Easy Home Styling Ideas and Tips

If you’re struggling with how to style and decorate coffee tables and other surfaces in your home, today’s post is for you!  I’m sharing some easy home styling tricks, tips, and ideas for decorating virtually any surface in your home, from bookshelves to console tables to china cabinets, and more.

Decorating and styling is a wonderful creative outlet, so my aim is to inspire you to trust your own design instincts and have fun styling all the surfaces in your home.

Studio McGee

When I’m styling or decorating a space, rather than following a set of rules, I generally add, edit, and/or tweak until I like the way things look.  I do, however, follow a few styling guidelines to make spaces look more polished and pulled together.

You might want to use these home styling tips as a general guide to help you get started, then rely on your own intuition and imagination to create a look that feels right for you.

8 Simple Home Styling Tips

1. Work with what you’ve got

Begin by walking around your house and gathering sculptural objects, trays, quirky things, books, plants, art, flowers, bottles, bowls, trays, etc. 

Pure Salt Interiors

Grab anything that has visual interest and makes you happy.

our kitchen

Flowers and live plants are a lovely addition to kitchen counters–or any surface. 

Pure Salt Interiors

I love the mix of potted flowers and small trees in this beautiful kitchen from Becki Owens:

A bowl filled with artichokes, lemons, limes or oranges is also a beautiful touch in the kitchen:

Whittney Parkinson Design

If you don’t have access to fresh flowers and greenery, faux plants are a great option, too. 

Pure Salt Interiors

2.  Set the tone

Before you begin styling a surface, imagine how you want the space to feel.  For our living room, my words would be light, bright, happy, and comfortable.

living room sources

To help create your desired mood or feeling, remember to include things that are both beautiful and sentimental. 

Studio McGee

The pink tassel in the photo below is a treasured find from our trip to Florence, and it makes me smile every time I walk through our entryway.

entryway

3.  Follow the rule of threes

For every surface you style, try adding something vertical, horizontal and sculptural.

Studio McGee

Put one object in front of another and the third a little off to the side, as in this entryway table styling from Studio McGee:

 

The goal is to tie it all together and create harmonious visual balance, so play with it a bit until it looks pleasing to the eye.

Pure Salt Interiors

4.  Pay attention to scale

Adjust the scale (and shape) of the items you’re using to the size of the space you’re decorating.

Studio McGee

Shelf styling often needs a bit more tweaking, since you’re typically working within the confines of the height, depth and width of your shelves.

Lindye Galloway Interiors

If you’re styling a large room or surface, such as a coffee table, you can incorporate oversized vases, branches, bowls, and candlesticks.

Amber Interior Design

5.  Be mindful of color and tone

Sticking with a color scheme or repeated tones can make it easier to style shelves, mantels or china cabinets.

Juniper Home

When styling surfaces in your home, you can also go with a tone on tone look and alternate warm and cool tones and add in an accent color here and there.

Amber Interior Design

Keeping your color palette primarily focused on a neutral mix of white, cream, brown, beige, black, and gray makes styling surfaces much easier.

Studio McGee

I love the simple styling in the beautiful black cabinet below, from Studio McGee.

6.  Add in some texture

Play with different textures, such as baskets, wood, shiny and matte things, rough and smooth things until you find a mix you love.

Amber Interior Design

Baskets are my favorite decorative accent when I want to bring a touch of texture to a space.

our living room

Styling the bathroom can be as simple as draping a towel over the edge of the sink or setting out a basket filled with a few fluffy towels.

Mindy Gayer Design

I love the simple styling in this beautiful primary bathroom from Studio McGee.

7.  Have fun

Keeping your mood light and casual while you decorate helps your natural creativity flow.  You might even want to turn on some music that inspires you.

Studio McGee

Home styling tips

If you still find yourself short on inspiration, here are some quick styling tips to help you get started:

• styling a coffee table: two stacks of big books with coasters, a bowl, box, or vase on top of each stack
• styling a kitchen counter or dining table: a bowl with fruit and a vase filled with flowers, greenery, or branches
• styling surfaces:  use stacks of books to raise objects off the surface
• combine items in groups of threes–preferably with a tall item, a shorter, more sculptural item, and a horizontal item
• balance hard and soft objects, as well as things with different textures, colors, tones, and styles
• turn books around to show the lighter-colored pages
• add a pop of green to every space
• use books in places you wouldn’t normally display them, such as inside a china cabinet or in the kitchen
• layer–place some things in front of others and some off to the side to create more depth and give the space a more natural look
• try to focus on one surface at a time
• don’t overdo it — this is a tough one for me, but I’m learning!

8.  Take some photos

When you’re done, take a few photos with your phone and see if there’s anything you need to change.  If you saw your space on Pinterest or Instagram would you stop and look closer? 

Pure Salt Interiors – similar sectionals here, here and here – similar coffee table here

If not, make a few adjustments and rework it until it looks and feels right.  Know that as your style evolves, you’ll probably get tired of how it looks, so when a space stops feeling right,  switch it up again!

I hope you found these home styling tips helpful.  Remember, there’s nothing serious going on here, so relax and enjoy the process! xo Jane

home styling finds:

For more tips on how to style coffee tables, shelves, decorating ideas, and more, you might be interested in these posts:

Beautiful Coffee Table Decorating Ideas to Try This Season
Modern Coffee Table Ideas + How to Choose the Perfect Size & Shape for Your Living Room
Beautiful Coffee Table Books to Elevate Your Decor
How to Choose a Design Style that Feels Right for You
Modern Coastal Decorating Ideas