Is clutter making your home look smaller? Do you wish you had more space in your home? Or do you love that bare, uncluttered aesthetic? If you answered yes to any of these, then the minimalist style of interior design is for you! Minimalist interior design is about more than just the “look”; it’s a way to save space, declutter, and still have your home looking stylish! So if you’re thinking this style is for you, read on to find out the key elements of minimalist interior design.
Minimalist Interior Design: Trademarks And Early Influences
If interior design styles were conversations, minimalist interior design would be short, sweet, and concise. Minimalist interior design is all about function, form, and simplicity, and that’s why there is always a lack of clutter in minimalist-themed rooms. This style of interior design has some influence from Japanese design, and it is based on the principle of excluding things that are showy or unnecessary. Of course, using only the absolute essentials to design a home has its perks: In addition to being a little lower in cost, there is something beautiful about the stark bareness of a truly minimalist interior design. But what are some key elements of this seemingly simple look?
Minimalist Interior Design: Only The Essentials
You might remember Marie Kondo’s decluttering technique of only keeping the items that “spark joy”. Well, minimalist interior design is similar in that, ideally, only items that have a clear purpose and function should be present! There are little to no ornamental elements, frills, or showiness. In fact, the ideal scenario is that every piece in a minimalist-themed home is deliberate. There might still be some décor, though, but they are usually simple and modest in appearance.
Minimalist Interior Design: Open Floor Plan
With the focus lying heavily on “essentials only”, it should come as no surprise that minimalist interior designs typically have plenty of floor space showing – where possible, even unnecessary partitions between rooms should be avoided. Screens and screen doors often replace solid walls in minimalist style homes. A happy side effect is that this tends to make minimalist-style homes appear more spacious and open.
Minimalist Interior Design: Primarily Light, Neutral Colour Palette
Minimalist interior design tends to show a lack of bold colours, and instead primarily sticks to neutrals: black, white, beige, brown and grey. While there are some who would prefer to use a dark colour scheme, the classic minimalist look has a light theme, with darker colours used very sparingly. If you’d like to venture a little further out of the neutral colour palette, you can add a splash of earthy colours here and there, but not too much!
Minimalist Interior Design: Light
Because minimalist-style homes tend to have a light-coloured aesthetic, flooding the home with light can actually further enhance the look! Whether we are dealing with artificial or natural light, having plenty of light in your minimalist-style room helps to open up the room further. This can help you add some warmth and airiness to your home.
Minimalist Interior Design: Neat And Clean Lines
In minimalist interior design, the lines are always neat and clean cut. Each item will typically have its own space that is not encroached upon by anything else in the room. As for the silhouettes of your furniture, go for pieces that have the most basic forms with no ornamentation: perfectly curved, perfectly straight, perfectly symmetrical, or perfectly smooth.
Minimalist Interior Design: Aesthetic Effects
Minimalist interior designs have the air of pure simplicity. Unlike many other styles of interior design, the minimalist style draws attention to the empty spaces instead of what is present in the room. There is an innate aura of order, precision, and harmony in many minimalist-themed rooms – a vibe that every item is where it belongs. Because of this, the minimalist style can induce a relaxing sense of calm and comfort. Furthermore, because the aesthetic makes use of blank space and light colours, minimalist rooms might also appear more spacious, bright and airy. Good use of lighting can enhance this effect, and make a minimalist room appear more welcoming.
Minimalist Interior Design: The Good And Bad It Can Do For A Home
One big perk of minimalist interior design is that it tends to have a lower cost than other styles, because minimalist-style rooms are designed only with the bare minimum. This makes it great for those who are furnishing a new place from scratch. Minimalist interior design also has the added perk of making small spaces appear more spacious and open. And it actually does help you create more space in your home, by promoting the absence of unnecessary objects. The minimalist style is also fairly easy to achieve, in theory, because it has only a few rules.
However, just because a look is easy to achieve doesn’t mean it’s easy to maintain. Clutter, for one, can ruin a minimalist aesthetic exceedingly quickly if it accumulates. You see, because there is so little in the room to begin with, attention would naturally be drawn to any clutter that’s present. If you’re transitioning to the minimalist style from another style of interior design, you might also find that many of your possessions no longer belong. Finally, the pristine aesthetic of minimalist interior design isn’t for everyone – there are some who find it a little too bare for their tastes. So choose carefully!
