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DIY Home Decor Melbourne
Diy Room Decor
If you have been searching Interior Design Melbourne or Interior Design Australia, and you have looked into your budget and realised that you should be searching for DIY decor, DIY Home decor, DIY room decor, then we may just have some insightful tips, hacks and some guidance to discovering your very own style and putting it together in a more productive way without paying for a professional service. You will also be able with 100% more confidence, to seek out local artists, get to know more about art and how it can enhance your lifestyle and living areas.
Don't get the idea that we don't value a high-end Interior Design service, as we have worked with designers and decorators and for those with the budget, they can take the research, brain-storming and stressing out of creating a beautiful space that is conducive to your well being and peace of mind. (as an artist, gallerist and art collector I do truly believe though, that the final choice of art should always be made by the one who will live with it in their space. Let a designer help you pull the whole thing together, if you have the budget for this, and they can even research up a great selection to save you time, but own that final decision because it is your space and your art.
The Role of Art in Creating Unique Inspiring Spaces
The entire atmosphere and mood of a room, even an entire home, can be totally transformed by the astute and individualised choices of artworks that bring you a personal feeling of joy, restfulness or inspiration of some kind. Art does not need to be highly matchy-matchy and decorative to compliment the overall decor and ambience of a room.
Artworks can also create a focal point (or a visual story) for the whole look and feel of the room to be created around.
About the Budget
Regardless of your budget for art, when choosing some for your own home, how it makes you feel in your space is surely far more important than how much you pay for it. Choosing art purely for its propensity to accrue more value over time can mean that much of its potential intrinsic value (your positive emotional response) is no achieved or is ineffective. i
On the other cheap end,f art doesn't give you anything more than a decorative splash, (because you were worried about the expenditure, or your designer allowed only for cheap decorative pieces in the budget that yui agreed to) the opportunity to bring a powerful, lasting feeling into your space is lost (lost on you and your close ones at home, and any clients who enter your space if it is an office).
Finding exactly what kinds of art really 'rings your bell'
Art truly is a very personal thing, although there are certainly hot 'trends' and 'looks' in every budgetary entry point, as there have been since the Renaissance or even before. With visual marketing as all-invasive and inescapable as it is in today's world, it is quite common for art buyers (especially in their early collecting period) to see what everyone else is buying and run with that, often because they think "I don't really know that much about art". Sometimes people admit to us that (even though they can afford original art at some level) they buy prints rather than original paintings because they worry that they will change their minds later. When you select our original artworks based on how they make you feel, it is less likely that you will change your mind ever, as opposed to the latest decorative trend ("as seen on the Block") which does fade rather quickly.
Diy Room Decor principles
It won't surprise you to know that the principles of design are not too different for an artwork compared to a room or an entire home.
BALANCE
We teach all students of drawing and painting about the design elements and principles,including the different kinds of balance:
Symmetrical, Asymmetrical, Radial
Symmetrical Balance ⚖️ (in interiors, often referred to as formal. Artists would tend to use this only in a highly decorative piece or if they had not been introduced properly to the concept of asymmetrically in fine art visual storytelling.)
A more traditional or formal room gains a lot from a symmetrical form of balance. eg using mirroring and matching on each side of a room. This type of balance in a room is quite easy to achieve since furniture and other design features are just duplicated on both sides eg. of a table or a rug. Naturally, there is the risk of it coming off as boring and repetitive.
Asymmetrical Balance (also referred to as informal)😎
The elements (the same ones we use in creating an artwork), lines, shapes, spaces, forms, colours, values and textures are balanced in an asymmetrical way (or only partially symmetrical in some cases). eg. you place a big sofa on one side and a pair or trio of chairs opposite, using occasional furniture arranged in a more functional way eg. nests of tables instead of one big coffee table in the centre. Complimentary (but not matching) chairs can add to this asymmetrically. Too much of that, of course, can steal from the unity.😱
Radial Balance
This kind of balance is achieved when you use a central focal point and arrange other elements in a radiating format ◎🎯 from the centre or around it. eg. a central round or oval dining table, with chairs arranged around it. Forms, textures, and colours can be repeated in a similar arrangement throughout the room. In art forms, a Mandala is an example of radial balance.
