The modern abundance, a variety of design styles allows you to beautifully, originally, conveniently design a room in accordance with your preferences. There are a great many options - it seems that the choice is limited only by imagination. But in fact, there are certain rules of interior design, following which it is easy to create a room, a hall, an apartment, a house of your dreams.
The design of any room is made, first of all, for the convenience of people, comfortable rest, productive work. Just a couple of decades ago, people lived, worked in crowded conditions, in cold weather, in low light, and few people thought about the right color scheme. Furniture, especially in the countries of the former Union, was not particularly necessary to choose - there were only a few circulation models of each element on sale, and manufacturing by order was available to very few. The decor was acquired on the principle of “the bigger the better” - the presence of many pictures, statuettes, posters, intricate dishes in the house was considered a symbol of wealth, but created incredible crowding.
Today's time dictates other rules. In short, the apartment should have:
warm, but not stuffy;
beautiful, but not crowded;
light but not excessively bright;
fit everything you need, but each family member has his own corner.
Basic rules, tips
The main design laws are based on the principles of harmony, the "golden section", integrity, a competent combination of colors, practicality, environmental friendliness of finishing materials. The purpose of the room is taken into account - for work, sleep, eating, age and number of residents - children, couples, elderly people. Based on the above, furniture, lighting, decor, textiles are selected. The style of the interior depends on the area and configuration of the room, the height of the ceilings, the presence or absence of windows, balconies, open communications, the location of the front door. The occupation of the owners, their hobbies, work, their preferred type of vacation is also important - the number of storage places, free spaces, zoning of an apartment, a house depends on it.
Rule 1: Purpose, functionality of the room
One of the main points is the purpose of a particular room. The daily routine, age, gender, occupation of each family member is important here. The adult bedroom is decorated in a completely different way than the nursery, and the living room or kitchen of a large family is very different from the room of a single person. You need to start with the layout - you need to think about what rooms are needed at all, is there an opportunity to equip a dressing room, study, separate bedroom for each child. Also, it will probably be necessary to combine some areas - the kitchen with the dining room, the bedroom with the study, the balcony with the living room or organize the now fully fashionable “open space”, that is, the studio.
For clarity, you need to draw up a detailed plan, indicating all the significant elements - windows, doors, partitions, furniture, etc.
Rule 2: Expressiveness, aesthetics - the choice of colors, textures
The coloring of the interior creates the mood of the room. Calm tones relax, set to rest, bright - invigorate, set the working mood, but they should not be used in bedrooms, bathrooms, overuse in the hall. Neutral, monochrome color scheme looks boring, therefore it needs little contrasts. It should be borne in mind that vast spaces with high ceilings, several large windows facing the south or southeast side are decorated with dark, cold colors. Cramped, narrow rooms, with a low or medium ceiling, the only small window looking north, north-west, painted, glued, materials of bright, warm colors. So the limited area visually becomes more spacious, overly spacious - it becomes more comfortable.
The texture often depends on the chosen style of the interior - it can be smooth or have pronounced roughness. It is desirable that the color or texture combine most of the items in the room.
Rule 3: Use black
Black color - strict and concise, bold and mysterious. It goes well with any other colors, creating clear contrasts. But they should not be abused - the abundance of dark tones, especially in cramped rooms, creates a gloomy, oppressive impression, narrows the space. In expensive, noble interiors, high-quality materials in black are used - wood, stone, metals, tinted glass, as well as fabrics - velvet, silk, polyester, jacquard, wool, etc.
The use of black in cafes, restaurants, and snack bars is not recommended, as it is able to reduce appetite.
Rule 4: Proper selection of finishing materials
Materials are used natural, artificial, any combination thereof. Abundant stucco molding, carved textured decor, an abundance of arches, low-functional protrusions significantly reduce the room, therefore they are used very carefully. Modern interiors strive for practicality - the simpler, cheaper, the better. These are plastered walls, instead of wallpapers that have to be re-glued almost every year, easy-to-wash tiles or dense linoleum, instead of intricate parquet, which you need to carefully monitor, a stretch film or suspended ceiling that does not require whitewashing, hiding excess wires.
Materials are selected depending on the purpose of the rooms: no stone is used in the bedroom, living room, ceramics - they are excessively cold, and the carpet will be just right. For the nursery, only natural, environmentally friendly materials of non-marking colors are required. In the bathroom, hallway, kitchen room, coverings are chosen that are well cleaned from pollution, not afraid of water - washable wallpaper, porcelain stoneware, etc.
