#interiordesignhacks

We often think we need expensive lamps or massive jar candles to change the mood of a room. But the secret to professional-looking ambiance is actually much smaller: the humble scented tealight.

Why They Are Better Than Big Candles While a large candle provides a single point of light, a pack of tealights allows you to distribute the glow.

Scatter Them: Place them on bookshelves, floating in bowls of water, or lining a bathtub.

Create Patterns: Use them to create a pathway of light for a special occasion.

Scent Control: A single scented tealight gives a gentle fragrance, while lighting five or six can fill a large hall with aroma.

The Perfect Pack for Creatives If you love changing up your decor, you don't want to be stuck with one color. A multicolor pack is essential. Whether you need red for a romantic dinner or yellow for a bright, sunny vibe, having a variety pack on hand solves every decor emergency.

The decluttering mania has become a real, palpable thing with Japanese Organizer, Marie Kondo’s book named The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing! Many consider it a literal ‘clean life’ Bible, where Kondo relates all the ways you can get rid of everything unnecessary in your lives with her simple and heartfelt ways. Lovingly dubbed ‘The KonMari Method’ this technique is all about organizing your life and belongings in a rather neat and thankful way.

Singapore is a country that that thrives on HDB homes, many of which are space starved. As a result, the interior design industry has become quite a booming business. So the question is, can the KonMari method help residents get a clean, satisfying and blissful way to declutter and make their homes more breathable? The answer may depend on your perspective, but the general consensus is; yes. So let’s take a look at some ways Marie Kondo has made decluttering easier for everyone.

Visualizing Your Destination

When it comes to interior design and decluttering, Kondo’s got one advice for everyone who’s thinking of starting anew; visualize your destination. It’s actually a brilliant take on starting over. When your home is small and cluttered, you have to set apart the apprehension and set some clear-cut goals for yourself. When you visualize the final outcome, you’ll feel motivated. And this motivation will help you reevaluate the mess in your home interior design.

Respecting Your Belongings

The KonMari Method encourages the user to respect their belongings. You cannot sift through your stuff with only half your mind on the project and carry out a successful full-scale decluttering. That seems simply redundant and half-hearted. Instead, Kondo advises you to look at your belongings with respect. Ask yourself if that half-empty make-up kit is still happy being locked up in your top drawer? Or if the clothes tacked at the back of your closet happy being squashed? Maybe considering the ‘feelings’ of these inanimate objects seem a little out there for you, but it actually works. Once you start looking at the miserable state of your organization, it becomes easy to sift through your stuff.

Sentimental Value Only Gets In The Way

If you’re looking to set your home interior design back on track, then Kondo suggests sweeping away the haze of nostalgia. Once you start going through your old belongings, it’s inevitable that you’ll be hit by a wave of nostalgia. You’ll want to tuck everything back to where you just pulled it out from, and that’ll just b going back to square one. In a country like Singapore where space is already short, this can be chalked up to a personal disaster. This is why Kondo suggests that you don’t let yourself indulge in sentimental value and get things done.

Categorize, Not Standardize

Every interior design looks its best when it has been decluttered to its basic essentials. Kondo suggests that you start your decluttering by categories, and not by rooms. She’s absolutely right in that regards. When you deal with decluttering Room A instead of Category A, things will just end up shuffling from one space to another without you ever being any wiser. So it’s better to start cleaning up with categories instead of rooms.

The Vertical Fold

The crown jewel and the ultimate decluttering technique that Kondo has mentioned in her book is the Vertical Fold. It might not look like much, but the vertical fold will help maintain your decluttering long after you’re done with the initial project. It consists of stacking your folds in neat, vertical stacks inside of drawers. This way, even when you take something out, it won’t disturb the rest of the setting.

Conclusion

Looking for the hottest trends in residential interior design? You’re at the right place! Home interior design in Singapore is a massive and very successful industry. Contemporary interior design fashions are a very popular genre, mostly because the dearth of real estate make people want to embellish and decorate their interiors to the absolute fullest. But everyone knows that trends are fleeting; every year there’s a new crop to choose from! So below, we’ll be looking at the 5 biggest trends in home interior design Singapore for 2017 according to industry insiders!

Throwback to the Vintage Styles

You heard it right; vintage and retro styles are making a comeback this season! Residential interior design is a hotbed for experimental ideas, especially in Singapore, and there is nothing more exploratory than blending the old styles with a contemporary aesthetic! As a result, many vintage styles are making a big splash in modern settings. We have boho-chic furniture, psychedelic colours, retro artwork and even chintz patterns being used with a touch of contemporary to fit the modern sensibilities successfully!

The Scandinavian Style

The perfect blend of minimal and breezy, the Scandinavian style of interior design is a particular favourite when it comes to residential interior design. The reason for this is mostly because this style has the ability to make spaces seem capacious with a dash of elegance and sophistication. Its light, wooden floors, an all-white or almost-monochromatic colour scheme along with an emphasis on natural light and simplicity has rendered the Scandinavian style of interior design an industry favourite.

Storage by Design

One of the biggest trend to follow this season is designing your storage in style. The term ‘storage’ here is being referred to shelving units, cabinets and in-house cupboards. Home interior design in Singapore must always cater to the practical needs of the residents more than anything else. But that doesn’t mean that you get to overlook the aesthetics for function. So designers have been coming up with clever shelving and cabinet designs to designs more interesting in subtle but beautiful ways.

Interesting Lighting Fixtures

Some say that light is the fourth dimension, which is not quite wrong. Lighting has the ability to make any interior design infinitely more beautiful and dramatic, and clever lighting fixtures are the perfect medium to do so. You’ll find many homes all over Singapore that feature some great lighting fixtures. From pendent lights, contemporary drop chandeliers to even innovative recessed lighting, this residential interior design trend is one of the greatest this season.

Compact and Minimal Bedroom Layouts

Since the real-estate in Singapore is extremely limited, and most HDB allotted homes have a very stringent square footage, it is important to make the most of the given space. The trend of compact, minimalistic bedroom layouts may have started off as a necessity, but it has now become a booming trend in the residential interior design genre. This mostly consists of a platform bed with an attached study desk and half the bedroom spared for circulation space. The compact layout trend has caught on quite well, and remain a classic for even longer.