The principle of harmony in interior design helps us create balance between variety and sameness or unity. What does this mean? When we use too much of one thing in a room—such as a specific color or pattern—it becomes overwhelming to look at. The same can also be true if a room has too much variety. It creates an overly busy, loud space. Using both variety and unity well together creates a harmonious, relaxing room. Here are three tips for bringing the principle of harmony to your home’s interior design.

Begin Your Room Design with a Theme

One of the most critical ways to achieve harmony in a room is to begin by identifying the style you want your room to be. What types of styles appeal to you? If you’re not sure how to identify different styles, or what your natural style might be, check out my Interior Design Styles Explained page to see some examples of different design styles.

Browse Pinterest boards like these on House Beautiful. Then create your own mood board of rooms and design ideas you love. After you’ve added a dozen or so pictures to your board, take a few minutes to think about what draws you to those images. Are there similar styles? Colors? Elements?

Once you have a basic style in mind, it’ll be a lot easier to figure out which items go together and how to use the principle of harmony in interior design to make your home a beautiful, relaxing space.

Explore Similarity for Harmony

When you begin putting a room together or working on a plan to update your existing décor, look at the room or your ideas as a whole. Think about what’s the same throughout the room. Do you have the same color repeated across multiple patterns or areas? Is the same shape repeated throughout? You might use the same light fixtures in an area.

While you don’t want the whole room to be the same, having repetition across the room helps to unify the space. When effectively used, the principle of harmony in interior design tells our eye to consider an area as a whole.

Harmony Can Have Pops of Variety

Once you have a cohesive base to work with, try adding some variety to your room design. Think beyond color here, though color is a great way to mix things up. Consider the textures in your room. Are they all similar? Can you add a little variety there?

Think about the shapes of the furniture. Are there a lot of rounded corners? Adding a table with square edges may make for a welcome contrast.

Adding an accent color can be a great way to diversify your space. Be careful not to overdo it, though. With interior design, too many competing colors can make a room look busy and discordant.

Learn More Principles of Design

We’ve been discussing the principles of interior design in this blog over the last several posts. Each one lists tips and simple ways to incorporate these principles into your very own living room or bedroom. Now that you’re familiar with the principle of harmony in interior design, be sure to check out the first post on Scale and Proportion, something that many people struggle to master.

And as always, if you find yourself overwhelmed, just give me a call to set up a consultation, and I’ll help you move forward.