Home Design Hacks to Bring Elegance to the Everyday

With Pinterest, Houzz and too many home design shows to count, you’re surrounded by ideas that magically turn everyday household items into beautiful design features. Sometimes those solutions require too much time or too much money to make work in your home. Or you just lack “the magic touch.”

You can elevate your home design without all the effort of a DIY project and the expense of decorations. Make your home look great with these simple tips for turning the everyday into elegant.

Spruce up your household supplies.

In some rooms, easy access trumps elegant design. Everyday items like detergents, cosmetics and toiletries can clutter up countertops. But digging household essentials out of drawers and cabinets every time you need them is inconvenient and time-consuming. Place the things you need at hand in decorative vases. Use patterned or solid-colored vases with lids if you really want to hide the contents. Store detergent, mouthwash, soap and other liquids in decanters of different shapes and sizes to decorate your sinks with style and color.

Disguise your digital devices.

The modern home has a host of technology. Unfortunately, those black boxes, dangling cords and blinking lights become a part of your interior décor. Hide your gadgets with good old-fashioned print. Strategically stack books on a stand or shelf underneath a wall-mounted TV to cover all the cords. Place hollowed-out books or empty photo albums over your router and other devices to shield them from view. Many cable boxes and streaming devices can be operated from your smartphone or computer, so you can cover them up without losing control.

Change the little things.

With a few small tweaks, you can get the impact of a makeover at a fraction of the cost. Update the look of your cabinets, doors, curtain rods or furniture with new hardware. Angular hardware can give old furniture a modern, new look. Paint your interior and window trim a contrasting color from your wall. Set against a light-colored wall, dark or black trim adds immediate elegance and seriousness. When used in combination with dark walls, classic white trim makes a room look crisp and fresh. The same concepts can be applied to cabinets, tables and other furniture to breathe life into your existing décor.

If you’ve stockpiled a collection of décor that is now collecting dust in storage, change your design with the seasons. It doesn’t even have to be seasonal. Simply rotate through some of your favorite or long-forgotten decorations and find new, creative uses for them.

Freshen up any room with flowers.

Flowers are one of the easiest ways to make a room feel “put together.” You can vary the vases, colors and flowers to fit any room in your home. Turn normal, everyday things into vases to make your floral arrangement look like a natural fit instead of decoration for a special occasion. Cream pitchers, tea pots, mason jars and sugar bowls bring beauty to the breakfast table or kitchen counter. Old candle jars and perfume bottles make great bud vases — perfect for a vanity, dresser or window sill.

Match your flowers to accent colors in the room to make them a bigger part of the décor. Knowing what’s in season and readily available in your area can help you keep a steady supply of fresh-cut flowers on a budget. You can always opt for fake flowers to get the fresh feel without the ongoing expense.

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Create symmetry around a focal point.

When you look past the fancy furniture and ornate architecture, elegant homes share a common defining feature: symmetry. Windows, furniture, artwork and decorations are all organized in symmetrical patterns around the room and arranged around a focal point. You can get a similar look simply by moving a few things around.

Find your room’s focal point, whether it’s a large window, fireplace, TV or painting. Set up your furniture on a straight axis around the room to create an inviting space around the focal point. Pair chairs together. Line up sofas parallel or perpendicular to each other. Put tables and lamps at the ends or in between the furniture. Arrange art pieces with equal margins of wall space around them. Your central focal point will naturally draw the eye and the symmetrical arrangement will help highlight it.

You can design a beautiful home without putting a lot of time, energy and money into decorating. Look for simple solutions to design around your everyday items and existing décor to add a lot of style with little effort.