5 Things to Modernize Your Home

So you’re looking to modernize your home but don’t know
where to start. What was once an exciting endeavor has become a stressful experiment
in accent walls and mood lighting. But redesigning your home doesn’t have to be
taxing. In fact, it should be a reawakening of your bold spirit in the form of
lustrous design and geometric shapes. Get started with these five easy steps
below.

A cluttered house is a messy house. There are no exceptions.
No matter how good you think your stack of Architectural Digests look neatly
scattered on your artsy coffee table, in reality they don’t. The most salient characteristic
of a modern home is its clean lines and feeling of effortless style. Question:
when you walk into a house with dim lighting and space packed with odds and
ends resembling Ariel’s
hidden treasure grotto, do you feel like you can move around freely?
Probably not. So let’s follow Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe’s “less is more”
proviso. When we’re free of clutter and disorder, we can then begin to breathe.

But the question is where to house your treasures. You can
still design your home to feature a prominent art work or statement piece, but make
“less is more” your mantra. Be it. Live it. One way to house your books,
magazines or electronics is to organize them in a straight-edged, no-frills
media cabinet. Another important ideal held by the most rigid of modernists is
form following function. Nothing should be in your house that does not serve a
purpose. Finding a piece that is both progressive and unassuming isn’t as hard
as it sounds. Need to hide those unsightly electrical cords and store your
magazines? There’s a cabinet for that.

The way you light your interior space can have a dramatic
effect on its usefulness. A modern living room requires a lot of natural light.
But if you have a space that doesn’t offer such a luxury, a well-placed pendant
light can brighten a room to meet even the strictest modernist’s satisfaction. Le
Corbusier recognized that “the history of architecture is the history of the
struggle for light,” and your living room is no exception. Transitional pendant
lights allow you to control the illumination of the room in style. In true
modern fashion, the Pythagoras Pendant designed by Mary
McDonald shines a beautiful soft or bright light from every angle. The
pendant’s pentagonal shape reflects a bee’s hive, mimicking nature while also
built of industrialized materials—the modernist’s dream. Now you can say it’s
the light that makes the room.

Playing with accents can be a dangerous game. Too many
accents make your home look like every “before” picture featured on HGTV. Too
little and the room doesn’t feel lived in or comfortable. When you pair a
lovely throw rug with a pristine coffee table, the room speaks for itself.
Consider the Vlad Coffee Table by IonDesign and the Rabari 2 Rug by
Nanimarquina. The transparent, asymmetrical coffee table doesn’t just allow you
to appreciate its wooden base, but it highlights the accented rug underneath,
filling your line of vision with organic shapes and a cool color palette
ranging from bright violets to muted blacks. These modern pieces will anchor
your room and balance your furniture pieces. By combining solid, well-designed
fixtures with a whimsical accent, you are demonstrating your design know-how.

Have you ever noticed that your doctor’s office is usually
beige or white, while a restaurant
is done up in burnt sienna or a verdant green? We associate color with
functionality. Beige and white is clinical, while natural colors like sienna
olive are warm and inviting, causing us to stay in a space a while longer. Replacing
outdated wallpaper with a splash of papaya whip yellow or terra cotta red will
liven up your living room while not distracting from its function. Warmer
colors bring people together and for longer, the very function of a living
room.

If you’re on a budget (aren’t we all?) scavenge the web for seasonal
sales and promotional blowout deals. For example, Lumens is running what they call
“The Design Event of the
Year,” offering a wide selection of brands at discount prices. Or if you’re
more DIY-inclined, you can scour Craigslist for quality pieces that just need a
little life injected back into them. Don’t be overwhelmed with the task of
modernizing your home, just be open to a few simple design tips and you’ll
quickly see your environment transforming before your eyes.