A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home
Every Wednesday is Simplicity Day on Zen Habits.
I can not say that I truly minimalist home, but not cluttered, and most people I know would call a beautiful minimalist house.
One visitor who saw my kitchen and remarked, "I have never seen a kitchen that looks so clean, so clear stuff!" Well, I do the best to stay clean, but the button to remove items that are not necessary.
For example, on my kitchen floor / dining area with only a few main table (clear of any clutter), chairs, a few counter stools, high chairs, a step stool for children. At the ticket window only with toaster, microwave and coffee.
This is a minimalist house with character and contentment and life? Some might think so, but I get a strange satisfaction, a fulfillment, looking around the house and see a clutter-free. It's calming, and liberating, and quite good.
Benefits of the Minimalist Home
I could go on for a while this may be, but I just list some key benefits:
1. Less stress. Chaos is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision we attract at least a little. Less clutter, less visual stress we have. A minimalist home is calming.
2. More interesting. Think about the image of the home cluttered, and photos of minimalist homes. That with almost no in them except some beautiful furniture, some artwork, good, and some very beautiful decoration, is the most interesting from us. You can make your home more attractive to make it more minimalist.
3. It is easier to clean. Difficult to clean a large number of objects, or sweep or vacuum around a bunch of furniture. The more goods you have, the more you have to keep clean, and more complicated to clean around the stuff. Think about how easy it is to clean the room is empty, compared with 50 objects in it. That's an extreme example, of course, because I do not recommend you have an empty space, but only to illustrate the difference.
What a Minimalist Home Looks Like
This will vary, of course, depending on your taste and how extreme you want a minimalist. I am a minimalist, but I do not have the extreme. But here are some characteristics of a minimalist home:
* Minimum of furniture. A minimalist rooms contain only some of the important furniture. A family room, for example, may only have a bed, a chair or seat, a coffee table, a minimalist entertainment stand (not the one with the big bunch of shelves), a television, and some lights. Can even contain less (couch, chairs and coffee table, for example). A room may have a simple (or even a mattress only), a cabinet, and probably the night stand or bookshelf.
* Clear the surface. In a minimalist home, flat surface is clear, except for one or two decorations (see next item). No amount of jewelry knacks, and definitely does not stack books or papers or other goods.
* Accent decor. A house full clear will be a little boring, actually. So instead of having coffee tables free of any objects, you can have a simple vase with some flowers, for example. Or clear the table may only have a family photo. Blank wall that may have a good part of the art (I use my dad's artwork, as he'sa great artist).
* Quality over quantity. Rather than have a lot of goods in your home, a minimalist would choose just a few things very well and loved him frequently use. A really nice table, for example, is better than 5 pieces of press-board furniture.
* Example. Photo at the top of this post is a good example of minimalist house (it's not my home, but I hope it is). See more photos of the beautiful house. Traditional-style Japanese house is another example of minimalism, such as this nice spread.
How to Create a Minimalist Home
It's not actually specify the steps to make your home minimalist, except to change the philosophy and goal to shoot in the previous section above. But here are some tips that I will offer to anyone trying to shoot for minimalism:
1. One room at a time. Unless you move to a new place, it is difficult to simplify the whole house at once. Focus on one room, and let that become the center of peace. Use it to inspire you to simplify the next room, and the next. Then do the same on the outside!
2. Start with furniture. Things in the room is furniture, so you should always begin simplifying a room with a view furniture. The few pieces of furniture, the better (with reason, of course). Think furniture that can be eliminated without sacrificing comfort and livability. Go for a few pieces of plain, simple furniture (eg, a minimalist coffee table) with strong, soft colors.
3. Only the essentials. Do you see any furniture or in the room, ask yourself whether the item is really important. If you can live without it, get it out. Try to strip the room down to its essentials - you can always add a few choice items beyond the essentials later.
4. Clear the floor. Except for furniture, floors you should really clear. No need to clutter the floor, do not have to be personable, not to be kept on the floor. Once you've gotten down to the bare furniture major, all clear again on the floor - either donate it, trash, or find a place for it out of sight.
5. Clear surface. As with all flat surfaces. There is nothing in them, except one or two simple decorations (See Tip 9 below). Donation, or find in the outside garbage storage area to the other side. Akan make everything much, much less personable.
6. Clean walls. Some people hang up all kinds of items on the wall. Can not be done in a minimalist home. Clear the walls except for one or two simple pieces of nice artwork (see Tip 8 below).
7. Save the goods out of sight. This has been mentioned above tips, but you must save everything you need from the view, and long trousers in the cupboard. Bookshelves can be used to save the book or DVD or CD, but it should not have much more except a few simple decorations (not whole collections of objects).
8. Declutter. If you are clearing and the average surface, and store goods in cupboards and drawers, you may want to declutter your storage areas too. You can do so in the future if you want. How to Declutter see more.
9. Simple works of art. To keep the room is not boring, you can put a simple painting, image or photo, framed with soft, solid color, on each wall if you want. Leave some walls bare if possible.
10. Simple decor. Referred to in the above tips, one or two simple decorations can be used as accents for the minimalist space. A small flower vase or plant is drunk two classic examples. If the rest of the rooms have been weak colors, you can use bright colors (like red or yellow) to draw the eyes and give a plain space splash energy.
11. Plain window treatments. Bare windows, or simple, solid color curtains, or simple, wooden blinds are good. Too much ornate stuff around the windows is clutter.
12. Plain pattern. Solid colors are best for floor coverings (if you have), furniture, etc. Complex patterns, such as flowers or checkers, are visual clutter.
13. The soft color. As mentioned in Tip 9 above, you can have a splash of bright color in the room, but most of the rooms have to be more subtle colors - white is classic minimalist, but any solid color that does not stress the eyes is good (earth colors come to mind, such as blues, browns, tans, greens).
14. Edit and eliminate. When you've simplified a room, you may be able to do more. Give a few days, and then see everything with fresh eyes. What can be removed? Saved from the view? What is not important? You can go back to each room every few months, and sometimes you will find things that can simplify even more.
15. A place for everything. I have discussed in this post, but in the minimalist house, it is important that you find a place for everything, and remember the places where they are. Where you blender go? Give it a spot, and stick with it. Logical place to aim for close to a place that used to make things more efficient, but the key that points to a place.
16. Sit back, relax, and enjoy. After the simplified room, take some time to see and enjoy. It's so peaceful and fun. This is the reward for hard work. Ahhhh. So nice!
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