DON'T MISS A THING

Minimalist design and blank-space living have swept across pop culture over the last few years, leaving homes white-washed and pristine. But whether you’re an avid collector or just a fan of all things textured, colorful, and occasionally quirky, minimalism might not fit your style. Maximalist design is a great way to create a coherent, luxurious space across your home or within individualized rooms. With that in mind, let’s delve into some best practices for any aspiring luxe maximalist design.

Embrace What Your Home Gives You

Utilizing your home’s natural features – windows, exposed beams, mantles, and wall paneling – can create a great foundation for your overarching vision and be a steady starting point for the project. Consider the lines of your home and how you might be able to use these to frame your design, elongate a space, or act as a focal point around your future concept.

One way to make the most of what your home offers is to highlight your vaulted or cathedral-style ceilings to lend height to a designated space. They’re great for experimenting with chandeliers or tiered lighting that cast the gaze upward. Another option when taking advantage of your home’s natural features is to utilize the perspective of a door frame as a look-through point to certain artwork or displays. This creates a transition space between rooms and hallways to enjoy each as their own visual masterpieces.

Embracing your home’s natural features is especially important if you’ve just bought a new home or are looking to do so. You can create a wishlist for certain features that would make your space more ideal. If you’re actively investing, saving, or collecting during this period, today’s 30-year mortgage rates allow you to fully create and enjoy your space while contributing a smaller amount of money each month.

Design requires skill, but curation requires time. By giving yourself that flexibility in payments, you’ll always know what you owe, you can contribute more aggressively as you wish, and you have a passion project to develop on your time.

Don’t Fear Color, Texture, & Shape

Color, texture, and shape are the elements that’ll create a story in your space and properly highlight or blend any furniture, artwork, or other items you wish to utilize into an overarching design. Playing with contrasts in color, tone, and warmth can create everything from subtly ornate monochromatic looks to multi-dimensional elegance.

When it comes to pattern and texture, they’re present more often than we may recognize. While maximalism is a great way to mix and match them. It’s important to be conscious of everything you’re putting into a space. Carpeting, wood grain on floors or molding, granite or stone on mantles and backsplashes, and even picture frames come first, then fill the space in and around them.

Maximalism is also a great time to experiment with stark parallels and uniformity, oblong and irregular shapes, or a mix of the two. Acrylics and wood are being used to create rounded or drip-like edges to traditionally angled furniture trends, while bent metal is acting as the stand and legs to other pieces.

Choose Your Layering Style

Layering is a core theme in maximalism, whether you’d like an aesthetic display or functional quarters. It’s also where accessories, furniture, collections, and art can be properly displayed instead of stored away. To achieve your desired look with plenty of room for flexibility, plan ideal placement spots for your larger items first. This is the time to be a bit more practical. If you are creating a seating area, you won’t want four chairs divided into each of the room’s corners. Rather, you’ll want a grouping or pairing, perhaps facing a table, mantle, or entertainment center. With art, you’ll have the option to let it stand out or blend with your other wall coverings to add dimension.

Once your larger items have a scheduled home, your work will actually begin with the basics of priming and painting or wallpapering the room. Don’t be afraid to create an accent wall or ceiling here, and consider what you’d like highlighted by having a bold color placed behind it. After establishing your base colors, install any built-in lighting you may have. Chandeliers and wall sconces are great ways to guide the eye to certain places within the room.

After you bring those larger items back to create functional, visual anchors in the space, you’ll be set to decorate. Whether you’re out to follow the latest trends in interior design or pave your own path, get creative with it. Layer metallics, blankets, vases, lamps, sculptures, and plants over and around your main pieces and walls. Understand that more can be more here, but maximalism doesn’t require fully cluttered tabletops to be achieved. Letting the color and texture of the room speak for themselves, investing in sculptured lighting as statement pieces, and playing with mismatched items rather than an abundance of “stuff” will all come together toward a functional, beautifully complex space.

Wrapping Up

Luxe maximalist design is what you make of it, so never be afraid to rearrange, make seasonal changes, or add a new piece to the puzzle. There’s something for everyone here, so much so that it might take some time to truly curate your space as you’d want it long-term. Stay patient, experiment often, and enjoy your creation!

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