Transcripts
1. Introduction and Course Overview: Hello, everyone. My name is Erica Fogelman and I want to warmly welcome
you to my course. How to use minimalist
interior design to live your best life. I am personally
and professionally so excited to teach
this course to you. Minimalism and
more specifically, minimalist interior design is a journey that I have
been on for a while now. So why should you consider
joining me on this journey? For me, it's really
quite simple. Minimalist interior
design done well is the pinnacle of exceptional
interior design. In the world of design, which is traditionally dominated
by consumption, minimalist interior design is the counterbalance
to that world. It's a design style and a design philosophy that
is based on editing, editing, and more editing. The goal is to have
a home that is perfectly designed in every way, perfect harmony,
perfect balance, and perfectly edited by only
including the items that a room truly needs to be both functional and
aesthetically pleasing. And if this sounds like it's
challenging to achieve, you would be absolutely correct. As I have learned
in my own journey, this is truly one of the most difficult
styles to pull off well. But the rewards for doing it well far outweigh
the challenges, I promise. And the
rewards are this. Studies have shown
that a minimalist home fosters mental
clarity and calmness. Additionally, cleaning
your home becomes easier and quicker as there's
less to clean, right? And because this style demands a ruthless level of editing, you are left with only the
highest quality pieces that you unequivocally love, only those items that
truly matter to you. Sound too good to be true. I assure you it's not. At least it hasn't been
for me and many others around the world who have
embraced this design trend. So if a stress free,
easy to clean, beautiful home sounds like something that you
would be interested in, then you are really going
to enjoy this course. That is the big picture. Now let me share
with you some of the specific topics that I will be covering with you
throughout this course. You will learn
three easy ways to begin your minimalist interior
design journey today, which is sometimes
the hardest part. You will learn the main
principles of minimalist design and learn how to easily spot them through a guided exercise. I will share with you
my favorite tried and true techniques for decluttering everything that is not
essential in your home. And then I will be walking
you through step by step how to put together a well designed
minimalist space. By the end of this course, you will have a complete plan for a minimalist
interior design for a specific room of
your house because I truly want you to try
this out in your own home. Now, before we get started, for those of you
who do not know me, I am the owner of
Erica Don Interiors, an interior design firm located
in Southern California. This career is truly my passion. I feel very lucky to
be able to both design beautiful spaces for a living and have the opportunity
to teach others like you, who are interested
in this field, whether for personal or
for professional reasons. That being said, thank you
so much for joining me. And let's go ahead
and dive right into the beautiful world of
minimalist interior design.
2. 3 Easy Ways to Begin Your Minimalist Journey Today!: Creating a beautifully
designed minimalist space can sometimes be a long journey, as it's generally accompanied by a significant amount of decluttering, at least
for most people. Because that process
can seem overwhelming, I want to share with
you three easy ways that you can begin your
minimalist journey today. The easy ways to both
create a positive impact in your home and get you started on the path to your
minimalist dream home. Throughout this course,
you are going to be seeing beautiful pictures of well
designed minimalist spaces. Your ideal minimalist home
may or may not be the same. The goal for you is
to keep only what you consider to be essential to create a design that you love. Along those same lines, I want to encourage
you to think about minimalist interior
design as a spectrum. Meaning, while a perfectly executed minimalist
interior design does have a specific
look and feel, you can choose where you want to be related to that end goal. No matter how far you
go with it and how close you get to a
classic minimalist home, congratulate yourself for making progress on creating
a home which only contains the items that truly matter to you
and your family. That said, let me share with you three easy things you can do today to get you started on creating your own
minimalist paradise. My first recommendation
is to create one inbox in your home for every piece of paper
that makes its way in. Why is this a valuable
step to take? Because paper is often one of the biggest causes of
clutter in our home, particularly in areas like
our kitchen counters, entryway console tables
and home offices. Everything from mail and
homework to receipts and flyers, it is extremely easy
for our homes to get overrun by
paper very quickly. So by simply setting up a central inbox in one
part of your home, such as your office,
kitchen or entryway, will make a huge difference
in corralling that clutter. Then set aside some non
negotiable time each day or week to go through the inbox and process
each piece of paper. That means it gets processed in some way and then
filed or discarded. This is truly a great technique that can work for everyone. It may take a few false
starts to stick with it, but I'm confident if
you keep working at it, you'll eventually
cement that new habit. My second recommendation
is to grab a box and do a walk through of
every room in your house. What is your goal to get rid of as many duplicate items
in your home as possible. Many of us have these usually unnecessary and
space hogging items, items like duplicate
blenders, measuring cups, cooking utensils, tablecloths
for special occasions, dress shoes in the same color, umbrellas, sewing kits,
hair dryers, tools. Well, you get the idea. In nearly every situation, one of these items
is all we need. But over the years, either
through sales or gifts, we end up with duplicates for many items in our house
that never get used. I include this technique
here because most people don't have a difficult time
parting with duplicates. It's definitely a
great way to begin. My final recommendation for you is to challenge
yourself to part with three items in your home every day for seven
straight days. This is, of course, apart
from the duplicate items that you're already going to
get rid of three items, no matter how big or how small. If they are in good condition, place them in a box or
trash bag to be donated. If they are not in a
good enough condition to donate, then trash them. But I avoid throwing things
away as much as possible. That said, taking this challenge will definitely help
you to get yourself on the path to getting comfortable with jettisoning the
non essential items in your house and help you build the momentum you need to
tackle each room of your home, which we will talk
about how to do in greater detail later
in this course. And there you have
it. The easy ways to begin creating your
minimalist dream home. I love these suggestions
because they are quick, easy, and extremely effective. I encourage you to give one of these techniques a try today.
3. Why Minimalism? Less is More: I discuss minimalist interior
design with someone, it is not uncommon to
receive a reaction that could be described
at best as confused, confused as to why I would
choose this design style, or at worst, horrified. I suspect that their
first thoughts of a minimalist room
is likely cold, stark, unfinished, and
just plain, uninviting. Or perhaps they imagine
something along the lines of a broke college
student's apartment. That is not at all what
minimalist design is about. However, in the maximalist
world that many of us live in, particularly in
the United States where goods are
relatively inexpensive, it is incredibly
easy to end up with a home that is filled
to the brim with stuff. All kinds of stuff in our
living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, home offices, garages, and most definitely our closets. The end result is
that many of us feel overwhelmed with
the sheer amount of stuff that is
dominating our lives. Minimalist interior design is the counterbalance to
this common affliction. As I mentioned
earlier, it's about being deliberate in what
you include in your home, choosing only high quality
pieces that are essential to a room's function through
careful editing and restraint. In short, minimalist
design is about simplifying your home and
by extension, your life. In a minimalist room, each and every
piece is allowed to breathe and truly
be appreciated. Minimalist design is
the perfect epitome of the adage Less is more. But let me be clear, by
including less in your homes, you aren't sacrificing style, comfort, balance, or harmony. You are simply achieving all of these goals just with less. One of the main
reasons I think that minimalist interior design is so appealing is that it truly is the antithesis to our
often very busy lives. I think we can all agree that our home should
be our sanctuary, a retreat for our entire
family from the outside world. To that point, a minimalist home creates the perfect sanctuary at the end of a hectic day that immediately lowers blood
pressure and calms our nerves. Set another way, less stuff in our homes helps to create
less mental clutter, definitely something that we
can all likely benefit from. And there is actually science to back up what we all seem
to know intuitively. Researchers at the Princeton University
Neuroscience Institute published a study in 2011, showing that the chaos caused by clutter actually restricts your ability to
focus and process information because
it is so distracting. They stated that the clutter actually competes
for your attention, much like a whiny toddler, which wears you down mentally, resulting in feelings
of frustration. The researchers
used MRI machines to map the brain's responses to organized and
disorganized environments and came away with
strong conclusions. In short, the study
showed that having a clutter free home will result in you feeling
less irritable, less distracted,
more productive, and able to process
information better. So please don't underestimate the positive
emotional impact that a well organized
minimalist space can have on your psyche. Another major advantage
to minimalist design is the fact that a minimalist
home has less stuff to clean, which means more
of our lives can be spent on the things
that matter most. Along those same lines, minimalist homes are also
less likely to make you sick. How is that possible you ask? Well, many of us have
allergies to dust mites. The more stuff you
have in your home, the more allergy inducing
dust mites you are likely to have as stuff
naturally collects dust. Minimalist interior design helps to create an allergy free home. A final note. For those of you who appreciate
the history of design, minimalist design is said to have started in the
early 20th century, but really gained traction
after World War two as a reaction to the
consumerist lifestyle that began to take
hold during this time. As you can likely guess, minimalism was also influenced
by Japanese design. Two of the pioneers of the minimalist design
movement are said to be German architect
Ludwig Miss Vandro and British architect and
designer John Posson. Possen's 1996 book, Minimum became a pivotal
symbol for this design style.
