Style Your Home With Confidence

Love Your Personal Style 

The pieces that make our houses a home are the personal touches. Our individual style is what makes each person's space unique. When it comes to decorating, making the choices that fit your space can take time and trial and error. Our tastes can change and evolve often and we can become attracted to different home design styles as they become popular. Small changes in the high-traffic areas of our homes can make all the difference while refreshing our spaces. 

Are you ready to give your home a little design upgrade? If you are not sure where to start we have a few suggestions that can help! In today's blog, we are going to go out over three areas of the home that often leave us stumped when it comes to designing, the coffee table, floating shelves and the entryway. Let’s dive in! 

Styling Your Coffee Table 

It's time to make the coffee table the star of your living room with some helpful decor styling ideas! There are many different ways to create a conversation around your coffee table, and those choices will depend on your personal style. It's important to decide what your coffee table will be used for before you begin. If your living room is where you enjoy your coffee and a tv show in the morning, having a large floral bouquet and trinkets around, for example, wouldn't work because they will block your view and leave you without a spot to put down your coffee. The decor should match your lifestyle first. We recommend maintaining balance in both structure and height or items, keeping like objects together and aligning them with the existing elements in the room. With those points in mind, let's get into our suggestions! 

Keeping It Simple

• Are looking for a coffee table to appeal to your practical side? You can't go wrong with the minimalistic approach. You may choose to show off a few beloved statement pieces like a vase, or a sculptural piece of art.
• You can also achieve minimalism by working in small groups on the table of hardcover books, candles or greenery. If needed add a bowl or a tray to put your remote, chapstick, or car keys in as well.
• Gravitate toward things you will use in your living room setting. Play with the arrangement and stacking to find what feels best. If working in groups of twos or threes with objects isn't your style, try designing on one side of the table fully. This will give you room for dishes and everyday items when needed.
• Lastly, play with the colours in your space to find inspiration. If you like to decorate seasonally align your coffee table with like pieces, floral arrangements and decor that you can swap out now and then to keep things fresh. 

Feeling Adventurous?

• Perhaps you are ready to try something new with your coffee table decor, something more outside the box. Go for the unexpected. We suggest shopping your home. This means going around your space and finding different pieces to try decorating in a new way. Sometimes it's the unpredictable decor that really makes a room pop!
• Are you an avid traveller, or a collector, or do you have beloved family hand-me-downs? These are the types of pieces that showcase who you are and can make a very interesting statement in your living room. Don't be afraid to play with colour and arrangement here.
• It's important not to overwhelm the space, so choose your favourites to display. Play with height, texture and grouping styles, you will find the perfect fit in no time! 

Styling Your Floating Shelves

So you've decided to liven up your walls with a few floating shelves, but you are not sure how to style them. We believe any room in your home can be made beautiful and functional by adding a shelf! There are no limits when it comes to designing these fun pieces. We suggest starting by choosing your theme and purpose for your new shelf. We have come up with a few ways you can style a shelf in these three areas of the home, the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom. We hope you try them out! 

Kitchen

• Floating shelves are perfect for the kitchen space. Removing a few upper cabinets and adding shelving is a great way to open up the appearance of your kitchen and it also allows you to display your everyday dishes, cookbooks and accessories in an accessible way.
• Do you have beautiful antique dishes you'd like to show off? Choose a shelf over a china cabinet. This will add more room to your space and allow you to truly admire the pieces you love!
• If you do not have room for a bar cart in your kitchen or dining room, a bar shelf is a great alternative. There you can add your favourite liquor, cocktail-making tools, ice bucket and glassware, right at your fingertips.

Living room 

• The living room is where personality shines! It is the best spot to style a few shelves with your favourite decor. When styling a shelf, try working from one end to the other while arranging your items, from art to candles and plants. Choose varying heights and shapes to create visual interest. You can also style in groups, leaving space in between, in twos or threes. It's best to work with bigger items here, this will avoid the appearance of clutter. 
• If you are a music lover with a record player, add a few albums to a picture shelf. Many record covers have eye-catching graphics and fun colours that are perfect to display, not to mention very accessible! 
• Wishing for an in-home library? Adding floating shelves around the upper walls of a room will give you all the aesthetic book storage you need without the bulkiness of a bookshelf. Another great idea is to create a nook with floating shelving and a desk in a section of the living room. Often, when we get creative we can make something amazing and functional out of a more tricky spot to design. 

Bedroom

• Floating shelves are like a dream in bedroom design. A great way to use them is as nightstands. If you find having nightstands beside the bed too large and bulky you can use a shelf to place your lamp, books, glasses on etc.
• Floating shelves also work great in the corners of a room if you are in need of more storage space.
• If you have a vanity table, you can style a few shelves nearby with all your getting-ready essentials, like makeup, haircare and perfume, not to mention decor!
• If your bedroom needs a little added style near your headboard, use a picture ledge or floating shelf to display some art prints, frames or hanging plants! This is a very trendy bohemian idea that has been seen all over the internet!  

Styling Your Entryway 

Your entryway is your home's first impression! It is your style sneak peek before you fully get inside. However, it is the one area that often gets overlooked when styling a home. Sometimes an entry can be small or a unique shape, so we don't bother doing anything special with it. By doing that you are in turn robbing yourself of the pleasure of having a functional space to enter and exit your home! We are here to help you fall in love with your home's entrance and take it back once and for all! There are a few elements that each entryway should have within it that we will share with you! 

The Catch-all

• This can come in many forms and functions. We suggest adding a small console table or a floating shelf (or a few) to your entry. While designing this area, it's important to consider how much space you have to work with. Suppose you have a large area to cover, opt for a console with storage solutions included, like a chest of drawers. These tables are perfect for storing all of your winter essentials like hats, mittens and scarves.
• If your entry's square footage leaves much to be desired, choose a small picture ledge instead. This will give you just enough room for a mirror, a few art prints and a bowl for your keys. What we are interested in here is having a spot to put your items at the end of the day.
• If you were not blessed with an entryway closet, hang a few hooks on the wall to place light jackets and hats on with ease.
• We are lovers of baskets in the entry! Adding a few baskets underneath your console table or your shelves serves as the perfect spot to throw an umbrella or your shoes in a pinch! Talk about a quick solution to clutter! 

Put Your Best Foot Forward

• It's so nice to have an area to put on your shoes in an entry. This spot can be a small bench, a stool or a chair. Ideally, the seating would have some underneath storage to place odds and ends, and seasonal items.
• If you can't sit on your storage solution, add a few shelves with baskets to hold shoes and outdoor wear. If space does not allow for this, purchase a form of seating that can come and go from the area as needed. 

A Sprinkle Of Personality

• Do you want to make your entry pop? Add a bold colour to your space with paint or some patterned wallpaper! This update will define the entry area and make it just as eye-catching as the other beautiful parts of your home. If you're feeling funky, paint the inside of your front door a fun colour, this will direct your eye to your show stopper of an entry! 
• Brighten your entryway with some stylish lighting! Lighting is always a great conversation piece, and the entry of your home should be no exception. Tie in elements from your exciting home decor when making this lighting choice. If you have the room, add a lamp to your table for a dimmed lighting option. This change can add some needed warmth to the space in the evening to give off that cozy effect. 
• Finish off this decor revamp with some house plants, a few hardcover books, a vase of flowers and a dish for miscellaneous items. 

We hope you are able to put some of these fun home styling ideas into effect in your home! If they work for you, take a picture and tag us on social media! You can find us on all of your favourite platforms at JeanRicher.com

Happy Styling Friends!