Below are some easy, cheap interior design ideas that helped transform my bland-flat, into a stylish bachelor pad!
1. Choose a Colour Scheme
The first thing that needed to be sorted in my new flat was the colour
scheme, or should I say, I needed to first introduce a colour scheme. I
like my rock and metal music. I therefore like dark colours such as
black, dark reds and blues. It is important when choosing a colour
scheme that you choose colours one reflects your personality. In the end
I went with black and dark purple.
2. Paint
Now that I had chosen my colour scheme it was time to get messy with
paint. A good technique when painting the walls of a room, is to paint
opposite walls the same colour, and the remaining two walls a different
colour. In my case I painted two of my opposite facing walls dark
purple, and the remaining two I left white. These white walls would be
added to later with art and other such decoration, to give them more
appeal.
3. Buy Nice Furnishings or Improve What You've Got
My flat came part furnished, it had a bed, sofa, old coffee table,
wardrobes and a few storage cupboards. The sofa provided was a horrible
murky brown colour, so I bought a nice big black sofa throw, which I
used to cover the sofa. I bought a few dark purple cushions and "Hey
Presto" a cool new sofa! I then bought some funky Dark Purple curtains
that had a black swirly pattern, these matched my cushions and helped
promote my colour scheme throughout the flat. As for the coffee table,
wardrobes and cupboards, I simply painted them black using a paint designed
for wood, then gave them a nice coat of varnish. By being a little
creative you can pretty much transfer any old furnishings into wonderful
new ones.
4. Decorate with Art and Personal Items
This part is fun, and again should reflect your hobbies and interests in
life. As mentioned I am a huge fan of rock and metal music. To add more
variation to the walls of my flat I decided to invest a little money in
some Canvas Photo Prints. I chose a few of my favourite album covers,
which included Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Pantera. I had my local
printing company transform these images into wonderful Canvas Prints.
They look great on the walls and give the place a very personal touch. I
also has a few old guitars, so instead of throwing them out, I mounted
one of them on the wall using a guitar holder that I bought from a local
music store. Personal touches like these really add character and
individuality to a home, why not experiment with what you have?
5. Lighting
I didn't technically come up with this idea myself, it was
provided by a friend who creates lighting for music concerts, but I'm so
glad he did because it has elevated my flat to a whole new level of
cool. I bought a few free standing tall spot lamps from a local high
street store. I placed these in the corners of my room and using the
directional lamp heads was able to direct the light in several angles
around the room. These lamps also came with dimmer controls allowing me
to adjust the level of brightness omitted by each lamp head. By
experimenting I was able to come up with some very relaxing and tranquil
lighting settings for my flat. Using another guitar on a stand, I
wrapped a few fairy-lights around the body and up the neck. What
resulted was one of the most talked about features of my flat! Lighting
can dramatically effect the way in which a room feels so experiment with
colour and brightness to find something that suits you.