Simple Decorating: 50 Ways to Inspire Your Home

Inspired Ideas

by Melissa Michaels

Forget the Renovation—Just Add Inspiration

If you want to jump-start your style and refresh your home without needing power tools and a winning lottery ticket, make Simple Decorating your go-to resource for can-do decor. Spark your makeover momentum with 50 no-fuss tips and discover how to

get unstuck by embracing a style that is your very own transform your spaces with simple color, window treatments, and furniture choices layer in personality and warmth with texture and patterns turn hard-to-love areas into favorite destinations with creative concealments highlight your family's story and lifestyle with accessories

Whether you start with one tip or take these on as a challenge for the month, it's never been more fun (or possible) to create a home you can't wait to come home to.

The Inspired Ideas collection is a series of books with easy tips and fun photos to inspire the areas of your life that matter most to you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Interior Design, Lifestyle, Design

113 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2017

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Melissa Michaels is the author of The Inspired Room (theinspiredroom.net), one of the top decorating blogs on the web for the past eight years. The Inspired Room reaches over 600,000 readers each month and was voted Better Homes and Gardens Readers' Favorite Decorating blog in 2014.

Melissa (along with her home and The Inspired Room) has been featured in top publications and magazines online and in print. Through The Inspired Room blog and her upcoming books (Love the Home You Have, March 2015, The Inspired Room, October 2015), Melissa offers a refreshing perspective on finding contentment in creating an authentically beautiful home, right where you are.

She lives with her husband and family near Seattle, Washington.

Reviews

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I love anything by The Inspired Room!! This is 4.5 compared to Love the Home You Have (5 stars) because that book helped shape my decorating mentality, while this one was filled with practical suggestions. They were good, but it wasn’t as life changing as the last book I read by her!

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I found useful below!

GENERAL

-- let your home evolve, doesn’t have to be a static snapshot of your life at one moment.

-- draw inspiration from your favorite places:
// Cafes: white walls, marble and wood tables, chalkboard
// Spas: dim lighting, natural elements
// Boutiques: floral wallpaper, chandelier, gold mirrors
// Island vacation: natural light, sea-inspired colors, coastal elements
// Library nooks: tall bookshelves, stacks of books, leather chairs

-- if your home seems like it's falling apart, create one happy corner

-- create mini destinations around your home, like coffee station, reading nook. You can then introduce solutions for the space once it has a purpose.

-- walk around your home and note any dark corners and where you need light for mood, specific tasks, or personality

-- rule of threes and uniting a room with repetition:
// Furniture: pieces should fill no more than 2/3 of the room. Coffee table should be approx 2/3 as wide as your sofa.
// Colors: 60% of room should be main color. 30% should be secondary color. 10% is the accent color.
// Texture: each room should have 3 varying textures to bring interest to the space.

ACCESSORIES

-- unexpected decorating opportunities include: top of your dresser, moving items to new spots, adding smaller lamps on a console table for charm

-- leaning objects can be great decor, like: framed artwork, architectural pieces like shutters or ladders for blanket storage, smaller paintings next to larger ones.

-- you can lean objects on: bookshelves, tabletops, mantels, windowsills, stair landings. Smaller artwork looks best with multiple pieces layered and overlapping. Can also have shorter accessories or stacked books in front of taller leaning background piece.

-- decor displays: design high to low and front to back. Use accessories of different heights. Layer on a shelf or wall. Vary the texture and shapes.

-- hang curtains tall and wide. The author almost hangs curtains at the ceiling if in proportion to the room.

-- rugs should go under the front legs of each piece of furniture it is uniting.

TIPS FOR SMALL SPACES:

-- draw line of sight upward

-- consider built-in bookcases or storage window seat to ease visual clutter. Units nestled into a corner or against a wall offer similar benefits.

-- furniture recommendations: tall and narrow shelving, round ottomans/coffee tables, corner storage pieces, benches.

COLORS AND PATTERNS:

-- one color repeated 3 times in a room (pillows, blankets, accessories, wall color) can bring a cohesive look to eclectic furniture

-- evaluate visual connections between spaces e.g. slivers of rooms you can see from other rooms. Lightly weave in accent colors in accessories and consider wall paint colors.

-- choose wall colors last, looking at what will unify your room, rather than letting it dictate your choices.

-- mixing patterns: a solid + small scale pattern + large scale pattern.

-- pillows: use a unified color scheme for all pillows in a room. If you mix patterns, use one hue as your common denominator. If only using two pillows, choose one solid and one patterned. Arrange pillows with a 2/2/1 formula: two matching pillows on either end, two smaller in a different fabric next to them, one smaller accent pillow in the middle. Try 2/1 combo for smaller couches.

[Mollyscribbles · Rating 2 out of 5]

for a book that starts out talking about needing to define your own style, it puts way too much focus on picking neutrals for everything but the smallest details in a room. Not to mention shiplap, which is frankly just the modern version of popcorn ceilings in terms of hideous and difficult to remove dust-collecting additions to a room.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun flipping through this design book on how to decorate your home. I am definitely inspired. I hope to purchase my own place in the near future and love getting ideas on how to beautify my place. I am going to ask for all of her books for a housewarming gift! Great idea, right?