Rule 5: Proper Lighting
Well-chosen lighting is one of the most important aspects of interior design. With the help of light, it is possible not only beyond recognition to change the configuration, appearance of space, but also significantly expand it.In each room, it is recommended to use several types of fixtures - a central ceiling chandelier, an adjustable brightness lamp above each logical zone, decorative LED lighting along baseboards, cornices, individual pieces of furniture. You can use any - crystal chandeliers or wall sconces, floor lamps or spotlights, table lamps or candles.
Do not ignore street light - clutter up the window, strongly "curtain" it in the daytime is not desirable. When writing, reading, working at a computer, the light for the right-handed person should fall on the left, for the left-handed person - on the right. Near the berth, the lighting is diffused, the children's room is fully illuminated.
With the help of mirrors it is easy to create the impression that there is a lot of light, and the room itself is quite large. The main thing is to mount them so that the lamps reflected in them do not hurt the eye.
Rule 6: We maintain equilibrium - balance, proportionality
Professional designers recommend keeping the proportions of the "golden section" - the largest objects should be correlated with medium as 1 to 0.62, just as medium to smaller. That is, the size of the sofa will be approximately 0.62 the size of the wall cabinet, the coffee table - up to 0.62 of the area of the sofa, the floor tub with a palm tree - about 0.62 from the table, etc.
In general, the interior is made symmetrical - this is important, in accordance with any classical style or emphasized asymmetric. There is a third option - to create symmetry relative to the middle of the room, fireplace, bed, window, mirror, and then slightly break it with a contrasting nuance. Color combinations are also directly dependent on these proportions. It is recommended to use a maximum of three colors, with the main one having up to 60-65% of the whole design, the additional 30-35%, up to 5-10% - small color contrasts.
When you need to adjust the shape of the room, stripes are used, lines - vertical “raise” the ceiling, making the room higher, horizontal make the surface longer.
Rule 7: Choosing Functional, Reliable Furniture
Good furniture - comfortable, safe, beautiful. It is selected for a certain interior styling - many companies sell furniture in whole sets: “for the bedroom”, “for the living room”, “for the bathroom”, etc. When arranging, the center of the composition is chosen, from which the rest “dances”. It is not advisable to put furniture close to the walls - they usually leave at least 15-20 cm to remove dust without hindrance, to get rolled objects. Such an interior looks more voluminous - if space allows, part of the furniture is placed in the very middle. The smaller the room, the less cumbersome the environment is selected - transparent objects made of glass, plastic will give the room airiness. To the interior does not look boring, elements of various shapes are selected, but excessively voluminous, carved, "palace" furniture is suitable only for spacious rooms.
Modern manufacturers offer a huge selection of built-in, transformable, modular furniture - a wardrobe bed, a folding sofa that easily turns into a sleeping place or a sofa with a pair of pouf chairs, an attic bed, a kitchen set with additional retractable working surfaces or a folding bar counter. It is important to organize a sufficient number of storage places in the apartment - most things should not lie in sight or anywhere.
Between the objects there should be enough space for free movement - the more tenants in the apartment, the wider this space.
Rule 8: Choice, the role of textiles in the interior
Textile draperies make the space cozy, inhabited. A large carpet, which does not reach the walls a little, unites the main pieces of furniture, curtains that match the color of the wallsslightly expand the room, contrasting - will create the necessary emphasis. Bedspreads are designed to protect bedding from pollution, tulle - residents from prying eyes, without interfering with daylight. Pillows are selected in the same color with tablecloths, curtains or fabric screens. Lace gaps, canopies, canopies, curtains with flounces, tablecloths with tassels are used in the interiors of Baroque, Empire, Rococo, Gothic, and high-tech or Japanese style are decorated with plain furniture covers, without any superfluous, upholstered in leather, leatherette.
Rule 9: For comfort, freshness do not forget about plants
A man, wherever he lives, always strives to be closer to nature. Even a small potted flower can improve the composition of the air, fill the room with a pleasant smell during flowering, and some species can rid of annoying insects and even heal. If there is an empty corner in the room, which is not clear what to do, they put a large living plant there - palm, ficus, large cactus, aloe, nephrolepis, any decorative vine. In the back of the room, on the northern windows, shade-tolerant plants are located, on the south side - photophilous cacti, other succulents.