4. Is Minimalist Design Just Contemporary Design?: Let's be honest. If you Google minimalist
interior design, you will be inundated with pictures of contemporary spaces, as well as some Scandinavian and zen interior styled rooms with some mid century modern pieces thrown in here and there. But I firmly believe that minimalist design is more
about how you execute a room's interior design
and the principles you follow than about what
pieces you use in a room. Minimalist interior
design is focused on creating a home with
only the essentials, whatever those essentials
may be for you. It's also about creating a
feeling of space in your home. Yes, contemporary and
the other styles I mentioned do have a lot in
common with minimalist design. There is no question about that, but they are not synonymous. My goal with this class is
to teach you how to create a minimalist home with nearly
any interior design style. That said, the only styles that I think you
would be hard pressed to apply minimalism to
is likely art deco, English country,
Bohemian, and Victorian, as these are true
maximalist styles, generally incorporating
lots of layers, colors, and patterns, but that
doesn't mean that you can't include elements
from these styles into your minimalist design. It just means that at
the end of the day, you won't have a
classic Bohemian, English country
or Victorian home if you apply the minimalist
design principles. But honestly, who cares? As long as you love your home, that is all that matters. So please don't be put
off by minimalist design if you aren't a fan of
contemporary interior design. Minimalist interior design
can truly be for everyone. Remember, minimalist design is bigger than a specific
interior design style. It supports a broader idea,
a philosophy, really, which is to create
a simpler life by only including what is
truly important to you.
5. Main Principles of Minimalist Interior Design: This lecture, you are
going to learn about the five main
principles that are the foundation for
minimalist interior design. With this knowledge, not
only will you understand why minimalist design works
so well with so little, but more importantly,
you'll be on your way to achieving this
look in your own home. First, as you already know, minimalist interior
design is about including only what is truly
essential to the room, both from a functional or
an aesthetic standpoint. Absolutely no clutter here. Regarding the functional
needs, later in this course, I'll provide you
with recommended furniture pieces for
each type of room. Regarding the aesthetic needs, you will want to only include just enough decor to create interest, balance, and harmony. We'll talk more about how to do this as well
later in the course. Second, when selecting the
remaining items and finishes, choose only the
highest quality pieces and materials that
you can afford. From the fabric
on your furniture to the finishes in your
kitchen and bathrooms, splurge on beautiful finishes that will elevate the
piece or the space. Example, when
purchasing an armchair, consider upgrading the fabric, such as a beautiful linen, wool or leather for
additional durability. Focus on finding
materials that will add warmth and texture
to your space. Basically, because you will have fewer items in your room, every item will likely get the visual attention
it deserves. So you want to ensure
that every detail of the room is well thought
out and executed. Not just your furniture
and finishes, but even those items that usually aren't noticed
in a typical home, such as your door knobs, the finish on your
light fixtures, and every accessory
you choose to display. All of these items need to
be fine tuned as they all become critical to
the overall design of a minimalist space. Third, each item in a minimalist room should be given plenty of
breathing room, meaning plenty of
space around it. This is not a style where you will be layering
different items, which is a common
designer technique. Instead, remember that
each item is simple, beautiful, and adds
perfectly to the space. So by providing sufficient
space around your items, each item can truly be
appreciated on its own. Regards to furniture, this means that you will only include the truly essential pieces that are needed for that
room to be functional. For example, in a bedroom,
this would include your bed, a nightstand or two, and
possibly a seat of some sort, such as a bench at the end of
your bed or a corner chair. With regards to accessories, in a minimalist space, you may include only one plant or sculpture on a console table, only a lamp on your nightstand, or a pretty orchid by itself
on your coffee table. Now, that's not to say that
you couldn't do a grouping of three coordinating vases as the only accessory on a table. It's just that this
coordinating set should generally be the
only decor on that table. Fourth, minimalist
interior design should always have an
amazing focal point. This is already a general
interior design principle, but it's essential in
minimalist design. You want one truly
standout piece or element that will draw your
eye when entering the room. This could be a dramatic
wall treatment, a beautiful light fixture, a striking piece of artwork, or some beautiful wallpaper. This element will essentially
carry the room and can and should be the piece
that you design around. While minimalist rooms generally use neutral color schemes, you can absolutely throw
in some bright color. If you do this, in most cases, be sure that it's your
focal point item. Otherwise, the
bright color used in another area will likely
compete with your focal point, which will defeat the purpose
of having a focal point. Fifth and finally, the room should contain
some negative space. Negative space is a
specific design element. What is negative space? Technically, it's the area
around items in a room, but in this context, where negative space is used
as a design element, it refers to an area
of the room that is noticeably absent in terms
of furniture or decor, a space where you
would normally have some type of furniture
piece or decor. So why do you think
it's important that we include negative space? It's because minimalist
design is also a celebration of breathing
room in a space, which can also be referred
to as empty space. And breathing room is something
that every room needs, and especially something that minimalist interior
design needs. Later in this course, we will
talk in more detail about this important design
element and how to incorporate it successfully
into your own home.
6. Activity #1 - Can You Spot the Minimalist Design Principles?: You have a better
understanding of the main principles that make up minimalist interior design, I want to give you
an opportunity to see some of these important
principles in action. What I would like
you to do is to take a look at three pictures of classic minimalist rooms
and then write down the minimalist interior design principles that
you see in action. Once you have a
moment to do that, I'll then share with
you what I see, which should help you
in learning how to identify the important design
elements of the style. Here's your first picture of a well executed minimalist
interior design in a bedroom. Think back to what we just
discussed in the last lecture. What principles of
minimalist interior design do you see utilized in
this gorgeous room? Let's go ahead and go through the five main principles again and see if they
are demonstrated here. First, a minimalist design only includes the essential
functional and aesthetic items. Is that what we see
here? Definitely. From a functional standpoint, we have a bed, two nightstands, a chair in the background, and three light fixtures, exactly what this space
needs to be functional. As far as decor, we have just a few decorative
items on each nightstand, enough to add a decorative
element to the room, but certainly cannot be
accused of looking cluttered. The second principle
we discussed is the use of high
quality materials. Do you feel that this
space does that? I definitely do. The bedding appears
to be silk or satin. I love the brass finish on the light fixtures
and the chair. They have a beautiful
white wood floor, and the molding on the walls really elevates the
elegance of the space. What about the third principle, which has to do with
allowing plenty of breathing room or space
around the furnishings? Have they accomplished that? No doubt, right? With so few
items in such a large space, every piece is truly
allowed to breathe. How about a focal point? I don't know about you, but
the first thing that drew my attention was that
beautiful blue wall. With the rest of
the room utilizing a white colour palette, that wall is spectacular, particularly with the
additional molding detail. Finally, let's talk
about negative space. Do you see some here? Some might say that the
wall over the bed is the negative space as it's lacking any artwork
or wall decor. But because it's painted
such a vibrant color compared to the
rest of the room, the color acts as decor or
space in and of itself. I can see negative space
in two other areas. First, on the far right
wall where you would normally see a dresser
or some other case good, as well as on the
floor where you would often see a rug
over a hard floor. The negative space
allows the wall and those simple but gorgeous light
fixtures to really shine. My favorite part of this
whole room, though, is how they beautifully mixed different interior
design styles. We have the bed and lighting
that lean contemporary, the nightstands and chair which lean towards
mid century modern, and the wall molding that lends a traditional vibe
to the whole room. Very well done. Let's go ahead and take a look at a second
minimalist space together. I absolutely love
this dining room. Think through the main
minimalist principles. Do you see all of them here? Let's briefly go through them. Do we have only the essentials? From a functional
standpoint, most definitely. What about aesthetic
requirements? In my mind, yes, we
have the bold rug, which serves as a
needed counterbalance for those very bold pendants, and we have a vase of stems on the far wall to provide a bit of interest
to that brick wall. What about high
quality materials? Absolutely. Everything
from the dining chairs and the pendants to the
wood flooring and rug, you can tell that these are
all high quality materials. We also have adequate
breathing room for everything in the space. And as far as a focal point, my goodness, those
pendants truly deliver. Of course, if they
weren't there, they certainly could have used the gorgeous view as a
focal point, as well. And finally, where do
you see negative space? Definitely on the far wall. The brick add some texture, but they were very smart
to not hang anything on that wall that
would only serve to likely detract from
the stunning pendants. Okay, let's take a look
at one final space. What minimalist elements
do you see here? I think we can agree that this space has only
the essentials. The three vases and stems are the only aesthetic design
elements we see here, and they provide just the
right amount of aesthetics to finish this space so that
it doesn't feel unfinished. The materials used are
simple and beautiful. Clearly, we have
enough breathing room between all of the fixtures. Now let's talk focal point. What I love about this
room is that it's an element that's not often
used as a focal point. That's right, the floor. That floor is simply stunning. And finally, do you see
any negative space? While perhaps it's not as obvious as with the
previous two examples, we definitely see
it to the right of the mirror over the
remaining countertop. I think it was definitely
an interesting choice to extend the counter,
but not the mirror. At any rate, you now hopefully
have a good understanding of the principles that make up minimalist interior design. I look forward to seeing
you in the next lecture.
