and even belongings can give you more floor space and surface area, helping to create more flow in your home. We’ve seen everything from bicycles on walls to people using funky, decorated ladders to get to their really high storage, make that ladder part of the art.
Surface space is especially important for day to day functionality. Do you have enough surfaces in every room? When seated in your sitting room is there somewhere near at hand to put your cup of coffee or glass of wine down?
A functional home is a flexible home
Make your large pieces of furniture neutral and then add your accents in the form of soft furnishings and decor. This makes it really easy when the season or your tastes change and you want a new look.
Now that you have the tools to make your space functional, go and look around your home with an open mind. Be critical and creative and reimagine your space with functionality and style in mind.
