Decorating your Denver apartment isn’t always easy. After all, you’re limited in what you can do compared to homeowners. An apartment renter cannot make permanent changes to the apartment, such as replacing the kitchen cabinets or knocking down walls to create an open floorplan. Most apartments tend to be smaller than entire houses, limiting what you can do with the interior design. However, the smaller size doesn’t mean that you can’t create a successful interior design on the same level as a house. While there are plenty of different interior design styles to choose from, we recommend implementing a minimalist style.
A minimalist interior design can help create a comfortable and relaxing apartment space. The minimalist style achieves this type of atmosphere by focusing on creating a clutter-less environment, emphasizing each room’s function, and creating balance through negative space use. There’s more to a minimalist interior design than this, but these aspects are arguably the most important principles of the minimalist style.
Why Should You Consider A Minimalist Interior Design?
Before diving into how to plan a successful minimalist interior design in your Denver apartment, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of the minimalist style. The following are a few reasons why you should consider a minimalist interior design over other types of styles for your apartment in Denver:
Minimalist Apartments Are Easier To Keep Clean
A cluttered, messy apartment can be challenging to keep clean. An unclean apartment will not be very inviting, nor will it provide you with a tranquil atmosphere to relax in. Because our environments impact our moods, a cluttered apartment can create a lot of stress. Minimalist designs emphasize decluttered, open spaces, which makes it easier to keep your apartment clean.
Minimalist Apartments Feel More Spacious
Minimalist interior designs focus on several principles that help to make a room feel more spacious. Minimalist approaches emphasize a decluttered environment, functionality, and visual balance (which requires a careful balance between your furnishings and the strategic use of negative space). These minimalist principles will help make your apartment’s interior design feel spacious — even if it’s on the smaller side.
Minimalist Concepts Help Create A More Tranquil Space To Live In
Living in a clean and spacious home makes it much easier to relax. A room full of clutter isn’t very comfortable to be in. Still, a space that boasts a more cohesive interior design that’s visually balanced will lend itself to a more tranquil atmosphere. An interior design that’s visually overwhelming or distracting can promote stress. If you’d like to create a relaxing space that you can wind down in after a hard day’s work, a minimalist approach is likely your best option.
Minimalist Designs Are Easy To Implement In Any Apartment
Because an apartment prevents you from making permanent changes and because you won’t have as much space to work with (compared to larger houses), a minimalist approach is an excellent option. Minimalism allows you to take advantage of the space you do have to create a comfortable, tranquil, and inviting environment to live in.
1. Limit The Amount Of Furniture In Your Apartment
One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your interior design is trying to fit as much furniture into your apartment as you possibly can. People who do this often believe that they are making the most out of their available space. However, this is not the case. By filling every nook and cranny in your apartment with furniture, you will make each room feel much smaller and more cramped than it is. The resulting space will not feel very cozy, relaxing, or inviting.
In a minimalist interior design, space is needed for several reasons. First, you need enough space to move around each room comfortably. If you’re knocking into furniture every time you try to cross the living room, then you have too much furniture. Secondly, space is needed to create a visual balance in each room. Too much furniture results in too much visual clutter and throws off your interior design’s balance.
Every Piece Of Furniture Should Serve A Function
The function of a piece of furniture might seem obvious, but its use may not always complement the primary function of a room. For example, you might be able to fit a love seat into your bedroom, but it doesn’t serve the intended function of a bedroom: to promote sleep. If a room’s function is already met, then adding more furniture may be unnecessary. For instance, there’s no reason to add more chairs to a living space that already has plenty of seating available. In such a case, those chairs serve as nothing more than decorative items and are just taking up space. Using furniture in such ways in either situation can make a room feel cramped and cluttered.
2. Choose Furniture And Decor That Create A Cohesive Design
If you’ve decided to use a minimalist design, be very careful about the types of furniture and decor you use. Because you’re adopting a less-is-more approach, each piece of furniture and decor will have a more significant impact on your apartment’s overall aesthetic. Every item of furniture and decor should complement one another. It’s why, in a minimalist interior design, an eclectic approach doesn’t typically work.
Emphasize Simplicity: Furniture With Clean Lines And Simple Designs
Highly decorative furniture will draw attention to themselves. If you have several such pieces, then they could end up clashing. One of the driving principles of a minimalist design is that every design choice, including every piece of furniture you use, contributes to the overall aesthetic. If your furniture stands out too much, it will take away from the overall aesthetic by throwing everything out of visual balance. Choose furniture with clean lines and simple designs to give your home a more modern or contemporary look.
3. Embrace Negative Space
Negative space is essential to the balance of a minimalist interior design. Without the use of negative space, the apartment can feel cluttered and visually overwhelming. For instance, you may limit the number of furniture items you use. Restricting the use of furniture can open up floor space in your living room. The temptation might be to lay down an area rug. An area rug can be quite useful; however, it’s put to better use when it ties together a few pieces of furniture. If it’s floating by itself in the middle of an open space, it will draw attention to itself. If you already have a different focal point set up (such as a fireplace, an entertainment center, or a couch), the rug may end up clashing with the rest of your interior design as it vies to be the main focal point.
Leave some of your wall space blank. It’s okay to hang up some artwork, posters, photographs, and other decor items on your walls. But make sure that there’s still plenty of negative space (unused space). By embracing the negative space on your walls, you give your room some breathing space. If you fill your walls up, the visual design of your room will be overwhelming and cluttered. Too much wall decor can make the perception of the room’s size shrink down, creating a cramped and uncomfortable feeling.