7. Start with the Vision: This section, I am going
to be sharing with you my tried and true methods
for decluttering, which is really the first step to any well designed
minimalist space. But before we get
into the specifics, there is an important step I strongly recommend
that you take first, and that is to visualize
your dream home. This may or may not
be difficult for you, but if it is difficult, here are some questions
to help get you started. How do you want your
home to make you feel? What mood are you
looking to create? How will you use your space? What colors do you want
to be sure to include? Are there any
current features of your space that you
want to accentuate? The more specific you can
be in the planning process, the more motivated you will
be to create your home. And more importantly, the happier you will be
with the end result. Once you've answered
these questions, or if you're not able to answer these questions,
then either way, I recommend taking a look at Pinterest or hows.com to find pictures that
inspire you towards your new desired
minimalist aesthetic. Then create some
boards on those sites with your inspiration
pictures to help guide you. The other action I
recommend you take is to create a mantra
for yourself and your family that
you can use when the decluttering process gets
challenging. And it will. I can almost guarantee it. The one that me
and my family used was only my very
favorite things, as in I'm only keeping
my very favorite things. This was incredibly helpful, particularly when we
were trying to decide between multiple similar
items such as books, music, toys, and accessories. Other great mantras include
only the essentials, or every room and closet
is going to be beautiful. By taking these important steps, it will be much easier
for you to get rid of items because you can
easily ask yourself, is this item part of
my vision or not? If the answer is it's
not, then out it goes. But without a clear
vision, trust me, you will find a way to keep a lot more than you
probably want to because it will be
hard to decide whether or not the item will
fit into your new home. So, make your life easier and do this pre planning
before you begin.
8. My Favorite Decluttering Techniques: The average person thinks about decluttering an entire home, I feel confident in
saying that they are likely going to feel at best, completely overwhelmed or at
worst, completely paralyzed. I know I did. Why? Because this is hard, plain and simple. Letting go of items, particularly those items
that we think may be useful someday or those items that
were given to us as gifts, even if we don't
love them or they aren't useful, is still hard. So what's the best
way to tackle this? Well, have you ever
heard the joke, How do you eat an elephant? The answer is one
bite at a time. Now for the record, I don't
advocate eating elephants, but the analogy is sound as it's basically the same approach
with decluttering a home. You have to break this task
down into manageable pieces, and my manageable
pieces are room by room or even space by space. For example, I began by first
decluttering my closet. Then I moved on to
every other closet in my house, one closet at a time. After my closets were done, I tackled my kitchen cabinets, and then I decluttered my pantry on a completely
separate weekend. I basically gave away or tossed anything in my
pantry that I hadn't used in the last six months or those items that were
past the expiration date. After the hard parts were done, the rooms became
much easier to do. Again, one room at a time. This approach has worked
for many others as well, so I'm confident it
should work for you, too. Also, based on the
process I just described, you can likely tell that this is not accomplished
all in one weekend. So please be sure to set realistic deadlines and
expectations for your own home. That said, how do you actually go about the
business of decluttering? Well, if you go
online and search how to declutter or the
art of decluttering, you will come across many, many articles with great tips. I don't need to
reinvent the wheel, but I can share with you those techniques that
have worked best. First, if you happen to be
moving into a new home, this will be much
easier for you. Obviously, in order to move, you'll need to box
everything up. This is great because
when you move into your new space, avoid
unpacking everything. Instead, this is your chance to study the space and then include only those furniture pieces that you really need and
love for each room. Then for all your
non furniture items, spend the next couple of weeks only unpacking those
items that you really need or really love and will serve an important
aesthetic function. What's left in your boxes after a couple of weeks can likely be donated or sold
at that point. But if moving homes isn't
in your near future, let's talk about three
tried and true techniques that you can use in
your home today. The first successful technique that I want to share
with you involves multiple rounds of editing over several days
in a single room. On day one, start
with the easy items. First, remove everything from the room that doesn't
belong there. You know, those items that actually belong in another room, like a bedroom or your kitchen, but have somehow migrated
into this room over time. Then on day two,
get everything off of the floor and keep only the furniture
that you really need, and then sell, donate or redistribute the other items
to other places in the home, if it makes sense to do so. On day three, tackle your
non furniture items, which includes
accessories, as well as papers, books and magazines. For accessories, try to keep only one to three items on each flat surface
you have in the room. Remember, only your favorites. Regarding paper, my rule is all paper should
either be filed, preferably electronically
or recycled or shredded. Keep books to a
minimum in each room. As far as magazines, I'll
keep only the ones that I know I'll read that are less than a
couple of months old. Everything else gets recycled. I am someone who falls
into the trap of, Oh, I'll read that magazine at
some point, but I never do. So now I just recycle them
based on this criteria. Then on day four, go back and work on creating negative
space somewhere in the room, which again, I'll talk more
about later in the class. Finally, go back to the room two to three more times
over the course of a few weeks and
challenge yourself to find one or more
items to minimize, rearranging items until
it feels just right. This feeling is going to
be different for everyone. Again, the ultimate
goal is to have every item in the room
be a deliberate choice, serving a very specific
functional or aesthetic need, such as creating balance
or harmony in the room. But every item kept
for aesthetic reasons should be items that you
really do love to look at. The trick to this approach is to calendar all of the
days that you plan on doing this and have a loved one hold you
accountable if needed. Otherwise, it's easy
to never get to it. And don't block off
hours for each activity. 15 to 30 minutes should be plenty of time for each
of these activities. A second technique
is to start with just one surface in
one room of your home. Let's say you want to first
declutter your living room. Then pick one case good
piece, meaning not seating, like a console table,
a coffee table, or an end table, and completely remove
everything from it. I mean everything. Let it stay like
that for one week. See how you feel about
the empty space. If the piece has interesting
sculptural lines, then maybe you'll decide to
leave it completely bare, but if it doesn't, or you don't like the look of it empty, then add one to three of your
very favorite items to it. This may be a trio of
vases, a sculpture, a bouquet of flowers, a plant, a coffee table book, or a pair of table lamps. You'll immediately see what
a difference that makes, and you'll learn to really
appreciate those items that you've now given a
prominent place in your room. Repeat this process on the other case good
pieces in your room. For your seating, I'm keeping it to two or three
pillows for each sofa, but typically no pillows on chairs unless you would
like it for back support. Ideally, these would be high
quality, beautiful pillows. I love throw pillows, but by just using one or two, I've created a lot more space on my sofa for seating,
which is a bonus. You could also add
a throw blanket on your sofa or one
of your chairs. This is a great way to
add texture to your room. A third technique
that works well, particularly for your clothes, is to create some
force constraints or rules for minimizing. I actually did this
with my own closet, and it worked like a charm. Specifically, I told
myself that I needed to get rid of 50% of each
type of item I had. For example, 50% of
my casual shirts, 50% of my dress shirts, 50% of my pants, 50% of my sweaters, et cetera. This resulted in me having to choose only my favorite items, those items that fit me now and that I believe
are flattering. Sure, you can go through each item and decide
whether or not to keep it. But I found this approach
to be much quicker, even though in some ways,
it was more difficult. I have also participated
in something called the Project
333 challenge, which challenges
you to live with just 33 clothing items
for three months. I talk more about this challenge in the last lecture
of this course. My point is that if you create some constraints
for yourself, you may find it easier and quicker to get to
your goal like I did. Also, this may go
without saying, but if you have an item that you don't absolutely love
and wouldn't buy again, then by all means,
get rid of it. This may be hand me down
items, damaged items, or just items that
don't resonate with you anymore for
whatever reason. And speaking of the phrase, get rid of it, let's talk