Plants are selected for various styles of interiors:
in the classic, begonia, ivy, cisus, ficus, violets look great;
cyclamen, primrose, bell, myrtle are suitable for provence;
for the Japanese - portulacaria, akkaba, juniper, camellia;
for the loft - sansevier, cactus cereus, thuja tree;
for minimalism - lithops, large-leaved ficus, individual species of aloe.
Each plant, in order to make it look good, needs care, conditions corresponding to its needs - suitable air humidity, watering, soil composition, lighting.
Rule 10: Comply with the “rule of three”
Compositions from an odd number of objects look much more profitable than even ones.The principle is that items of furniture, decor, are grouped in three pieces - symmetrically, in a row, randomly, “in growth”. This way you can arrange homogeneous objects of different sizes or different, but similar in size. For example, three chairs in a row, two chairs with a coffee table, three vases or candlesticks of different heights, a composition of a large mirror and two paintings on both sides, three pillows on the sofa.
Three parts are not necessarily taken: any odd number will do - five, seven, nine, etc.
Rule 11: Final additions - the choice of accessories, decorative elements
Decor, accessories do not need too much - two or three sofa pillows, a framed wall picture, a couple of family photos, several figurines on the mantelpiece, a bright organizer on the wall in the hallway, a cactus on the windowsill. You should not excessively clutter up your house, getting rid of everything superfluous in time - a collection of toys from the Kinder surprises of the 90s, figurines purchased during travels are sent to the mezzanines or given to neighbors. A pile of yellowed tablecloths or the remnants of a service gathering dust in the “wall” is given to those in need through special Internet sites. A bunch of jars of cosmetics, medicines and the fact that "maybe it’s useful", but haven’t been needed even once in the last year, are thrown out. Some of the most dear to the heart gizmos still leave.
Variegated, multi-color, small decorations are arranged, hung on a plain background, creating the necessary accents.
Rule 12: Properly mix styles
Designers are advised to carry out the entire apartment, the house in any single style, complementing it with individual elements borrowed from other styles - in each room they are used different. For example, minimalism, hi-tech, a loft in an average city housing is extremely difficult to create, especially if the interior is planned for a family with children, pets.Here, the above-described styles, which in their pure form look completely uninhabited, are inevitably complemented by open shelves, drawers for storing toys, bicycles, scooters in the hallway, sleeping houses for cats, dogs, convenient handrails for moving elderly grandparents. On expensive, luxurious styles (baroque, empire), usually only a hint is made in the form of luxurious furniture, individual accessories.
Conclusion
Everyone can easily create a competent layout of an apartment, a house, knowing the basic interior design principles. Dressing is made in accordance with the chosen style of the room, habits, lifestyle of the owners. A properly designed apartment is cozy and spacious, bright and filled with air, has everything you need and does not contain too much. A comfortable residential interior differs from pictures in glossy magazines - this is not an art gallery, not an exhibition hall, but primarily a place for a comfortable life.
The modern abundance, a variety of design styles allows you to beautifully, originally, conveniently design a room in accordance with your preferences. There are a great many options - it seems that the choice is limited only by imagination. But in fact, there are certain rules of interior design, following which it is easy to create a room, a hall, an apartment, a house of your dreams.
Content
Why follow the rules for creating interior design
The design of any room is made, first of all, for the convenience of people, comfortable rest, productive work. Just a couple of decades ago, people lived, worked in crowded conditions, in cold weather, in low light, and few people thought about the right color scheme. Furniture, especially in the countries of the former Union, was not particularly necessary to choose - there were only a few circulation models of each element on sale, and manufacturing by order was available to very few. The decor was acquired on the principle of “the bigger the better” - the presence of many pictures, statuettes, posters, intricate dishes in the house was considered a symbol of wealth, but created incredible crowding.
Today's time dictates other rules. In short, the apartment should have:
Basic rules, tips
The main design laws are based on the principles of harmony, the "golden section", integrity, a competent combination of colors, practicality, environmental friendliness of finishing materials. The purpose of the room is taken into account - for work, sleep, eating, age and number of residents - children, couples, elderly people. Based on the above, furniture, lighting, decor, textiles are selected. The style of the interior depends on the area and configuration of the room, the height of the ceilings, the presence or absence of windows, balconies, open communications, the location of the front door. The occupation of the owners, their hobbies, work, their preferred type of vacation is also important - the number of storage places, free spaces, zoning of an apartment, a house depends on it.
