If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram, carefully curated your own interior design Pinterest boards, or flipped through the pages of magazines like Better Homes & Gardens (fun fact: this magazine is based in Iowa where I live!), you’ve likely had plenty of opportunities to admire the effortlessly chic homes styled by professional designers. While this is certainly one of my favorite hobbies, the good news is that hiring a professional designer is not the only way to achieve that polished, elevated look in your own home. With a few easy, strategic styling tips, you can make your space look like it belongs in a design magazine of your own. Here are some easy, attainable tips to level up your space!
1. Chop Your Throw Pillows
If you look through professional inspiration pictures for your home, you’ll notice that pillows often have that signature “chopped” look at the top. Though it may seem overdone, there’s a reason everyone does it. This quick, simple, and super easy trick is a great way to make your pillows look more sophisticated and perfectly placed in your home, adding that designed, tailored look to your space.
To achieve this polished look, fluff your pillow and lightly “karate chop” the top of it. This will result in a pillow that looks fuller and more stylish altogether, making for a perfect decoration piece. Remember, some pillows fluff better than others! Down or down-alternative pillows work best for the chopped look.
If you want to do more with your pillows, consider mixing and matching different sizes, patterns, and textures in the same color palette. This will not only help you bring dimension and visual interest to the space, but it will also keep your space cohesive and elegant at the same time.
Pro tip: For an extra full look, get a pillow cover that is a size smaller than your pillow insert.
2. Incorporate Greenery
Interior designers know just how much power plants can have in any room! From a carefully chosen potted plant to a vase of fresh flowers, a touch of nature is an efficient way to bring life and color into a space. Choosing the right plant for the room is the most important step here, and goes beyond just making sure it gets enough sunlight and water throughout the week!
To make a well-thought-out decision, consider elements like size, proportion, placement, color, and structure. If you’re working in a large room, for example, making sure that your plant is tall enough to fit the space and complement it well is essential! A plant that is far too small for an area can end up making the room feel disproportionate and strange.
Tall, leafy plants like the famous fiddle leaf figs are great for filing larger, awkward corners, while smaller options like succulents and potted herbs can be a great option for a charming window sill or coffee table styling. Finding the perfect plant for your room might take some time, but it’s just part one of achieving that professional look. After you’ve made your choice, it’s time to pick out the planter or pot for your design style. From large woven baskets to textured ceramics and even pots with sleek metallic finishes, there is something out there to perfectly add to your home.
Don’t have a green thumb? No worries. These tips still apply to faux plants!
3. Don’t Run From Color
While color might not be for everybody, opting for a bold shade for one of the rooms (including the ceiling) in your house can be intimidating even for those who are interested! It might be hard to picture the final result at first, and finding the right color can take plenty of time and effort – but it can definitely pay off! A smaller room like an office, a half bathroom, or even an intimate living area can be the perfect place to experiment with a deeper, bolder shade.
Make sure to swatch a few of your favorite paint colors in the room you are planning to paint before fully committing to one shade. By doing this, you’ll be able to observe the colors in the room over the course of a whole day as the lighting changes and as fixtures come on and off. Because colors can change so much depending on the amount of light exposure they receive, it’s essential to take this extra step to make sure you’re happy with how it sits in your home at all hours of the day.
Colors like green, navy, and maroon are all great options for a look that can be found in professionally designed houses, bringing an expert edge and sophistication to the space.
4. Hang Your Art at Eye Level
Hanging art either too high or too low is a very common mistake people make when decorating their homes. When it comes to professionally designed spaces, you’ll notice that artwork is almost always hung at eye level for the best visual effect. Generally, hanging your art about 60 inches from the floor is a good rule to keep in mind, though this can vary from family to family, depending on your height.
If you’re going for a gallery wall, the trick here is to keep an equal amount of spacing between the frames. This other “rule” helps to bring in a little bit of polish and designer touch to your collection while leaving the focus on your art.
Want to get really creative? Use command strips to hang art at eye level in unique places – such as on your windows.
5. Choose the Right Lightbulbs
Lighting may be one of the most important aspects of professional design, and it is also often the most overlooked element in many homes. Designers lean on layered lighting to create a warm, inviting ambiance while also highlighting different parts of a room, like a piece of art or a sculpture.
By leaning away from harsh overhead lighting, you are free to create these different lighting spaces in a room with table lamps, floor lamps, and sconces for extra dimension and softness. If you want to go further, dimmer switches make for a great and practical way to control your room’s lighting depending on the time of day and mood.
When picking your lightbulbs, go for a warm white light (around the 2700k to 3000k range!) to give your room that cozy, designer glow. Even in spaces like kitchens and offices, steering away from the clinical cold white lights can make a world of a difference.
6. Layer Different Textiles
Layering is a commonly used technique for designers to add warmth, depth, and texture to a room in an organic but sophisticated way. Pieces like blankets, rugs, curtains, and even pillows are great for implementing this technique, as they allow you to easily control the feel of a room without bigger renovations or changes to the space.
This technique is also great for allowing you to work with the pieces that most speak to you and your home. For layering rugs, consider a neutral base with a patterned or textured rug on top for some contrast and visual interest. In your seating areas, draping a cozy throw blanket over a leather chair, for example, can be another great and super easy way of bringing dimension to the space.
7. Use Mirrors Strategically
Beyond their functional use, mirrors are an incredible tool that can serve many different purposes in your home. Through the eyes of a professional interior designer, mirrors are great ways to achieve things like amplifying the feel of a room, bouncing light, creating focal points, and many more.
To optimize the mirrors in your space, consider placing them strategically in a way that they are able to reflect natural light from a window or other elements of your space, such as artwork. If you’re looking to make a smaller room feel amplified, opt for a bigger mirror that can reflect as much as possible, while still complementing the other decorative aspects of your space.
To ensure that your mirror goes with the rest of your home, make sure to pick the right frame! From quality, vintage thrifted finds to modern options, finding the right finish can be the trick to seamlessly incorporating this design element into your home.
8. Add Personal Touches with Your Decor
Finding the balance between a polished, put-together space and a family home that feels comfortable and lived in might be hard, but it’s yet another important element to achieving that professional, high-end look in your home.
Instead of only filling your space with store-bought decor, embrace the process of slowly filling your home with more curated, intentional, and personal items for you and your family.
From family heirlooms to favorite books to antique finds and special travel souvenirs, mixing in these kinds of pieces will give your home a far more organic and authentic feel that instantly elevates it alongside the other elements of your space.
Related: My Latest Antique Finds (and How I Styled Them)
9. Incorporate Symmetry for Balance
Adding symmetric elements to your space is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to add a polished and professional look to your space. Whether it’s with furniture, lighting, or decor balanced in pairs, symmetry will bring a sense of order and harmony to any room, making it feel thought-out and elegant.
From things like lamps to sconces, mirrors, or side tables, there are many different opportunities to implement this professional tip in your own rooms.
Styling Your Home Like a Professional Designer
With these simple, easy tips, you can give your spaces that sophisticated professional designer feel you’ve been looking for, just like that!
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