briefly about how to do that. You've probably heard
of the idea of creating three boxes or bags as
you declutter a space. One for those items
that you want to keep, one for donation and one
for trash or discard. This is a great
approach for sure. The keep pile is easy. So is the trash or discard pile. It just goes in the
trash once you're done. However, the donate pile may create another unexpected
headache for you. Sometimes what happens is
that these boxes or bags are put into another room of your home to be dealt
with at a later time. If you do this, there's a strong possibility that they'll sit there for a lot
longer than you'd like. I've tried a few
different approaches that work well to counteract
this common problem. First, I will put the items
straight into my car. Then the next time
I get in my car, I force myself to drop them off at the nearest
donation center. I will also immediately
schedule a pickup from goodwill or a comparable
organization. Finally, I live in a community, which has a Facebook page where we can list
things for free. Of course, you can also sell your items online or
at a garage sale. I used to sell a lot
of items in the past, often on a local Facebook
marketplace group, but I found that
it's much easier and more gratifying to simply give them away for free to neighbors who are so
happy to have them. Regardless of which way you go, the goal is to move
the items out of your home as quickly
as possible. Finally, for most
people, creating a minimalist home
never really stops. Why? For two main reasons. First, editing is simply
an ongoing process. As you live in your
home with less stuff, you'll naturally be more
aware of what you truly need. After a few weeks or months, you'll find yourself
realizing that there are other items that you aren't
using or don't need. This is completely normal. The second reason
is that you will be bringing new items
into your home for a variety of reasons because you need something that
you don't already have. You need to replace
something that's broken or because of well
meaning gift givers. So you'll need to find a way to manage the new stuff
that comes in. That may mean removing an item every time a
new item comes in, or it may mean regifting or donating an item
that you are given. My point is this, maintaining a minimalist home will
require ongoing work, but to me, the effort
is completely worth it. Now that you have some tools in hand for conquering
your clutter, you may be wondering, where
in my home should I start? I recommend starting in
whatever room or space that currently gives you the
most angst for two reasons. First, getting the hardest part over with when you
will generally have the most motivation
will make you feel great as you know that
it's all downhill from there. Second, this will result in the strongest positive
emotional impact for you. Again, helping you to stay motivated to
keep moving forward. I have one final thought that will help motivate
you to get started. People who have gone through the process of serious
decluttering have reported immediate feelings of happiness, peace,
and relaxation. So, what are you waiting for?
9. How to Deal with your Favorite Collections, Sentimental, and Just in Case Items: Those of you who think you can't bear to part with collections, sentimental items or
just in case items, I have a few recommendations to share with you that
I've used successfully. First, let's talk
about collections. Specifically, what I consider
collections of utility, such as books, DVDs and CDs. As far as books, I love books, but I had way too many. I have chosen to donate
all of my fiction books, as I almost never
read anything twice, and I kept only those
non fiction books that I will likely need to
reference in the future. For DVDs, there is
so much that you can stream online
for free or for little money that I think
it's pretty easy to pare down a DVD collection to
only your most favorite. Designate a shelf or two on a
bookcase or in a closet for your DVDs and then include only ones that
will fit in that space. You may need to
do several rounds until you get down to
your final selection, but it will feel
great once you do. For CDs, my husband had dozens, possibly hundreds of CDs
stored in his office. He loves music, but he
embraced minimalism, as well. So over the course
of several weeks, he burned all of his CDs into a cloud file sharing
program that we use. He has chosen to keep the CD art of some of his
favorite classic CDs, but the rest he sold or donated
once they were uploaded. There is one other solution
that you can use to deal with all types of
collections, and here it is. Leave one room in your home
in your pre minimalist state. This allows you to keep
those collections or items that you can't seem
to part with just yet. Maybe you leave the
room like this forever, or maybe you fall in
love with the rest of your minimalist home
so much that you eventually apply the minimalism aesthetic to that room,
as well, eventually. Now let's talk about
sentimental items. This is probably
the hardest area to tackle for most people,
including myself. I'm referring to photos, birthday and anniversary cards, gifts from loved ones, going away gifts
from co workers at previous jobs. You get the idea. I'm going to share
with you a few successful strategies
from my own experience. One option is to take
a picture of the item. I found that this allows
me to more easily donate or sell the item
without the guilt. If that doesn't seem like you've done the item
enough justice, you can always
insert that picture into an online document and write down why you love the item or why it's
brought you such joy. Another technique I've heard others speak of is
to thank the item for the joy it has brought into your life before
you give it away. This should create a
feeling of closure. For cards and letters
of sentimental value, I highly recommend scanning
them into your computer, which is what I've done and has allowed me to recycle
the originals. For photos, the same approach applies. Simply scan them in. That said, many times most of us have albums
and albums of photos, and the thought of scanning them in can seem too overwhelming. If that's the case, then you
should know that there are many businesses
that you can ship your photos to that will
scan in your photos, and then either ship
them back for you to dispose of them or we'll
shred them for you. Another great approach
for photos is to buy a digital picture frame and then upload the pictures that have
been scanned to that frame, so you can see the pictures
that you've digitized on a regular basis rather than having to go onto your
computer to look at them. Finally, let's talk about how to deal with those
just in case items. You know, those items
that you may need at some undetermined time in the future that we hang
onto for years at a time. For example, I had
two wetsuits that I used several years ago when
I used to do triathlons. I had been keeping
them thinking, Well, maybe someday I'll do
another triathlon. The fact is, I
realized I wouldn't, and all they were doing is
taking up space in my closet. And in the unlikely event, I ever decided to do
another triathlon. I could purchase a
used one online, so I sold them to others who could get use out of
them immediately. I felt good knowing that they
were likely being put to good use instead of
collecting dust in my closet. My husband had a bunch of
tools that he didn't use anymore and didn't plan on using for the
foreseeable future. So he, too, sold them, which created more
space in our garage. I once heard someone
say that they use Craigslist like their
personal tool locker. They buy and sell tools cheaply through this site as they
need them instead of buying everything and
filling up the garage with seldom used items. I
love that approach. Now, if this sounds way too
scary for you right now, then a great method that
I know some people have used is to create a
maybe box in your home. For those items that you
really believe you might use, go ahead and stick them
in your maybe box. Put a date on your calendar six months or so into the
future to review those items. Make a deal with yourself
that when you do review those items in six months and if you still
haven't used them, you will donate or sell them. The bottom line is that for
most just in case items, I would speculate that 99% of the time that
day never comes. So clean those items
out and put them in the hands of someone who
will put them to good use.
10. Everything Has its Place: One of the greatest
benefits that I and others have enjoyed
about embracing a minimalist home is the fact that everything in your home
will have its own place. No more time wasted searching
through cramped cabinets, looking for your
favorite casserole dish, looking for that one tool
in an overrun garage or digging through
your closet to find that perfect sweater you
know you have somewhere. Instead, once you get down
to truly the essentials, every item will
have its own home. Likely with plenty
of space around it, you will know exactly
where everything is. It's a great feeling,
let me tell you. For example, I went through
my entire kitchen and kept only those items that I used on a daily basis or that I had
used in the last 90 days. If I hadn't used it in 90 days, I sold it or donated it. That included
duplicate items like duplicate measuring cups,
duplicate blenders, duplicate pans
that I never used, a pasta maker, a
dehydrator, et cetera. That left me with a very
well organized kitchen. That included only my favorite kitchen items that
I used regularly. I also relocated items to the best possible place in the kitchen based
on how I used it, since I now had plenty
of space to work with. Some people may also decide to keep items that they
only use once a year, like holiday baking items.
