Finessing your interior design with printed artwork
It seems we’ve been in the “finishing stages” or our renovation project for over a year now and in truth, that’s exactly how long it’s been! The building phase of our renovation was relatively quick (approx 18 weeks in total) as we paid external contractors to do it all, totally re-designing the downstairs of the house and converting the attic space in one hit. But the interior design, decorating and finishing touches were always going to be left to us and gradual due to cash-flow, growing our family and time!
We painted the entire downstairs living space white and got that to a point where it was 95% finished (we’d like to change the sofa and some of the furniture eventually) and totally liveable and enjoyable as a space. The rest of the house we did room by room according to what we needed/used the most. However, I don’t know about you, but a room never feels entirely finished until you finesse it with textiles, soft furnishings and art work on the walls. It doesn’t feel like home until the edges are softened with colour and texture. So over a year after we originally moved into our renovation project, I’m looking at how I can finish the interior design with printed artwork**…
With our family home being an eclectic mix of new and old, antiques and Ikea, we knew that what we’d want to add to our walls would be an eclectic mix too.
Finishing touches to your interior design with printed artwork
The hubby and I are both predominantly into contemporary art, 20th century art and photography and throughout the years have purchased prints and printed our own photography too. With our family home being an eclectic mix of new and old, antiques and Ikea, we knew that what we’d want to add to our walls would be an eclectic mix too.
But where to start?!
I scoured the categories of the Posterlounge website, happily taking hours to flick through and be inspired, with a cuppa and a biscuit (note, this was whilst I was heavily pregnant…I have no such time since having a second child ha! and if I did, I’d be browsing with a glass of wine in hand instead!). I had a rough idea of what I wanted to add to the various rooms within the house, but got totally side-tracked by artists and prints I’d never seen or heard of before. So I let myself drift off in these different directions, knowing that these printed artworks would bring something new to our rooms…an added dimension.
What I liked about Posterlounge, is the various ways you can discover their printed artwork – you can search via category, room (ie lounge or bedroom) and even by popular styles (like Scandi or Shabby Chic) – this made scouring the thousands of pieces a lot simpler and less overwhelming.
Deciding where to put our printed artwork
In honesty, although I chose a couple of pieces from Posterlounge with a spot in mind, I was choosing whilst still finishing decorating our rooms and so let the artwork steer me too. I wanted to buy pieces we’d like and the great thing about printed artwork? you’re not spending a fortune, so you can rotate and replace it as often as you like to change the feel of your interior design.
So, I chose a couple of pieces for my home office, one for our bedroom, one for our guest room and a couple of cute prints for Flo’s bedroom too.
Home Office
I went for 3 smaller prints (you can choose from a variety of sizes for all artwork) that I want to position in a series on the wall and adored these art deco posters, which were from the 1920s travel advertising posters. I’ve always loved art deco and have a couple of pieces of deco furniture in my office, so knew these would work well. The colours in the print also “pop” against the dark walls of my luxury home office.
Our bedroom
With a more muted palette of greys and Georgian blues in our bedroom, I like going for a contrast when it comes to finishing the interior design with printed artwork – so I chose a real show-stopper of a print that I knew I had to have as soon as I saw it! This poster of Frida Kahlo adds the real wow-factor to a fairly calm room and the yellow stands-out and compliments the blues perfectly don’t you think?
The Guest bedroom
This room is one of the rooms in the house that still needs to find its character. It’s an eclectic mix of French shabby-chic and larger pieces of dark wood furniture that we’ve inherited along the way. The walls are “Goose down” in colour, which I absolutely adore and the floor is the original floor boards painted chalky white. I wanted a simple and bright piece for this room, so chose the Toucan which I want to have in the reading corner of the space. What do you think?
Flo’s bedroom
Her room is teeny-tiny, so all the focus is around her bed. She loves anything colourful and animal related, so this bright grid of animals was always going to go down well! Plus she has fun naming each and every one of them!
We’ve got more prints that are yet to find a home – I’m already thinking about having a whole staircase covered with frames, printed artwork and photography. What do you think? Have you used printed artwork in your interior design? I’d love to see how you’ve done it!
**this post is sponsored by and written in collaboration with Poster Lounge, however, I wouldn’t write about it if it wasn’t something I was actually bothered about or that I thought might be of use to you guys! I love their prints and will continue to purchase from them going forward.Â
Like my interiors posts? There’s a whole tab full of them – go check ’em out. Amongst my current faves are my luxury home office and if you wanna go old skool, check out our renovation project before tour! Enjoy.