Rule 1: Purpose, functionality of the room
One of the main points is the purpose of a particular room. The daily routine, age, gender, occupation of each family member is important here. The adult bedroom is decorated in a completely different way than the nursery, and the living room or kitchen of a large family is very different from the room of a single person. You need to start with the layout - you need to think about what rooms are needed at all, is there an opportunity to equip a dressing room, study, separate bedroom for each child. Also, it will probably be necessary to combine some areas - the kitchen with the dining room, the bedroom with the study, the balcony with the living room or organize the now fully fashionable “open space”, that is, the studio.
Rule 2: Expressiveness, aesthetics - the choice of colors, textures
The coloring of the interior creates the mood of the room. Calm tones relax, set to rest, bright - invigorate, set the working mood, but they should not be used in bedrooms, bathrooms, overuse in the hall. Neutral, monochrome color scheme looks boring, therefore it needs little contrasts. It should be borne in mind that vast spaces with high ceilings, several large windows facing the south or southeast side are decorated with dark, cold colors. Cramped, narrow rooms, with a low or medium ceiling, the only small window looking north, north-west, painted, glued, materials of bright, warm colors. So the limited area visually becomes more spacious, overly spacious - it becomes more comfortable.
The texture often depends on the chosen style of the interior - it can be smooth or have pronounced roughness. It is desirable that the color or texture combine most of the items in the room.
Rule 3: Use black
Black color - strict and concise, bold and mysterious. It goes well with any other colors, creating clear contrasts. But they should not be abused - the abundance of dark tones, especially in cramped rooms, creates a gloomy, oppressive impression, narrows the space. In expensive, noble interiors, high-quality materials in black are used - wood, stone, metals, tinted glass, as well as fabrics - velvet, silk, polyester, jacquard, wool, etc.
Rule 4: Proper selection of finishing materials
Materials are used natural, artificial, any combination thereof. Abundant stucco molding, carved textured decor, an abundance of arches, low-functional protrusions significantly reduce the room, therefore they are used very carefully. Modern interiors strive for practicality - the simpler, cheaper, the better. These are plastered walls, instead of wallpapers that have to be re-glued almost every year, easy-to-wash tiles or dense linoleum, instead of intricate parquet, which you need to carefully monitor, a stretch film or suspended ceiling that does not require whitewashing, hiding excess wires.
Materials are selected depending on the purpose of the rooms: no stone is used in the bedroom, living room, ceramics - they are excessively cold, and the carpet will be just right. For the nursery, only natural, environmentally friendly materials of non-marking colors are required. In the bathroom, hallway, kitchen room, coverings are chosen that are well cleaned from pollution, not afraid of water - washable wallpaper, porcelain stoneware, etc.
Rule 5: Proper Lighting
Well-chosen lighting is one of the most important aspects of interior design. With the help of light, it is possible not only beyond recognition to change the configuration, appearance of space, but also significantly expand it.In each room, it is recommended to use several types of fixtures - a central ceiling chandelier, an adjustable brightness lamp above each logical zone, decorative LED lighting along baseboards, cornices, individual pieces of furniture. You can use any - crystal chandeliers or wall sconces, floor lamps or spotlights, table lamps or candles.
Do not ignore street light - clutter up the window, strongly "curtain" it in the daytime is not desirable. When writing, reading, working at a computer, the light for the right-handed person should fall on the left, for the left-handed person - on the right. Near the berth, the lighting is diffused, the children's room is fully illuminated.
With the help of mirrors it is easy to create the impression that there is a lot of light, and the room itself is quite large. The main thing is to mount them so that the lamps reflected in them do not hurt the eye.
Rule 6: We maintain equilibrium - balance, proportionality
Professional designers recommend keeping the proportions of the "golden section" - the largest objects should be correlated with medium as 1 to 0.62, just as medium to smaller. That is, the size of the sofa will be approximately 0.62 the size of the wall cabinet, the coffee table - up to 0.62 of the area of the sofa, the floor tub with a palm tree - about 0.62 from the table, etc.
In general, the interior is made symmetrical - this is important, in accordance with any classical style or emphasized asymmetric. There is a third option - to create symmetry relative to the middle of the room, fireplace, bed, window, mirror, and then slightly break it with a contrasting nuance.
Color combinations are also directly dependent on these proportions. It is recommended to use a maximum of three colors, with the main one having up to 60-65% of the whole design, the additional 30-35%, up to 5-10% - small color contrasts.