4. Consider A Neutral Color Palette
The goal of a minimalist interior design is to create a unified whole. Every design choice works together to achieve a successful overall aesthetic. If your color palette is too bold, then the focus will be on the colors used in the room instead of the overall aesthetic. You’ll essentially take away from the unity and balance you’re striving for. For a minimalist design, your primary colors should be neutral as these won’t overwhelm the senses or detract from the individual furniture pieces or the overall aesthetic.
While you should stick to a neutral color palette, this does not mean that you can’t use any bold colors — you can introduce a pop of color as an accent to your interior design. Strategically using brighter colors (such as reds, yellows, or oranges) can add much-needed contrast.
Go With Solid Colors
Patterns, like bright colors, draw the eye. If you go big with a pattern, it will create a new focal point (which can take away from the focal point you’ve already got). It can also take away from the delicate balance you’ve established with your minimalist design. For example, maybe the couch is your focal point. However, if you choose a sofa with a patterned upholstery, it could stand out too much from the rest of the room’s style, making it look out of place. Again, like the use of bold colors, you don’t have to eliminate patterns from your interior design completely. Just use it sparingly as a way to add contrast.
5. Choose Your Accent Pieces Carefully
Your accent pieces, which are decorative items, help add personality to your interior design. Accent pieces are quite important in a minimalist design since, without them, the aesthetic can appear a little bland. For example, the use of plants is a great way to provide a touch of contrast. However, you have to be careful with how you use them. Although you do want to add some visual contrast through the use of accent pieces, whether it’s by adding a pop of color, some texture, or even a pattern, you don’t want to go overboard with it. Too many accent pieces that are also visually bold can create visual clutter and detract from your overall aesthetic.
6. Implement A Variety Of Storage Solutions
Critical to successful minimalism is the ability to keep your apartment decluttered. Reducing the amount of furniture and decor you use won’t help keep your apartment feeling spacious and relaxing if every surface in your home is covered in clutter. This is why storage components are essential. If you don’t have enough storage space, it will lead to a messy, cramped, and stressful environment. Fortunately, there are easy ways to remedy this, such as putting up floating shelves or using plastic bins to store smaller items beneath your couch or bed. Hanging hooks on the back of your doors can help keep your floors clear of clothes, while spice racks can keep your kitchen counters clean and organized.
Consider Furniture With A Storage Function
For additional storage solutions that won’t take up more space, consider furniture with secondary storage functions. For instance, some bed frames are built with drawers underneath that can store your extra linens and free up closet space. Some couches, coffee tables, and ottomans have hidden storage options that can help keep your coffee table and shelves a little bit more clean and organized.
7. Use Symmetry
When it comes to the layout and positioning of your furniture and decor, symmetry is incredibly useful. Applying symmetry helps improve the balance of your apartment’s overall aesthetic. When things are not symmetrical, they can make a room feel visually off-kilter, hurting the overall design. Of course, you can purposefully use asymmetry as well. But limit your use of asymmetry in strategic ways. Generally speaking, symmetry is needed in every room of your apartment to achieve balance, especially in a minimalist design where the choice and positioning of every piece of furniture and decor is important to the success of your interior design.
The Way You Arrange Furniture
A couch tucked into the corner of your living room with significant space on one side and none on the other — will not contribute to a successful interior design. It will just make your room feel like it’s sinking into the corner. Try to center your furniture in relation to the closest wall. We recommend floating the furniture away from the wall by a few inches to create a bit of space, giving your room a more open feeling.
If a piece of furniture acts as your focal point, use it as the anchor and arrange furniture around it using symmetry. For instance, if the bed is the focal point in your bedroom, flank it with two end tables on each side for a symmetrical design. If the couch is your living room’s focal point, a sofa chair on either side will help create that symmetrical layout.
The Way You Arrange Your Minimalist Apartment Decor
Symmetry is vital for your decor items, as well. For example, if you have a fireplace, then the mantle is perfect for showcasing a few decorative items. Placing all of your decor on one half of the mantle and keeping the other half clear will create a visual imbalance. Consider the size, shape, and color of your decor when positioning them. When hanging frames on your walls, try to keep the same distance between frames. For example, if you have a photograph hanging on one side of the wall with a foot of space between it and the edge, that same foot of space should be kept between the second photograph hanging on the other side of the wall.
8. Improve Your Apartment Lighting
Because a minimalist design makes use of negative space and emphasizes a decluttered environment (resulting in a lot of clear surfaces), your apartment’s overall aesthetic can lack a bit of visual depth. A lack of visual depth is a real risk if you’ve chosen a neutral color palette. To help make your minimalist design pop a bit more, you need a good lighting scheme. The overhead lights in an apartment are adequate for general lighting, but they do very little in the way of making your furniture and decor look good.
Adding accent lighting and task lighting in the form of floor lamps, table lamps, and more can help you highlight specific parts of your interior design and boost the visual appeal. For instance, if your living room has a fireplace with a painting hung over the mantle, adding some accent light here will highlight this architectural feature and strengthen it as a focal point.
A Minimalist Design Is The Perfect Fit For Denver Apartment Living
Because the principles of minimalist design focus on decluttering, visual balance, space use, and the balance between form and function, it’s the perfect option for apartment living in Denver. Apartments tend to offer less space than houses and can be more challenging to plan an interior design. However, minimalist interior designs suit small spaces since they focus on a less is more approach. We recommend giving a minimalist style interior design a chance for your Denver apartment by implementing these minimalist apartment ideas.