That is totally fine. The point is to only have those things that you will
truly use in the near future. I now know exactly what I have and where I
can find everything. All of my kitchen items, even down to items like my
can opener and wine opener, have their own designated place in a very organized drawer. My entire family knows where
everything goes as well, so nothing gets misplaced.
How great is that? Along these same
lines, this approach will also help you to
avoid clutter showing up on those previously
cleared surfaces because everything
now has its place. The most important point
about this approach is that the entire family has to agree with this
rule for it to work. For my family, we have
certain practices, such as all mail gets dealt with the minute
we get in the house. Shoes that we wear regularly
go in the entryway closet. All other shoes go in
our respective closets. Lunch boxes get emptied and put away immediately
upon getting home. The same goes for
backpacks and purses. The result is that we've
been able to maintain a clutter free home in all
the common areas of our home. Do we still have some
cluttered surfaces? Occasionally, we do, but I'm happy to say they don't
stay that way for long.
11. Activity #2 - Let's Begin Working on your own Minimalist Room: Welcome to the first day
of the rest of your life. Boy, did that sound dramatic? Maybe a better thing
to say is welcome to hopefully the first day
of your minimalist journey. In this lecture, I want to help you get started,
and to do that, I've created an easy
to use template called Minimalist
Interior Design Plan. You can find this document
in the resources section. Go ahead and pause this video to download it and print
it out if you'd like. Great. Now, before you
jump into step one, you'll see in the
instructions that I'm encouraging you to do
this one room at a time. Yes, you can use
this template to tackle each room in
your home in parallel. But from experience, I can
tell you that you will have a much easier time integrating minimalist design if it is
approached one room at a time. That said, let's go ahead
and look at step one, which is to create your vision for your new minimalist room. I've included the questions
that we discussed earlier to help you more
easily articulate your vision. I've also included
space for you to come up with your own mantra
that you will use with yourself and your
family members when the decluttering process
gets challenging. I encourage you to take
just a few minutes to fill out these questions. And given how visual
interior design is, also take some time to create your own online boards with inspiration images
to get you started. In step two, you'll want to create your own
decluttering plan. Think about the techniques
we discussed earlier. If any of those techniques sound like they'd work for you, then by all means, try them. Otherwise, feel free
to search online with phrases like
decluttering techniques, how to easily declutter your home or something
along those lines. The Internet is full of great
information on this topic. After you're done
with these two steps, pat yourself on the back because you're off
to a great start. We'll be tackling the rest of the guide later in this course.
12. Choose your Most Calming Color Scheme: For the most part, the
classic minimalist rooms that are designed today
include very simple, very neutral color
schemes to support the goal of creating a
calm, relaxing space. White is generally one
of the main colors, but you will also
see quite a bit of black, gray, and beige. Regarding black, I really
enjoy including black or a dark color like navy or charcoal gray in a
minimalist room, as it creates an
interesting counterpoint to a generally light
colored space. For you non neutral color lovers out there, please don't despair. You can definitely include non neutral colors in
a minimalist space. The difference,
however, is you will typically use only one or two of these non neutral colors and
definitely with restraint. While blue and green are two of the most common
non neutral colors used in minimalist rooms, as these are considered
calming colors, other colors can
be used as well. There are a couple of
ways that I like to use non neutral color
in minimalist rooms. The first way is to include
muted tones of a warm color, such as yellows,
oranges or reds. But muted cool tones like greens and blues also work well. I particularly love navy blue and often use it as a neutral. Or I simply will use a
vibrant shot of color, such as a brightly colored sofa or a brightly painted wall. In this scenario, just be sure to choose your favorite color as this brightly colored piece will definitely be a focal
point for the space, meaning it will draw your attention every
time you walk in. So make it a color you love. The goal is to create
a color scheme that is most calming to you. For me, I love black and white, and that is what I
find most calming. Speaking of Black, some people find darker colors calming, especially in a
room like a bedroom or in a room with a
lot of natural light. But that's definitely
not for everybody. I've had clients who
really dislike black and white and are drawn to
warmer neutrals like beige, top, cream and brown, and
that's great, as well. The important point here is to find out what speaks to you, not what's in style
at the moment, or what you think
you should have. What do you love and what colors bring you
peace and comfort? As far as patterns, they are typically avoided
in a minimalist aesthetic. The only items that I
would consider using a pattern on is a
rug or pillows. That said, you can also bring
in a more striking pattern to your design through your tile pattern,
such as herring bone. In general, though,
think texture. Try to incorporate a number
of different textures and materials such
as wood, leather, wool, glass, steel, stone, jute, velvet, et cetera. This will give your eye a lot more visual interest
to feast on. Alternatively, include some dramatic artwork
in your space. This will also help to alleviate your hunger for patterns. So in summary, spend some time thinking about
your home's color scheme. Keep it simple three to
four colors in total, with generally a
heavy emphasis on neutrals and be sure to get
input from your family, as well, so hopefully everyone
can be happy and inspired.
13. Determine your True Furniture Essentials: As I discussed in
the main principles of minimalist design lecture, one of the defining
characteristics of this style is to only include what is
essential in the design, either from a functional or
an aesthetic standpoint. I would say that of
all of the principles, this one is arguably
the most important, as you simply cannot
ignore this principle if your goal is to have
a true minimalist space. Remember, only the essentials. So in this lecture,
we are going to be tackling your true
furniture essentials. In later lectures,
we'll talk about rugs, artwork, lighting,
greenery and accessories. So let's break down true furniture requirements
room by room. The goal with each furniture
piece is to ask yourself, is this item essential in order for my room to be
perfectly functional? And how do you think
you will determine if it's going to meet
a functional need? By asking yourself what
main activities are taking place in this room on a regular or even
occasional basis? Once you know that, then
determining what furniture pieces you need to support those activities
becomes quite easy. If the piece is not going
to meet a functional need, then it's going to
be a great candidate for repurposing in another room, donating, selling or gifting to a friend or family member. The other important point is
that you may find that some of your items are simply too
big for your current home, meaning you move into
a new place that has a smaller bedroom or a smaller family room than
you had in your last home. The result is that you may end up with a bed that
is too large for your bedroom or a sofa that is too big for
your living space. Furniture that is too big for a room is never a good idea, but it's particularly bad
in a minimalist home. If you're not sure if
an item is too big, ask a friend who will give
you an honest opinion or, of course, hire a designer. If you do have an
item that is too big, then if at all possible, make it a priority to replace it with a more appropriately
sized piece. Remember, in minimalist design, every single piece matters. So focus not just on the quality of your pieces, but
the size of them, as well as you want
your items to breathe, like we discussed in the
main principles lecture. In the long run, you will be
grateful that you did this. As a designer, I know how
expensive furnishings can be. So when you think
about replacing furniture pieces
that are too large, consider doing so with
second hand furniture, as this can bring instant
character to your space. Vintage pieces are
often a great choice. Okay, now let's go
ahead and get into the essential
furniture requirements for each room of your home. Let's first start
in your entryway. I would include only two
furniture pieces here, a console or a cabinet
and a piece of seating. This could include
a chair or bench. The console or
cabinet will serve to hold your essential
