Tips For Styling Your New Minimalist Apartment

If you’re moving into a new apartment and you want to make sure that it lives up to all of your minimalist dreams, you’re not alone. In a study by CivicScience, it was discovered that 14% of people polled desired to live a more minimalistic lifestyle. A new apartment is a perfect chance to implement a minimalist aesthetic, so here are some minimalist apartment decor ideas as well as some tips on how to downsize while you move.

Pack and Purge

Instead of just throwing everything that you own haphazardly into a series of boxes while you’re packing, be smart about what you’re bringing with you to your new apartment. If you have items that you haven’t seen or used in months or even years, you probably no longer need them. Consider giving them to friends or donating them to help cut down on the clutter in your new space.

When it comes to moving furniture to your new apartment, make sure that anything you bring over not only has a specific use but a specific place that it will fit in your apartment without any of the rooms feeling overcrowded. If there are any pieces that you don’t want to bring with you, looking into furniture recycling so they don’t create waste, especially if the piece is still usable.

Start From the Bottom Up

One of the keys to a minimalist space is to have everything match and work as one cohesive unit. This means that no matter what kind of flooring is in your apartment, whether it’s carpet, wood, or laminate flooring, should become a basis for your design. Unless your landlord lets you hire a carpet and flooring company to redo the floors or allows you to do it yourself, the odds are that you are stuck with it.

If there is no way you can work with the current flooring in your apartment, consider buying a large floor covering for any room that has unattractive flooring. You can also use smaller area rugs when you’re decorating to break up the flooring and bring in new textures to the space you’re decorating.

Play Up Your Windows

The key to making sure your minimalist apartment decor ideas stand out in your space is having enough light. This means that you should play up your windows and the natural light they provide as much as possible. When it comes to window shades, you want to find options that can provide privacy without blocking too much of the natural light your windows provide. A material like linen is opaque enough for privacy while still allowing some light through.

When it comes to choosing curtains, make sure you’re choosing a color that will play up your apartment’s color scheme. Choosing a lighter color for curtains will help open up the room, especially if you have large windows that will require large window coverings. Picking a dark color may cover too much of the wall and make your space feel smaller. If you are going for a darker or cozier design, though, this may work better for you, so take your color palette into account.

Incorporate Plants

When it comes to minimalist apartment decor ideas, plants are a great tool. They bring a pop of color into any space without breaking your color scheme. House plants have become extremely popular recently, which means there are tons of resources for how to take care of plants as well as tips for finding the perfect plant for your space. When you’re choosing what plants you want for your space, take these factors into account:

• Light. Some plants prefer full sun, indirect light, or shade. Depending on the type of light your apartment gets, you should stay away from certain plants that won’t be able to get the correct type of light.
• Water. Some plants need more or less water, so if you know that you’re the kind of person who will forget to water your plants for weeks at a time, you will probably want to get plants that are drought-resistant or otherwise able to survive that kind of treatment.
• Time Commitment. Some plants need more care and nurturing than others. Make sure that whatever kind of plant you get, you have the time needed for its care.

You can use your plants as decor in every room of your apartment, so if you’re trying to figure out the perfect decor piece to balance out a space, a plant is a great choice.

Play With Textures

Although color schemes in minimalist apartment decor ideas will be pretty limited, you can have a lot of fun playing with different textures. By keeping a neutral color scheme, you’ll have more of an opportunity to play with different textures. Whether that means bringing in different wood grains, metals, fabric types, or rugs, you have many choices when it comes to incorporating textures in your minimalist apartment decor ideas.

If you’re struggling to figure out how to include more textures in your space, here are a few ideas:

• Rugs. Rugs are a great way to add a new texture to any space. Getting a small area rug, like a faux fur rug, adds visual interest by introducing that new texture.
• Pots. If you’re incorporating plants in your space, you can easily choose to use pots that are made with different textures and patterns on them. Make sure that any pots have drainage holes in them or make sure they’re deep enough to add a layer of pebbles at the bottom so your plants don’t suffer from root rot.
• Frames. This will be touched on more below, but using picture frames that are all the same color but with different textures can add a lot of visual interest to your gallery wall without looking cluttered.
• Furntiture. When you’re choosing furniture pieces that fit within your color scheme, you can look for pieces in different textures of wood or fabric, depending on the piece.
• Throws. In your living space, you can add in a fun textured throw to add a little bit of a contrasting texture to a couch or chair that you have.
• Bedding. You can use multiple different textures on your bed, which is especially useful if you’re keeping the rest of your bedroom decor sparse.

