Walking into a room that feels like a living, breathing entity can be a remarkable experience, and you instantly want to know the story behind every interesting item in sight. It is a collection of retro-looking pieces mixed with contemporary composition, surprisingly serene and incredibly familiar.

Due to a carefully chosen selection of furniture, decoration and overall design, any space can become a home. But instead of waiting for years to pass for your home to gain that precious sense of being shaped over time, you can accomplish the same effect by following some of the basic principles of interior design.

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Assess Your Foundation

The very first thing you need to do is establish the existing style and the architectural structure of your home. If your place is brimming with a vintage feel or you have a brand new building on your hands, then you can use that to determine the direction of your preferred layout.

In case you are starting out with an aged residence, for example, you should consider adding a layer of distinctly modern items, to avoid suffocating the space with a predominantly old feel. This, however, doesn’t mean completely abandoning the value of vintage. In fact, using the existing potential by adding selected antique items can bring out the best of your home.

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Do Your Research

Creating a unique design doesn’t necessarily have to include inventing a completely new approach. In fact, exploring the way professional designers think can help you find what you and your home will appreciate the most. However, you can also look for inspiration even in the unlikeliest of places.

If your home would benefit from a touch of Ancient Egypt, or it has a Native American essence to it, why not explore these options further? Sometimes combining such a venerable influence with a timeless well of creativity such as nature can create a fusion that will resonate with the character of your home, as well as your own personality.

Mix and Match

Think of your home as a reflection of your life, and a canvas that should reveal harmony, composition and contrast at the same time. Open, spacious rooms filled with natural light during the day can allow for a seamless combination of darker hardwood floors and some heavier pieces of furniture mixed with colorful, brightly-toned pillows, or heavy rugs. On the other hand, smaller rooms with little light can be decluttered, but still tastefully arranged to create the feeling of warmth and comfort with fewer, carefully placed furniture pieces.

Once you pick out the set-in-stone segments of your design, you can visit local antique stores, look for some handmade items from your favorite local craftsmen, and even narrow your search by exploring ideas on home decor online. You would be amazed at just how many refreshing, bold solutions the Internet can offer you.

Diversify

Be playful and creative with your space – the layout of the room should allow for diversity through shape, color and texture, but you can also experiment with size and height. Comfortable, leather sofas can be wide, whereas you can pick an interesting, minimalist floor lamp that will instantly slim down the entire room.

Turning an old wooden chest into a coffee table or using new materials to refurbish your sofa is another way you can incorporate variety into your home. Adding some heirlooms and personal items will certainly give your room warmth that cannot be fabricated, so don’t shy away from uniting your new look with your memories and items of emotional value.

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Restricting yourself to a single epoch or approach when designing your home can in fact diminish its potential. Instead, if you allow yourself the freedom of fusing the old and the new, you can create timeless beauty that can only grow and change with you over time.