How To Use Home Decor to Personalise Your Home

Hello! Happy March! Can you believe it’s already the 3rd month of the year? I didn’t manage to blog last week as it was my birthday! And I was far too busy having a good time to actually pull my act together and get a few words out there 😉 But to celebrate, I bought a new theme for Boring Cape Town Chick. I hope you like it 🙂 I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the old look so I’m happy to have found a decent theme at long last.

Speaking of a new look, my folks recently moved all my gran’s furniture out our apartment, which means we’ve been playing house-house and getting into the art of interior decorating and home decor. I say art because there really is something to it and it takes take and careful consideration to make things work. All day we take in various environments and seldom comment on any decor, until you want to start modernizing your own home and then EVERY room and EVERY TV set starts becoming a point of conversation. “Look at their textures.” “Oh I hate that painting.” “I love those pillows.” “Look how they group their pillows.” “Let’s get a plant like that.” I’ve been watching a lot of E Entertainment and have been carefully dissecting many rooms on the channel including the Fashion Police Set, Kris Jenner’s office, the E News lounge, to name a few.

I already started buying furniture in December but adding personal touches is really want turns a house into a home. Or in this case, an apartment into a home. I’m not a crazy patterns person, unless it’s monochrome. And Mr Love has very particular taste in furniture as his Dad is a furniture maker and grew up creating things. So together we had to give and take until we were happy. This is what I learnt:

Use plants to add life to dead spaces.

I’m a weird person because I like things to be clean cut, but when there is bare space then I want to fill it! So I’ve found that you can still have the allusion of space by adding plants to dead zones. That way it will fill the space with life without being too fussy.

Plant Love

Use light to add dimension.

My mom used to have a woven lampshade and I loved the way it would case little squares onto the corner of the room. We kept this in mind and placed our lamps closer to the walls to create dimension on the large wall (we’re still considering adding pictures between the light).

Lamp Love

Rely on Textures

As I said, I’m not into patterns. I’d hate paisley or any 60’s style patterns in my home. It’s too fussy and makes my brain fuzzy, which it tends to be in general and doesn’t need to be further confused! So I rely on textures to add character to a room instead of patterns (like crazy carpets or pictures).

Untitled design

Add a Pop of Madness

Ok don’t go overboard here but you’ll really be surprised how something out of the ordinary can pull everything together. These monochrome pillows totally transformed the lounge area and pulled everything all together. I can deal with black n white patterns – if any!

Pop of cushion colour

Create Your Own Artwork

Mr Love has an amazing eye and takes really beautiful pictures. He’s not a professional photographer, he’s just really good at it. So we decided to rely on his pictures from our various travels to decorate our home. It’s super easy to do and instead of having random shop bought images, you’ll have a story behind every image that’s personal and beautiful. Here’s how we did it:

  1. Have a wall in mind where you want to put the images.
  2. Select pictures you like.
  3. Go to photocopy shop and print them. Print more pictures than you’ll need so that you can audition them to find the best combination. Ours were R60 for 6 pictures. (Desert one excluded.)
  4. Framing is hugely expensive and tends to cost more than the actual image. So we went cheap and shopped at Mr Price Home. They have a big selection and will save you a ton of money. Ours were R200 each.
  5. It’s not always easy to find the right size frame so before you buy, think of where you want to place/hang the pictures. Frames tend to look big in the store but small on the wall.
  6. Put your artwork in your frames and hang/stand. Voi la!

Photographs for ArtworkSanta Maria Basillica

I am by no means an expert on home decorating, so don’t take my word as God’s truth. But because I’ve never done this before, I was quite surprised at what a process it is. Small details can make a big difference and really make your home feel like it’s a reflection on you, your partner and your life together. I hope these tips help. Good luck!

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