items such as your keys, hats, umbrellas, et cetera. The chair or bench is great
for putting on your shoes or waiting for the other members of your family as
you are headed out. Next, let's move on to your
family and or living room. What typically are the main
functions of this space? For most, it's going
to include a place to have great conversation
with family and friends, playing games, watching TV, and likely a place to
engage in hobbies. So first, we'll
need some seating. How do you determine
how much seating? Determine how many people you typically need to
seat in the space. I wouldn't necessarily plan
for the greatest possible, as I sometimes do
with other designs, because you can always
bring in seating from other areas of
the home if needed. So if the majority
of the time you only need space for four individuals, then ensure you have
seating for four. This might include a
sofa and a chair or two or two sofas or a
sofa and a love seat. Obviously, there
are more options. These are just meant
to be examples. I would also include
a coffee table, but likely no end tables or maybe just one end table if additional task lighting is needed in the form
of a table lamp. If you have a TV,
you will likely need a TV stand if you aren't
mounting it to the wall. Many minimalists
would tell you to stop there, and you
definitely can. But I don't think
there would be harm in possibly including one
more piece of furniture, such as a console
table or a bookshelf, particularly if you do have some books you
want to include in the space or a stunning
accessory or two. But remember, the danger with flat surfaces is that they tend to become
magnets for stuff. So if you think you
have the discipline to keep the surfaces
relatively clear, then do consider adding one more furniture piece if it makes sense for
the overall design. For your dining room, clearly, you'll need
a dining table, and then I would likely include only one other
piece of furniture, either a buffet or a console
table for any table lamps, serving ware, or just one
or two pieces of decor. Now let's talk
about your bedroom. I would advocate
that this is perhaps the first room you start with
in your minimalist journey. Why? Because your bedroom is meant to be the ultimate
sanctuary in your home, the place where you
go to truly unwind, relax, and get a
great night's sleep. So what does an ideal
minimalist bedroom look like? Well, you will
obviously need a bed, but you will also need a
nightstand or possibly two, a single dresser if
you don't have a built in closet, and finally, a place to sit,
because sometimes you just need a place to sit
down in your bedroom. This could be a bench
or an accent chair. For your kitchen, try to get your counters as clean
as you possibly can. As the more items that
are on your counters, the more cluttered your
kitchen will feel. Only set out those
small appliances that you use on a regular basis, for example, a daily basis. For me, this includes
a coffee maker, a knife block set, a paper towel holder,
and a spoon rest. Other small appliances can
often be stored in a pantry. This is what I've
done in my own home. Try to take a similar
approach in your bathrooms. The only items I
have on my bathroom counter are a soap pump
and a tissue box holder. Everything else is stored away, and I love the simplicity
of this approach. Don't let your shower become
a dumping ground, either. If you don't have a
recess shower shelf, then invest in a
plastic basket to corral only your
essential bath products. Given that you will be using minimal items in your
kitchen and bathrooms, you can see why, if possible, it's important to choose
only high quality finishes, such as your countertop
and flooring materials, as they will really stand
out in a minimalist space. A striking countertop
material, like we see here, can also make a
great focal point, more on that later
in the course. Finally, for your home
office, you will, of course, need a desk, but I would also include one other
case good piece. This could be a bookshelf, where you can store
any reference books, baskets with office
supplies, et cetera, or it could be a credenza if you need to store
a number of files. Although any
enthusiastic minimalist will scan those files to eliminate the mounds
of paper that we typically find
stacked in our offices. Finally, if you have
visitors to your office, even if it's just
other family members, invest in a guest
chair or two as well.
15. Identify your Focal Point: Now let's talk about the
all important focal point, which we also
briefly discussed in the main principles of
interior design lecture. As I mentioned, including
a focal point in a minimalist room is extremely important for three
main reasons. First, a minimalist space, with its generally
subdued color scheme and fewer pieces than a typical room becomes the perfect backdrop for
a show stopping piece. So take advantage
of the setting. Second, minimalist rooms without a focal point will definitely
be a lot less interesting, and great interior design should definitely
be interesting. So don't skip this
important aspect. Third, a focal point can
help to create balance in a room should you choose to arrange your furniture
around the focal point, which is a common approach. So what makes a great focal
point in a minimalist room? Some of my favorites include
fireplaces, light fixtures, large mirrors rugs, artwork, unique coffee tables, a
striking wall treatment, and a lovely view. Generally, you want to position the furniture around the
focal point of the room. Although that isn't
absolutely necessary, particularly if your
focal point is a unique, brightly colored chair or even a large plant with
interesting sculptural lines, which is perfectly acceptable
in a minimalist space. My preferred method when
designing a room is to first identify or
create my focal point, and then I decorate around it, meaning I use that as my inspiration piece for the room when selecting
the other pieces. This is very
effective in helping you to narrow down
your other choices, as the focal point may help
dictate a color scheme. If the focal point
is a fireplace, it can also help determine
the lines of your furniture, as fireplaces range in style from contemporary
to traditional. Let's go ahead and
take a look at some minimalist spaces that have well designed focal points. As we look at these pictures, notice where your
eye goes first. If your eye and my eye
go to the same place, that is a great focal point. Here's our first
space, and there's no question here regarding what is meant to
draw your attention. That light blue herring
bone tiled wall immediately draws
your attention, no matter what angle you were
to view this bathroom from. There are a number
of ways they've reinforced this wall
as the focal point. First, this wall is likely the wall opposite the
entrance to the room, so it's going to be the
first thing you likely see. They place the bath
tub in front of it, which is often the
largest or one of the largest fixtures
in a bathroom. They have further
drawn attention to this area with black
framed glass walls. Finally, they have incorporated
the light blue color from the tile into the rest of the
bathroom's color scheme. Imagine how different
and quite frankly how plain this bathroom
would be without it. Let's take a look
at another space with a fantastic focal point. This space absolutely
draws me in given my obsession with
oversized light fixtures. I would love to know what
came first in this design, the light fixture
or the kitchen. I am going to guess
the light fixture. It just seems like this
kitchen was designed in such a way as to highlight the beauty and uniqueness
of this fixture. They kept the lines of
the kitchen clean and the color scheme black to perfectly complement
the pendant. And I love how they
use black marble to provide some interest to
the very simple kitchen, but nothing so dramatic that it competes
for your attention. This light fixture has it 100%. Here's a nice example of a more subdued focal
point in a living room. This shade of muted green
behind the shelves is a perfect complement to the
primarily beige color scheme. Painting a wall behind
shelving or the back of a bookcase also helps the books and accessories
to visually pop. Now let's take a
look at a bedroom. If you are lucky enough to have a room in your home
with this kind of view, then this is how you use it to create your
room's focal point. By using all white and
cream furnishings, they make you feel as if you are floating on clouds
inside those trees. More importantly, the colors do not in any way detract
from that view, which needs to
take center stage. And the wood floor
they used is perfect, as I'm sure it's meant to mimic the trunks of the
trees just outside. Beautiful. And if you don't have a beautiful
view in your bedroom, your bed is the
natural focal point, which you can accentuate with a striking headboard or wall
treatment like we see here. Now that you've seen some
great focal point examples, go ahead and give
some thought to a focal point for the first
room you're starting in. Go ahead and jot
down some ideas. Then in the next
activity of this course, you'll be selecting the focal point that you'll be using to inspire your entire
room. How exciting.
