Blending different styles in decor and tastes can be a real challenge. In general, women tend to navigate towards soft or brighter colors. On the other hand, men tend to identify more with darker, more vibrant colors such as grays, browns, and earthy tones.
How To Blend Feminine and Masculine Style In Decor
When creating spaces, the goal is to find solutions that are functional, beautiful, and that represent the entire family.
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Okay, so I don’t have a degree in gender studies — but I think we all have walked into a home or an apartment which screams it’s a bachelor pad. O yes, then there are the girl pads which are covered in flowers with bling in the closets. It’s interesting what we call a room masculine or feminine.
When creating an interior decor, it’s essential to find something to represent the entire family functionally and beautifully.
Here are a few rules I tend to follow along with some of my top picks for some inspiration.
- Choose neutral colors to begin your foundation.
- I next focus on the structure by using masculine touches. Including things like clean lines for a seamless look, vibrant color to ground the space and potentially some leather and metal accents to create texture.
- For the finishing touches, it’s all about layering in some feminine details. Blankets, vases, plants, etc.
Other Options Of Getting The Perfect Home Decor Include
Making a decision to live together as a couple or a family comes with a lot of compromises, and when it comes to home decor, it’s no different. Deciding on which pieces to stay and pieces to go has to be a collective effort.
You can’t have something for all you and for all him as well, ladies, this is a sad but true statement! So finding new ways to incorporate a mixture into your home is a great way to start.
How do you combine decorating styles?
Go 50-50 On Everything
A home decor should be able to tell a lot about both of you in the home and mixing two styles are the way to go. You both can add items that belong to you in the space; all you have to do is make sure they match and play well with each other.
Get A Little Emotional
When selling your home, you are usually told to depersonalize it…so, when claiming it as “ours” do the opposite!
Use your walls to display some of your favorite happiest memories
I’m going to go on a rant here – Really – this is very FRUSTRATING to me!!
For two years, I worked helping families curate their amazing photos that were stuck in their phones. Sure, good for you, you shared the pictures on your social media platforms, bravo!!
Meanwhile, your walls were bare and starving for some attention. Not only that…who are you taking the photos for!?
Does it really cost that much money to print a few photos!? It’s about the price of dinner, maybe!
There is no price tag on surrounding your home with images that make you happy. You never know – it may even help you out during your next “disagreement” as your reminded of more joyful moments in time.
Okay, so you don’t have any photos you may want to display…I get that too!
Here are a few other alternatives:
- In your kitchen – Frame your grandmother’s recipe.
- Find a beautiful piece of wallpaper and frame it to bring in texture or color.
- Frame your husband’s favorite sport’s Jersey or encase the baseball he caught during a game.
My point is to do something even if it takes you a while to get the decor right.
Most decorators will admit design is very fluid, and usually, the initial vision is just a representation of the final project.
Their job consists of editing their initial designs due to unforeseen issues.
Maybe the item which is out of stock was meant to be the focal point of the room, or after walls have been removed, the open floor plan gives them new inspiration.
Dressing a room can be like shopping for new clothing.
As you head off to the store, you may be excited to find that perfect little black dress or fitted suit, let’s include the boys here, yet returned with the unexpected. It wasn’t planned, but once you felt the fabric and saw your reflection in the mirror, you knew it was yours.
Use The Fabric And Upholstery To Blend Feminine / Maculine Touches
So generally, it is safe to assume that men and women tend to have different preferences in patterns. Geometric and angular patterns are thought to be more masculine while feminine patterns are usually softer and often more complex than the masculine counterpart. So what should you do now?
Favor one or the other….
Here’s a good example, since leather upholstery is mostly considered as a masculine choice, lend towards gauzy fabric for your curtains to balance out the room.
If choosing a heavy upholstery for your curtains, maybe a linen texture sofa will help bring in a softer texture. When it comes to heavy fabrics, they are considered more masculine and lighter weight fabrics are considered more feminine.
Always remember the choice of fabric tends to make a room look a little more feminine and also a little more masculine. So when making a choice, go for textiles that go with the general style of the house and also go well with the color scheme, to make sure they suit everyone just fine.
In Conclusion
The key to having a Proper home decor is by adding a little bit of everyone, so you feel right at home, and he does too. Not only do my made-up rules work in the initial design process, but they also work in the long run as well. They allow affordable and accessible editing!
Because you already have the base furniture and color palette established, there is plenty of room to play around and change the details in the future. Women also tend to enjoy freshening up their decor throughout the year. Following these guidelines can really help with the itch to liven things up around the house!
What’s your biggest decor challenge?
For more home styling tips and tricks drop by anytime. Hey, we’re always up for company.
