A casual style for your home is all about you and your guests feeling cozy, warm, and welcome. In a word, albeit seemingly redundant, casual style is about feeling “homey.” To put together a casual room, you need to keep the details very simple and soft, including plush textures, smooth fabrics, soothing horizontal lines, and balanced symmetry in your furniture and accessory arrangements.
You can also add unique even whimsical touches like orange crates as night stands and side tables, a surfboard as a re-imagined coffee table, and maybe an antique, metal birdcage as a plant holder.
In fact, casual décor takes its inspiration from different laid back styles like Coastal Living, Country style, and Shabby Chic, among many other decorating styles.
You can make any room in your home casual, including a guest room, bathroom, and kitchen, relaxed and inviting by incorporating some basic elements of comfort.
First, furniture should be comfy to sit on. Oversized upholstered furniture work best as does adding slipcovers. When choosing the colors of your upholstered furniture, use neutral colors like beige, off-white, and gray. Pleasing pastel colors work as well. However, you can add decorative pillows and blankets (we did say comfort) that pop-out like cranberry, wine, green, and rust. They remain “earthy” and down-to-earth while adding visual OMPH.
You can also incorporate flourishes like ruffles, ribbons, and cords to add texture to the softness you’ve established.
Other furniture should also be oversized, long, and make use of horizontal space in keeping with the aforementioned soothing horizontal continuity.
Antiques and other flea market finds quickly add a “lived in” look to your casual environment. Make sure to arrange your collectibles with a horizontal flow on bookcases and tabletops, inviting close inspection from your guests.
The basic building blocks of casual style are available at the unbelievable furniture and accessories selection offered by Hickory Furniture Mart’s manufacturers. We would like to know how you would define what makes a home “homey?”