Create Your Own Decor

If you have a vision of the perfect piece of decor but either can’t find it or can’t afford it, you can create or commission custom home decor for your apartment. Since minimalist decor is usually on the simpler side, you can often easily DIY pieces that you find in inspiration pictures online. If you’re looking for a piece that is currently trendy, there will probably even be tutorials online that will tell you how to create your own version of the decor piece.

On the other hand, if you don’t consider yourself particularly crafty, you can also commission an artist or designer to create the perfect piece for your space. Do your research and make sure you know what the cost of their service will be so you’re not blindsided by the price tag that comes along with your new piece.

Use Monochrome Art

Gallery walls are a great way to bring visual interest into a minimalist space, but it’s possible for your gallery wall to look too busy. That’s why some of the greatest minimalist apartment decor ideas are about the art you use in your space. When you’re choosing prints of photographs to display in your apartment, try to get pieces that stick to your color scheme. If you’re making prints of photos of your friends and family, you can easily print the pictures in black and white to make sure they don’t stick out in your space.

If you’re worried about buying frames for your art and photographs, you should check out your local thrift store. You can easily paint or stain picture frames that you buy for a few dollars, and you can find ones that have fun textures or designs on them to bring more textures into your apartment. By making all of the frames the same color even the wildest of frames can feel like it belongs in your space.

Get Fitting Furniture

If you’ve brought furniture to your apartment that doesn’t quite fit the aesthetic or color scheme that you’re trying to follow, you may want to rethink having it. If you can refinish it by repainting or restaining it, you can probably make it work in your space. However, if you don’t think it will work even after being refinished, you should consider getting rid of it. If you want to get a newer piece to replace it, you can sell it online and use the money to buy your new furniture.

If you’re buying any new furniture, look for pieces that will not only fit in your apartment both aesthetically and literally but also pieces that will stand the test of time. Although it may seem like a great deal to buy a cheaper piece of furniture, if you have to replace it in a few years you’ll be spending more over time than if you went for a slightly more expensive piece that will last longer.

Don’t Forget the Bathroom

Although you may not think of your bathroom as a place that needs to be styled, you can apply many of our minimalist apartment decor ideas to your bathroom. When you first move in, make sure that everything is in working order. If your landlord said they were going to conduct bathtub repair before you moved in, make sure that they completed that project. In addition, make sure that your plumbing is fully in working order. If you notice any problems, you should contact your landlord or put in a work order immediately.

When it comes to styling your bathroom, you can use a lot of the design tips already mentioned in this article. For example, many plants actually thrive in bathrooms because of the humidity that comes from your showers. A plant such as pothos can thrive in humid conditions without much light, making them a great option for lowlight bathrooms. Make sure to look into the ideal conditions for a plant before putting them in your bathroom to ensure that they’ll be happy in the room.

Make Sure Everything Serves a Purpose

Although many minimalist apartment decor ideas may seem as though they are unneeded additions, there is a line between adding something for style and adding too many things to the point where your space begins to feel cluttered. Remember that a few purely decorative pieces in your apartment would be fine, but you don’t want an entire room full of things you don’t have use for but are pretty. Especially since apartments are often on the smaller side, you don’t want to have anything that takes away from the usefulness of a room.

If you aren’t sure whether you need something for a room, ask yourself what purpose that item will fulfill. For example, if you want to buy a new lamp for your living room, ask yourself whether you need another light source or if it’s just aesthetically pleasing. If you think about it and you do feel the room needs more light, then you’re good to purchase it.

Don’t Forget Insurance

Although this isn’t quite the same as these other minimalist apartment decor ideas, it is a very important part of renting a new apartment. If you don’t have apartment renters insurance, it’s possible that you could be left unprotected against theft and various forms of property damage. By getting renter’s insurance you can ensure that all of the pieces that you have painstakingly picked out are covered in case something happens to them. After putting so much time and effort into selecting the decor and furniture for your apartment, you should make sure you’re protecting them as well.

If you’re considering these minimalist apartment decor ideas, you are already on your way to making your apartment have the minimalist design of your dreams.

What are your favorite things about your minimalist design? What do you wish you’d incorporated in your space sooner? Let us know in the comments below!