RHYTHM
In the same way that an artist might repeat a certain element here and there throughout a painting, to guide the viewers' eyes around their visual story, so it is with interior design, a texture, colour, shape or form can be repeated to 'tie together' a more cohesive effect (not to mention, it is the same with written stories and compositions of music 🎶 as well. The same principles apply, basically). As you read through these next principles, you might get the feeling that they all are interlinked and this is very true. One scratches the other's back.😂 You will see this the most in the next two after this.(Unity and Harmony)
UNITY
So the benefit of creating a rhythm (as above) is that your decoring achieves a sophisticated and purposeful look and feel which leads to the other principles (and if not the space can feel like things are thrown in, even clashing or contrasting too much)
CONTRAST (also known as EMPHASIS)
In interior decor design, contrast (emphasis) is the use of an 'accent' in the room. This contrast is placed cleverly at the focal point usually. It could be contrast in colour, texture (or pattern in decor),value (darks and lights) or in the proportions of forms that draws the viewers attention. A room with no focal point is as forgettable and unengaging as an artwork with no focal point (sorry to the abstract expressionists who believe that their canvas is it's own focal point, I beg to differ).I did own my individual bias in the early paragraphs! Back to decor....The principle of emphasis, then, calls for choosing one object or feature in the room to serve as the centre of attention, around which the rest of the decor can revolve.
The focal point could be an accent colour, piece of furniture, a fireplace, a different texture or pattern (think rug, cushions, wall etc), or a striking artwork that sets the mood for the entire room to flow around or complement. Trying to marry together too many of these contrasts usually ends up in confusion or clutter. (I was accidentally very good at this until I started to try and apply the same elements and principles that I use in my art, to my own DIY room design !!)
HARMONY
Within your interior spaces, if you can coordinate your elements well and follow the other principles, with furniture, features, colour scheme and textures etc, you can arrive at a harmonious, united, well integrated designer look and feel. This is where the principles of balance, unity and rhythm join hands and collaborate for you to bring a sense of harmony
VARIETY
Create different 'intervals' in the elements eg. Maybe you have 3 plants positioned together, but each has a differing height, or lets say the colour blue is included in your colour harmony, so you add a few different tones (values) of the same blue (dark, medium, light). When you choose artworks, avoid the same size/ format in each and every one. This principle can be applied ot all of the elements.
PROPORTION
Some artists use the Golden Mean (innovated by the acient Greeks, but revived during the Renaissance) to decide on ideal proportions and/or divisions of a space, or positioning of a focal point. The space around the objects becomes as important as its relationship to the object. It creates harmony when the relative proportions of objects (their relative scale) and spaces place emphasis on one (another principle we already talked about). This is a complex area of design, but can be simplified by using asymmetrical balance and avoiding planting your focal point in the far corners or the very centre of your room.
Back to how you can incorporate original artworks into your DIY decoring
We are biased, no doubt, about this. When you study, practice and live art, its all-encompassing power is inherent in most thoughts, deeds and dreams. On the other side of the coin, we have lived under restricted budgets too, so we make sure to show a range of options of meaningful and appropriate offerings from our represented artists to all potential collectors, regardless of but respectful to budget. (sounds like a contradiction of terms, but believe me, it helps in the decision process.)
There is nothing as rewarding as building your own DIY room decor around a beautiful and moving artwork that you have connected with personally. It often drives the subsequent choices in artwork too (not necessarily something from the same artist, but another piece that shares at least one element that contributed to your initial emotional jolt that inspired the first purchase.) We have another article on DIY Salon Hangs which is very handy for collectors or art just starting out. Rather than buy a huge statement piece, you can curate your own growing collection of small and medium pieces (once again there are principles that will guide you in arranging, coordinating, hanging and growing this personally curated initial collection.
If you phone or send me an email, you can book a free consultation to see some artworks on your walls and discuss options
* Meet at our art rooms in Port Melbourne ph:0409432643, to make a time that suits you
* Meet on Zoom by video if you are more distant)
*Meet at your home if it is within our surrounding suburbs and you have a definite final
few artworks in mind to try on your walls
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