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10 Best Decorating Ideas For Apartments

By: Tal Boldo

Break Studios Contributing Writer

Looking for the 10 best decorating ideas for apartments? Want to add the glamour of a garden to your city living or the elegance of secluded rooms to your open studio? The best decorating ideas for apartments maximize the use of light and manipulate space into visual divisions. Here are 10 best decorating ideas for apartments to enhance your lifestyle and the appeal of your home.

  1. Create a cozy bedroom. The best decorating tips for apartments know when to subtract instead of adding. Remove the bed from your bedroom and place the mattress and springboard on the floor to create a simple, Asian bedroom motif. Add Japanese lanterns overhead and on your side tables. If you have no closet, build shelves on the wall with shelf support brackets, then hang a white curtain from the ceiling using swag hooks to hide the closet from sight.
  2. Bring nature indoors. Though apartments have no gardens, the best decorating tips for apartments introduce indoor plants into the decor. Place a Ficus by your entryway and a palm in your living room. Both plants are hardy and will add a living focal point to your decor. In the kitchen, add a herb garden hanging from a macramé basket.
  3. Create a foyer. The best decorating tips for apartments seek to use what’s already there in unique ways. By positioning the back of a sofa toward your apartment entryway you can create a visual corridor. Add a cadenza behind the sofa with a phone and a dish to keep your keys in. A tall hat stand will be ideal for hanging your coat or bag as well as a decorative welcome sign.
  4. Create a kitchenette. Instead of wasting precious apartment space on a fancy dining room, the best decorating tips for apartments create an atmosphere of casual living. Place a small table and four chairs in the corner of your kitchen for informal family meals. Bring the table out into the living room for special dinners and arrange a buffet on it. Accommodate your guests with folding chairs rented for the evening.
  5. Paint the walls to match. The best decorating tips for apartments treat the entire space as a single canvas. Don’t paint the walls of one room pink and the other green. Instill harmony throughout your apartment by using the same motif. Keep in mind that lighter, earth tones are more modern and will create the illusion that the space is lighter and brighter.
  6. Use lighting for atmosphere. The ambiance created by lighting will change the colors of your apartment at night and lend the space intimacy. Rather than decorate your apartment in dark tones, choose dark lampshades that will cost a dim, warm hue in the evening.
  7. Use natural light. The best decorating ideas for apartments make the most of every source of light. Even if you need privacy by night, select window treatments that you can raise by day. Roman blinds are beautiful and cheap and have a chic, contemporary feel about them. Compare your apartment in the dark to the way it feels by daylight and you will see that light had decorated your apartment with the illusion of space.
  8. Use metal furniture. Instead of traditional, heavy wood, the best decorating ideas for apartments seek a brighter, lighter alternative.  Choose wrought iron furniture with light-colored cushions and glass tabletops. Light will reflect off these surfaces increasing the beauty and apparent size of your apartment decor.
  9. Use mirrors. Instead of art, the best decorating ideas for apartments position mirrors in key places to reflect the room again and create the illusion of additional space. The symmetrical copy of the room in itself will feel like art, and the reflection of light will add another source of illumination in your apartment decor.
  10. Divide spaces. Though apartments are typically limited in rooms, the best decorating ideas for apartments create visual separation within a single space. Place a row of bookcases in a line halfway through your living room, to create a decorative wall room divider. Use the severed space for a private retreat or family room, where you don’t have to worry about hiding your mess.
Posted on: Oct. 13, 2010