16. Include some Negative Space: As I mentioned in the
main principles lecture, minimalist interior design is, in many ways, a celebration
of empty space. As a result, empty space or what we call negative
space becomes a key design feature
that you really should include in each room of
your minimalist home. First, as a reminder, negative space is something that is used in every
interior design, as it simply refers to the
space around items in a room. It's definitely an
important design element for a number of reasons, most especially because it keeps your home from looking
cluttered or chaotic. That said, in minimalist design, the use of negative space is
actually taking up a notch. Instead of just ensuring sufficient space between
pieces of furniture or decor, we use negative space as an
intentional design element. Meaning in minimalist design, you will see that there is
often an area of the room that is noticeably absent in
terms of furniture or decor. Not surprisingly, I find that this principle is usually one
of the hardest to embrace. Most people really seem to have a tough time with
intentional empty space. They are either worried
that their home will look cold and uninviting, or they fear that others will assume that they don't
have money to decorate, or worse that they
simply have no style, but this could not be
further from the truth. Negative space creates much
needed breathing room in a space and provides a
place for your eye to rest. As a result, it will
naturally help to create a calm,
comfortable environment. Additionally,
negative space plays an important supporting
role in allowing other features of the room
to be appreciated even more. It is particularly useful in drawing attention
to a focal point. More on that in just a minute. That said, you won't be
surprised to hear that there is an art to
including negative space. So in this lecture,
my goal is to help you do this in the best way
possible in your own home. I find that the easiest way to include negative
space is on a wall. Basically, just leave one of
the walls bare in your room. This works well because
the furniture will help to ensure that you still
have balance in the room. An empty wall is a
particularly great option if you have a striking
light fixture or two, acting as your focal point, as the empty wall becomes the perfect blank canvas to
frame your light fixtures. In short, negative space helps to focus your
attention where it belongs. An empty wall is also an
excellent choice if you have some beautiful artwork or an amazing view from a large window on a
neighboring wall, acting as your focal point. That way, the artwork or beautiful view isn't competing with anything else
for your attention. Other examples of negative space include an empty console
or coffee table, where you would normally
include accessories. This can be an
especially great choice when you have a table
with interesting lines, or you can simply not include a coffee table in your design where you would
typically have one. This also helps to create
a feeling of openness in your room and allows individuals to freely move
throughout the space. Of course, negative
space is extremely effective when it comes to
accentuating accessories. As you can see,
by leaving plenty of negative space
around these objects, they naturally help your
eye to focus on them. The challenge with this
approach is to make sure that you still have excitement
and balance in your room. Excitement, of course, can be achieved through a
strong focal point. For balance, it depends on
where your negative space is. As I mentioned, if you make
a wall your negative space, the furniture arrangement
can provide balance. If your negative space is
in the middle of your room, this is quite easy
to balance as you simply include pieces in all
four quadrants of the space. If your negative space is
around objects in a bookcase, then simply ensure
that your objects are spread throughout
the shelves, meaning left, right, and center to create overall
balance in the bookcase. I hope that makes sense,
and more importantly, that you now feel
comfortable with incorporating this
important design feature.
18. Add the Finishing Touches: Up to this point,
I've discussed how to create the ideal color scheme
for your minimalist home, how to determine your true
furniture essentials, how to decide on a focal point, and finally, how to include some negative
space into your design. Now, let's discuss the remaining design
aspects for any room. This includes
flooring, wall art, lighting, window treatments,
greenery, and accessories. For flooring, wood or another wood look material
such as luxury vinyl plank or LVP is the most
common choice for a minimalist home due to its beauty, warmth,
and simplicity. But if you don't have wood
floors, it's completely fine. You can still achieve
your minimalist home. After wood, I would say that the next best option would be a natural material
like stone or tile. Carpet would be my
least preferred choice. If you do have carpet,
then skip the rug. Now, this may surprise some
of you who have heard me say that I nearly always
include a rug in my spaces, even with wall to
wall carpeting. But there's usually an
exception to everything, and my exception would be
with a minimalist design. Going back to rugs, it's really up to you if you want to
use them in your rooms, regardless of your
flooring choice. Personally, I would,
especially with hard flooring, because I like something
really comfortable underfoot in my main living spaces, and it also helps
to define a space. However, if you're
trying to save money or you just don't
like the look of rugs, then by all means, skip them. The other important point about
flooring is that nothing, truly nothing should be stored
or stacked on the floor. The only thing that
should be touching the floor are your
furniture pieces, floor lamps, plants, or
other large accessories. Everything else should be
stored away where it belongs. So remember, the floor is
never a place for storage. Now let's talk artwork. This guideline is quite easy. Go with only one
or two pieces of wall art and keep the artwork to one to
two walls of the room. I like to use one large
statement piece personally, but you could have
a pair of medium sized art pieces, as well. The one thing you
want to avoid is a number of small pictures
adorning your wall. While this can work
well in other styles, this would be too much visual
clutter for this aesthetic. Of course, your wall art doesn't have to be a
painting or a photograph. It could include a wall
sculpture, a large mirror, floating shelves with
minimal accessories or one of my favorites, living walls and
succulent wall art, which can be
professionally installed, or smaller versions can
be purchased through online retailers
in different sizes and at various price points. For lighting, I
would still follow the standard guidelines
to ensure that I have adequate light
in my room for ambient task and
accent lighting. For ambient lighting
or all over lighting, decide what your one source
is going to be for the room. Will it be a chandelier, a flush or semi
flush mount light, recessed can lights
or something else? For task lighting, make sure
that you have table lamps, pendants, or floor lamps for the main tasks that will be
taking place in the room. Wall sconces are an
excellent choice for either ambient
or task lighting. Accent lighting, which is optional, but
highly recommended, I would just keep it
to one area or item, typically for your focal point. This could include wall
washers for a fireplace, concealed up lights for a plant, or LED strip lights for
cabinets or bookshelves. If you have an open floor plan, remember to use different fixtures for your
different zones, but I encourage you to include only what is truly essential. Just enough lighting
and no more. That said, because I
love lighting so much, I would possibly have one of my ambient or task
lighting fixtures act as my focal point for the
room since there are so many beautiful and dramatic
light fixtures available. For window treatments, it's not going to be a surprise
to you when I say, keep it as simple as possible. Bare windows are common
in this aesthetic, but if you are a city
dweller or have rooms that receive a lot of light during
the day, this won't work. So to help you decide, consider the style of your room when selecting your
window treatments. Consider woven shades for styles like coastal
chic and farmhouse. Simple drapes for styles
like traditional, transitional, modern
French, French country, Mediterranean,
Western and art deco, and roller shades for
styles like Scandinavian, contemporary, urban modern, mid century modern,
industrial and Zen. Obviously, there
are other styles of window treatments that will
work for these styles. These are just meant
to be examples. The goal is to keep them
simple, devoid of patterns, fringe, tassels, et cetera, as this would just be visual
clutter for the room. In the case of
stationary drapes, you can certainly
layer by adding in shades for light
control and privacy, but for purely aesthetic
reasons, I would avoid it. Now let's move on to greenery. I absolutely love
plants and flowers, and I still abide by the rule of at least one piece of
greenery for every room. Many of today's silk
plants are great for those of you who have a
hard time with real plants. But if you can't stand the
thought of artificial, then consider succulents,
as we spoke about earlier. They are super low maintenance, and there are so many
great varieties today. For most rooms of your home, I would recommend including
either one large floor plant or one large floor plant and one small plant or
vas of flowers. Finally, we have accessories. You know the myriad
of items that are placed on the flat
surfaces around our home. Based on my experience
as a designer, accessories are generally
the most challenging items for my clients to
minimize. Why is that? Because accessories are
often deeply personal. After all, we are talking
about framed photographs, travel mementos,
homemade items from our children and family
heirlooms, just to name a few. However, one of the hallmarks of a minimalist home
is the abundance of clear flat surfaces with typically one to
three items per surface. So then, how do you reconcile these two opposing
realities? Very carefully. In all seriousness, this
can be quite a challenge. Examples of great
accessories could include a simple vase of flowers
for your coffee table, a handful of interesting sculptural items
for your office, or a vase collection scattered
throughout a bookcase. The hard part, of course,
is making these selections. I have a few
suggestions on how you can make this a bit
easier on yourself. First, gather up all of the
accessories in your home. Yes, all of them and place
them in three groups. A must have group, meaning those items that you
cannot bear to give away, a donate group for
those items that you've grown tired of and can
donate and a gift group. Those items that
you think someone else in your life
would appreciate. This is particularly suited for family items that you can pass on to other family members, so they can enjoy them, as well. Now take a look
at your must have group and see if you can scatter them
throughout your home, limiting yourself to one to
three items per flat surface. For smaller surfaces
like a coffee table, I would keep it to one item. For larger areas like
a kitchen counter, then three items will work. But what if you have
too many items? There are a couple of other
options that I can recommend. First, order the items from your most
favorite to your least favorite and gift or donate those that are in
your least favorite group. Yes, I know this will be hard, given that this is
your must have pile, but this is exactly
where the term ruthless editing that I
used earlier comes in. If you really want to embrace
the minimalist aesthetic, you may need to do some
ruthless editing to get down to your truly most favorite
objects in your home. Now, if you just can't
bear this approach, especially if you are making a big transition already
by embracing minimalism, then my second
suggestion is to create a system by where you rotate
the items every few months. Meaning, keep the accessories
like we discussed to one to three items per flat surface and then store
the rest in a cabinet. In two to three months, go ahead and rotate out those items for those stored items so you can enjoy them at
different times of the year. Who knows? In a year or so, you may be ready to part
with some additional items, but at least you've
achieved the clean, minimal look you are
going for without having to truly part with
some of your favorite pieces.
