The minimalist interior design emerged in the 1960s in the United States in response to the then-consumer society and pop style. It therefore puts a great emphasis on simplicity and essentials. At a time when people are changing their consumption habits in a more sustainable way, the minimal style is making a strong comeback in our homes. From the sober colours to the furniture to choose, discover all our tips to create the perfect minimalist home decor!
Our guidelines for a minimalist house
Some might define a minimal home decor as cold or impersonal, but on the contrary, it appears to be the perfect style to decorate your home. It allows you to follow various decorating inspirations from the industrial style to the Mediterranean style to the Scandinavian style.
Minimal house design aims at returning to the essential and at eliminating what is superfluous and abundant. The approach to adopt consists in using only the fundamental elements such as light, furniture shapes and beautiful materials. Usually, the minimal style is adopted in an “open space” house to create a sense of liberty and relaxation.
In a minimalist house, you can opt for natural and simple materials such as wood, metal or even glass (for table or sideboard tops, for example). If you want to create both a coherent and elegant space, choose only a few materials so that they are easier to combine.
There should be few colours in a minimal home decor: black and white mainly prevail and create a pleasant contrast. You might even consider adding a few hints of grey or beige to perfectly complete the colour palette. Usually, vivid colours are not chosen for a modern minimalist house. At most, you can discreetly choose bright colours for a few accessories such as cushions for example, but they must be used sparingly! Nonetheless, neutral and relaxing colours must be prominent in a minimalist home decor.
The best way to enhance your living room or kitchen is by using light, especially natural light, which should be predominant in a minimalist house. You can opt for light filtering curtains that let enter sunlight into the room. Regarding artificial light, you can choose sober and elegant lamps with refined lines so as not to overload the room.
Which furniture to choose for the perfect minimalist home decor?
In a minimalist home, we tend to limit the number of furniture pieces in the room to the strict minimum so as to favour simplicity, but above all functionality. Bearing these two characteristics in mind, you must use the bare essentials. Therefore, you can choose practical and useful furniture to easily hide anything you possess.
If you want to create a minimal home decor, it is fundamental to give up furniture with complex details so as to perfectly respect the essence of the minimalist philosophy. Therefore, we recommend to opt for furniture with clean lines and measures proportional to the room. This will allow you to play with the geometry and continuity of the room.
Furniture must not clutter your home. On the contrary, creating space in your minimalist house will attract your guests’ attention to your wonderful pieces of furniture! If your room is narrow, you can even use space-saving furniture such as an extending console table that will become a large table whenever you need it!
Obviously, keeping your house tidy is an important characteristic of a modern minimalist house. It does not mean that you must throw everything you own, but choose cabinets, sideboards or chests of drawers with built-in closed storage to keep things out of sight as much as possible!
What about accessories? Only if needed in a minimalist house !
A minimalist home should remain as simple as possible and it is important to avoid accumulating too many different knick-knacks. Generally, the tops of furniture should be completely free of objects. Therefore, we tend to put an emphasis on accessories that are useful or that bring an aesthetic value to your decoration to avoid cluttering the room.
Although the minimal style is synonymous with clean and decluttered decoration, it is still possible to add a few decorating accessories to express your personality, such as carefully chosen photos or works of art that you particularly like. In this case, why not choose a bookcase with doors that allows you on the one hand to hide your documents, but on the other hand, to display your favourite items!
If you wish to follow the “less is more” mood that is typical of the minimalist house design, you can also use a decorative object that will become the highlight of the room. For example, the Olivia mirror is ideal thanks to its modern design. Suitable for any room from the living room to the bedroom, this mirror not only reflects natural light, but also gives depth to the space.
To conclude, it is easy to reproduce a minimalist home decor in any space, whether big or small. You must only keep in mind the three main principles of a minimalist house: sobriety, simplicity and essentials.
So, stick to essential furniture, preferably closed to easily store your items, choose bright and delicate colours and finally, add a few accessories for a personal touch! This philosophy, if well adopted, will allow you to create a very elegant home!
However, if you prefer convivial interiors to minimalist houses, discover our tips to decorate your home in a rustic style.
