8 Easy Tips For Minimalist Interior Design

Not sure how to begin living a minimalist lifestyle? You’ve maybe heard from close friends or family the benefits of minimalist living, but you’re not quite sure if you’re ready to take the plunge. It’s true. Minimalist living has a variety of benefits. But is it worth it?

Living a minimalist lifestyle has been known to offer advantages that extend beyond mere cleanliness. For instance, when you begin living a minimalist lifestyle, you experience less stress, you tend to have a clearer mind, and you’ll feel more productive and purposeful when choosing to live with less. Whether you’re on the fence regarding minimalist living or you’re ready to begin but just not sure how to start living a minimalist lifestyle, we’ve got a lot of great minimalist living tips to get you started!

Before you can spread minimalist living to all aspects of your life, you have to start somewhere! A good place to start is with minimalist interior design. Begin living a minimalist lifestyle by creating a home that reflects your values. Not sure how to start? Keep reading for the best minimalist interior design style sectioned into eight easy minimalist living tips!

1. Declutter, Simplify & Functionality

First thing’s first: declutter your space and make sure everything is functional. The cornerstone of minimalist interior design is the idea that less is more. To create a minimalist interior design, you have to get rid of anything and everything unnecessary in your house. Take a look around you.

What do you see?

Piles of papers, old mail, shoes, blankets, pillows, old books, or maybe even video games and barely used instruments? The kitchen counter, dining room table, and living room are three of the most cluttered spaces in any given home. If you’re looking to create a genuinely minimalist living room (or minimalist home in general), all surfaces need to be cleared of unnecessary items and stored out of sight.

Simplify everything to determine what is essential and what isn’t: go through each room and keep only what is necessary out in plain view, while everything else is stored neatly away. Keep going back through the rooms in your house each day to repeat this process — you’ll be surprised how much you simplify each time!

2. Empty Space

Unlike other interior design styles, space is integral to minimalist interior design. When you have many free walls or corners, this contributes to the overall space feeling airy, light, and open.

Empty Space is not boring!

When you have a free wall or section of flooring, this will highlight your beautiful paint color and flooring choice.

3. Quality Over Quantity

One of the biggest challenges of minimalist interior design is working with the few items and furniture pieces you chose to keep. Once you’ve made the tough choice of which pieces are included and which are not, everything else will fall into place! The beautiful thing about this is that your result will appear more thoughtfully designed.

Your primary goal with minimalist interior design is to create a space that just about anyone would feel comfortable spending time in. Thus, you want to purchase and decide on items that are of high quality. Break the habit of impulse buys on trendy items and, instead, choose well-made products that are built to last and will withstand daily use.

4. Minimalist Colors

A common misconception regarding minimalist interior design is that colors are off-limits.

This is not true!

Colors are welcomed, but in moderation and for emphasis.

Minimalist means order.

While this is true for objects and furniture, it is equally true for the colors you choose in your minimalist interior design. For example, space can begin to feel a little disjointed or unconnected when you have many different colors. This creates visual clutter, which is just as damaging as physical clutter is in minimalist interior design.

When switching to a modern minimalist interior design style, follow these simple tips:

• Choose a neutral base color and accent colors. Your classic minimalist home interior thrives on the neutral base color: stick to subdued hues like beige, grey, off-white, or ecru tones. Accent colors, like pops of red or blue, work well in moderation and for specific objects.
• Stick to a trio of hues per room. Build on your neutral base color with 2-3 other hues that are just a few shades away. This will ground your minimalist interior design style and create consistency throughout your space.
• Commit to your color palette. The worst thing you can do regarding color is to stray from it, even slightly. Just one object that is slightly too far from your neutral base, a trio of hues, or accent color can make the entire design feel off.

5. Minimalist Textures

A minimalist interior with too many neutral tones can begin to feel bland, drab, and boring. Thankfully, there is one simple trick you can do that will be sure to add intrigue to your minimalist interior design: make sure the accessories, accent pieces, and furniture items in your space have texture. As long as everything is within the same tonal family, feel free to go a little wild with sensory touch items. For example, include velvety or shaggy rugs, beaded pillows, or knitted throws for various textures.

6. Minimalist Furniture

You will have less of everything in a minimalist interior design style: accessories, furniture, and various objects. Thus, what you do choose to place in your space will count for more. Minimalist living means choosing function over excess and, as stated above, choosing quality over quantity. That is why you must invest in minimalist furniture that is of high quality and excellent craftsmanship. Skip over trendy items and opt for classic furniture pieces that won’t soon go out of style.

7. Minimalist Storage

Minimalist living leaves no room for clutter or excess. We know this well, but what do we do with random objects that we tend to accumulate? We can’t leave them out on our entryway table, kitchen counter, dining room table, or in our living room like we used to. This is why minimalist storage is absolute, 100% essential in minimalist interior design.

Find a location in your home where you can easily tuck away storage bins so that they can be out of sight and out of mind for the vast majority of the day. For instance, if the entryway is where you tend to leave things, place a minimalist storage bin in your entryway closet or under your entryway table to place all unessential items. Apply this minimalist living tip to every room in your home: keep a storage bin or unit in each room that can easily be closed up and blend into the overall design.

8. Minimalist Home Accessories

You might think that minimalist interior design doesn’t have any accessories, but that is not necessarily true! Like any interior design style, minimalist interior design should display accessories that express your unique sense of personality. Minimalist home accessories are used to make the home unique, and unlike anyone else’s, just like accessories shown in any other interior design style.

Follow these three easy tips regarding your minimalist home accessories:

• To get the minimalist interior design style right, keep in mind that the fewer accessories you have, the better.
• Swap out your accessories each season to avoid cluttering your space or contributing to an overstimulating environment.
• Incorporate minimalist home accessories in your minimalist interior design that are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. For instance, plants make great minimalist home accessories as they serve simultaneously to purify your air and liven up your living space!

And There You Have It!

The eight best and easiest tips for minimalist interior design! If you’re not sure how to begin minimalist living, a minimalist home will get you on the right track. When you follow these eight tips, you will have a minimalist interior design and will begin to reap the benefits in no time!

This post was written by Kara Roberts, blogger and content writer for Canvas Vows. We specialize in creating custom made canvas prints and have been featured in several publications, including Brides. For more interior design tips, gift ideas, anniversary celebrations, and personalized canvas creations check out our blog!