So, here are some notes:

1) Design Your Life First
-I love this concept. It is so true. Your place has to fit your lifestyle!

3) DIY: Craft an Inspiration Board = PINTEREST

4) Create a Style Wish List
-You can list specific items or can be more general.

10) Discover 8 Ways to a Happy Home
-Read whenever you get stuck.

13) Lighten Up
-Be creative! (P. 35, bottom left picture)

20) Embellish with Architectural Details
-This reminds me of Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper <3

21) DIY: Design a Personalized Map Wall
-Yes please!!

26) Invent Mini Destinations
-I love this idea. I really want an open concept, but I also want each space to have a purpose.

28) Shake It Up with Unexpected Furniture
-Look at the bottom of the page... --> Don't forget a signature piece!

29) Everything Needs a Home
-Storage is EVERYTHING.

30) Direct the Eye with Focal Points
-I love her before and after picture. It shows that major transformations can occur with such simple steps.

31) Hide Distractions with Everyday Concealers
-Great ideas if you need to hide some unsightly feature of your home.

43) Make a Statement
-The first sentence got me. I collect knickknacks, and this makes clutter! I've got to remember the "less is more" principle.

47) DIY: Create Sentimental Art
-A meaningful piece of art showcasing something that is important to you.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book after receiving The Inspired Room book for Christmas. I love Melissa's ideas to use what you have in the space you have instead of buying whatever the new trend is.
In Simple Decorating, she walks you through 50 ways to add freshness to the space you have, often using what you already have. She invites you to consider texture, pattern, how you use a space, and how you need your rooms to function. With easy to read bullet points, Melissa offers suggestions on adding accents to a room, how many pillows you need on a sofa, grouping items, making small rooms seem larger, and so much more. Beautiful color pictures fill the book including some before and after from her own homes.
Using the ideas in this book, I feel energized and inspired to look at my home through fresh eyes. What do I really need and what is just clutter? Is there a better way to arrange what I have? She offers "Imperfection doesn't have to feel like a limitation". Instead it helps us appreciate where we are and love the home we have.

[Kristie J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had pretty pictures of some interesting decorating ideas, but I liked the author's other book Simple Organizing: 50 Ways to Clear the Clutter much better. Simple Organizing: 50 Ways to Clear the Clutter went from room to room throughout the house and detailed what organizing could be done in each room. This book would have been better if it had shown decorating ideas for each room of the house instead of grouping the decorating suggestions into vague topics. I felt that the topics were too vague which made it more boring to read. I did take note of several of the ideas though.

[Lexy Kelleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a whole lot that was new or different in this book, but there are still some helpful decorating hints in here that I will try to use. There was a lot of repetition here, but my biggest gripe was the lack of photographs and/or illustrations that demonstrated the author's tips. That would have made this a lot more useful! Simple Decorating was okay, but I really prefer the author's other book, Simple Organizing.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute little book with gorgeous pictures and fun decorating advice! I don’t like the all-white style of decorating, so this book caught my eye because the rooms in the photos were a little more colorful. The writing felt a little clunky to me at times (for lack of a better word), but the ideas and photos were worth it!

[Cherop · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is short and to the point. It attempts to guide you into finding a vision for the decorating of your space and making your house a home. There are some beautiful photos to accompany the chapters and some quick tips to guide you. I would say this book is for a true decorating beginner who has no idea where to start.

[Duchess_Nimue · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels like blog posts combined. The concepts are clear, but the advice seems profane. I didn't connect with the tips, they fell short. Most of the ideas seem to be ideas that worked for author's home, and not something universal.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read; its short essays make it easy to consume while at a park with frequent interruptions. Inspires the reader to work with the house they have and choose gratitude, practicing small improvement over demanding perfection.

[Kayla Hollatz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were no new interior decorating tips within the book, but the photos offered some good inspiration. I read it as an ebook too so it probably showed better as a physical book.

[Bethany · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Simple" is the operative word here.

[Corinnagoodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great little book, lots of ideas and list to help you out

[Brianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cute and way more useful than 99% of the decor books out there - it does more with 100-ish pages than some do with full-size books.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how this book is organized. It has lots of easy tips.

[Louise Duckworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

brillant ideas.

[Elizabeth Lund · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really, really brief.

[Summer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very quick read with some basic but good ideas!

[Adrienne Organa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very happy, lighthearted book with great ideas and inspiration! Very enjoyable!

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great ideas. And some vague, confusing concepts. Like keep it simple, but add patterns, but not too many, but but but.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, these are decorating tips and photos taken from "The Inspired Room" book.

I've noticed several of these smaller books listed at various online retailers, and I find they'd be handy if you were only interested in certain topics versus the full-sized book.

Since I'd just finished reading "The Inspired Room", I felt myself skimming these pages as it felt like a repeat.

Again, I'd take a look at Ms. Michaels's website or social media for more information.