19. Achieving Perfect Harmony and Balance: Throughout this course, I've
touched on the importance of creating harmony and balance
in your minimalist space. However, because
creating harmony and balance can be more
challenging in this aesthetic, given that you are working
with less of everything, I thought it would be
helpful to provide a summary of what I've
discussed so far, as well as some additional
techniques that you can use to achieve these
important design outcomes. First, just to make sure
we are on the same page, let me define balance
and harmony for you in the context
of interior design. Balance refers to creating a feeling of
equilibrium in a room. Harmony refers to the
pleasing arrangement of different elements in a room
to create a unified feeling. This is often done by
including items that share some similar traits such as
color, texture, and shape. That said, let's
start by quickly reviewing some of the techniques
I've already mentioned. First, we talked about
the importance of texture and how it's
important to include a lot of different materials
throughout your space so that you have rich textural interest in your furnishings. As long as you are repeating
some of the same textures, this will help to create
harmony in your design. In this room, they've
repeatedly used wood, metal, and leather. Using a variety of textures is particularly important when you have a neutral color scheme. Another technique we discussed
for achieving balance is through the careful application of negative space in a design, which adds breathing
room and brings attention to furnishings
and accessories. Finally, I discussed how using a focal point can
help you to achieve balance in a room
should you choose to arrange your furniture
around the focal point. Another technique you can use to achieve balance is through
the use of symmetry, including formal symmetry,
informal symmetry, and radial symmetry, all of which we use
in interior design. Formal symmetry refers to
repeating or mirroring the same elements along a central axis and is
the easiest to create. Informal symmetry is when
you use different items of similar visual weight
along a central axis. This can be a bit more
challenging to achieve well. Radial symmetry occurs
when you arrange items around a central
point extending outward, like you would achieve
with a dining room table and chairs in the
center of a room. Going back to harmony, having a cohesive
color palette of only three to four
colors will also help you to achieve harmony in
your minimalist space. Finally, repeating
elements in a room, such as furniture lines, shapes and textures, as
I mentioned previously, will also help you to achieve
both balance and harmony.
20. Activity #5 - Complete your Minimalist Interior Design Plan: Are you ready to complete your minimalist
interior design plan? Well, I am definitely
ready to help you. Go ahead and pull out your plan one more time so
that you can get on your way to finalizing
your blueprint for the start of your
minimalist dream home. After the last activity, we left off on Step six. Go ahead and find that
on your guide now. You will see that you are
going to be thinking about the flooring for your room
from a few different angles. First, you are going
to give some thought as to whether or not you'll
be replacing the floor. For most people, the
answer will be no, but you may have
been planning on getting new flooring
in the near future. If so, this would be a great time to give some
thought to your choices. A new type of flooring,
particularly wood, stone or tile, can definitely help to accentuate your
new minimalist style. You'll also want to
decide whether or not you want to use
a rug in this room, as it's really up to you. For me, unless it's
wall to wall carpeting, I would, but you don't need to. Finally, I encourage you to set a target date for ensuring
that nothing is on your floor except the legs of your furniture and the other items we
spoke about earlier. Moving on to step seven, you are going to be
giving some thought to the wall art and decor you'll
be using in your room. As you can see from the guide, try to leave some walls bare, particularly if you have a door or window on that wall already. Also, make sure that they are
your very favorite pieces. In the guide, I'm encouraging you to think about
what walls you want to include Wall art on and specifically what
pieces you'll be using. Remember, this is a
great opportunity to use wart or wall decor
as your focal point. Let's go ahead and move on to step eight, which is lighting. This is where you
will need to give some thought to your
lighting plan for the room. Remember, in a minimalist room, my recommendation is to include
one ambient light source, which provides general all
over lighting to the room, a task light for each
major task area, and then some
accent lighting for one specific area or
item in your room. Don't forget that if you are shopping for new light fixtures, this is a great place for
you to consider making one of your light fixtures
your focal point if you are still lacking one. Looking at step nine, you
can see that you'll be deciding on what type of window treatments you will
be using in your space. Specifically, you will need to decide which windows
in your room need coverings and
identifying what type of window treatments
you will be using. Remember to keep it
simple and relevant to the design style you
are using in your room. Step ten asks you to identify what areas of your
room could use a plant. Ideally, try to incorporate one to two plants in your room. A large floor plant and a small table plant work
well in most spaces. Remember, if you
have a black thumb, artificial plants and succulents will be your best friends. You have finally arrived
at step 11 of your guide, which will help
you to narrow down which accessories you will
be using in your room. If this is challenging for you, I encourage you to try the approach I
mentioned in which you group all of your accessories and divide them
into three piles. Must have donate and gift piles. Then if you still have too many, order them from most
favorite to least favorite and rehome
your least favorite. Your goal is to keep it to one to three accessories per
flat surface in your room. Obviously, for bookcases, you can likely use
more than three, but remember to give each
of your accessories plenty of breathing room.
And that's it. Fantastic job on getting
through this guide. This completed guide will
truly serve as your roadmap for pulling together your new
beautiful minimalist home. Most importantly,
have fun with it. And I hope you enjoy
your new clutter free, relaxing space.
21. Additional Minimalist Resources : If you do an online search for minimalist interior design, you will see many, many resources available
to you on this topic. In this lecture, I want to share with you some of
the websites that I found most helpful for providing
inspiration and information to me as I created not only
my own minimalist home, but really my new
minimalist life. First, if you haven't
heard of them yet, there are two individuals who call themselves
the minimalists. Their website is
the minimalist.com. They happen to have
a podcast as well as documentaries about their
own minimalist journey. While they don't really touch on the minimalist
design style per se, they do show pictures and
videos of their own homes, which are definitely minimalist. More importantly, I have found them to be a great
inspiration for those who want to incorporate minimalism into all
areas of their lives. If you are interested
in creating a minimalist wardrobe,
which I have done as well, Google Project 333 or
go to the website, be more with less.com and click on the project
333l link at the top. This was so much fun
and liberating for me. As I mentioned earlier
in this course, it's a challenge to
reduce your wardrobe to only 33 items
for three months. Basically, you change
your wardrobe with each new season,
and by wardrobe, they are referring to not
only clothes but also shoes, jewelry, handbags
and accessories such as hats, scarves and belts. Why do I say liberating? Because it made my
morning so much easier. No more trying to figure
out what to wear. I only had a few choices of only my very favorite
clothing items, so it made getting ready in
the morning so much quicker. I absolutely loved it, and it really helped
me to figure out which items of clothing to
donate at the end of the year. Finally, I've created a
Pintres board of some of my favorite inspirational minimalist interior
design photos, which will hopefully
inspire you, as well. My goal with this
board is to show you that the minimalist
aesthetic can absolutely be used successfully with many different
styles of furniture. I hope you find these
additional resources helpful.
22. Conclusion and Final Thoughts: If you are watching
this lecture, I want to warmly congratulate you for
completing the entire course. You should now understand why minimalist interior
design is becoming such a popular interior
design style today. More importantly,
though, you should have a good foundational knowledge on which to achieve
this in your own home. As you might remember, this
starts with a clear vision. Then you will want to use some tried and true decluttering
techniques so that you can create the
perfect blank canvas for your minimalist design, which will be achieved through
a calming color scheme, determining your true
furniture essentials, creating a fabulous focal point, including some negative space, and including the right
finishing touches, which include
flooring, lighting, window coverings,
greenery and accessories. What I like about this
course is that we had multiple points throughout
the class where I was able to walk you through how to do this on your own by using the minimalist interior design
plan template so that you hopefully now feel confident in creating your own
minimalist dream home. Minimalist interior design is clearly near and
dear to my heart, and I sincerely hope that I was able to inspire you today to incorporate some of these wonderful design
aspects into your own home. As always, if you have any
follow up questions at all, please go ahead and
send me an email as I am happy to provide any
needed support for you. Thank you so much and
happy decorating.
Erikka Fogleman, Interior Designer