Rule 7: Choosing Functional, Reliable Furniture
Good furniture - comfortable, safe, beautiful. It is selected for a certain interior styling - many companies sell furniture in whole sets: “for the bedroom”, “for the living room”, “for the bathroom”, etc. When arranging, the center of the composition is chosen, from which the rest “dances”. It is not advisable to put furniture close to the walls - they usually leave at least 15-20 cm to remove dust without hindrance, to get rolled objects. Such an interior looks more voluminous - if space allows, part of the furniture is placed in the very middle. The smaller the room, the less cumbersome the environment is selected - transparent objects made of glass, plastic will give the room airiness. To the interior does not look boring, elements of various shapes are selected, but excessively voluminous, carved, "palace" furniture is suitable only for spacious rooms.
Modern manufacturers offer a huge selection of built-in, transformable, modular furniture - a wardrobe bed, a folding sofa that easily turns into a sleeping place or a sofa with a pair of pouf chairs, an attic bed, a kitchen set with additional retractable working surfaces or a folding bar counter. It is important to organize a sufficient number of storage places in the apartment - most things should not lie in sight or anywhere.
Rule 8: Choice, the role of textiles in the interior
Textile draperies make the space cozy, inhabited. A large carpet, which does not reach the walls a little, unites the main pieces of furniture, curtains that match the color of the wallsslightly expand the room, contrasting - will create the necessary emphasis. Bedspreads are designed to protect bedding from pollution, tulle - residents from prying eyes, without interfering with daylight. Pillows are selected in the same color with tablecloths, curtains or fabric screens. Lace gaps, canopies, canopies, curtains with flounces, tablecloths with tassels are used in the interiors of Baroque, Empire, Rococo, Gothic, and high-tech or Japanese style are decorated with plain furniture covers, without any superfluous, upholstered in leather, leatherette.
Rule 9: For comfort, freshness do not forget about plants
A man, wherever he lives, always strives to be closer to nature. Even a small potted flower can improve the composition of the air, fill the room with a pleasant smell during flowering, and some species can rid of annoying insects and even heal. If there is an empty corner in the room, which is not clear what to do, they put a large living plant there - palm, ficus, large cactus, aloe, nephrolepis, any decorative vine. In the back of the room, on the northern windows, shade-tolerant plants are located, on the south side - photophilous cacti, other succulents.
Plants are selected for various styles of interiors:
Rule 10: Comply with the “rule of three”
Compositions from an odd number of objects look much more profitable than even ones.The principle is that items of furniture, decor, are grouped in three pieces - symmetrically, in a row, randomly, “in growth”. This way you can arrange homogeneous objects of different sizes or different, but similar in size. For example, three chairs in a row, two chairs with a coffee table, three vases or candlesticks of different heights, a composition of a large mirror and two paintings on both sides, three pillows on the sofa.
Rule 11: Final additions - the choice of accessories, decorative elements
Decor, accessories do not need too much - two or three sofa pillows, a framed wall picture, a couple of family photos, several figurines on the mantelpiece, a bright organizer on the wall in the hallway, a cactus on the windowsill. You should not excessively clutter up your house, getting rid of everything superfluous in time - a collection of toys from the Kinder surprises of the 90s, figurines purchased during travels are sent to the mezzanines or given to neighbors. A pile of yellowed tablecloths or the remnants of a service gathering dust in the “wall” is given to those in need through special Internet sites. A bunch of jars of cosmetics, medicines and the fact that "maybe it’s useful", but haven’t been needed even once in the last year, are thrown out. Some of the most dear to the heart gizmos still leave.
Rule 12: Properly mix styles
Designers are advised to carry out the entire apartment, the house in any single style, complementing it with individual elements borrowed from other styles - in each room they are used different. For example, minimalism, hi-tech, a loft in an average city housing is extremely difficult to create, especially if the interior is planned for a family with children, pets.Here, the above-described styles, which in their pure form look completely uninhabited, are inevitably complemented by open shelves, drawers for storing toys, bicycles, scooters in the hallway, sleeping houses for cats, dogs, convenient handrails for moving elderly grandparents. On expensive, luxurious styles (baroque, empire), usually only a hint is made in the form of luxurious furniture, individual accessories.
Conclusion
Everyone can easily create a competent layout of an apartment, a house, knowing the basic interior design principles. Dressing is made in accordance with the chosen style of the room, habits, lifestyle of the owners. A properly designed apartment is cozy and spacious, bright and filled with air, has everything you need and does not contain too much. A comfortable residential interior differs from pictures in glossy magazines - this is not an art gallery, not an exhibition hall, but primarily a place for a comfortable life.