(TNS)—Collecting art for your home doesn’t have to be expensive or daunting. It doesn’t have to happen all at once, and the art doesn’t have to match your couch.
Paige Rien, designer on HGTV’s “Curb Appeal” and “Hidden Potential,” says the main thing you should think about when choosing art is how it makes you feel.
In “Love the House You’re In: 40 Ways to Improve Your Home and Change Your Life” (Roost Books, $18), Rien writes: “Forget about what others think, what goes with it or its monetary value…The most enjoyable way to buy art is to buy it for love, without knowing whether you have a place for it or how it will work in your house.”
It may be tempting to buy a piece of art simply because it matches your color scheme, but Rien says color can be limiting.
“Pay more attention to texture and shapes and the subject. What connections can you make between the art and your room, aside from color?” she writes.
Art that has personal meaning will fill your home with warmth, whether it’s a watercolor you picked up on vacation, a depiction of a place that’s special to you or a painting done by a friend.
Rien says to think beyond professional paintings, drawings and prints. Display framed photographs, decorative plates or ceramics, your child’s work, tapestries, vintage ephemera like album covers or maps, objects from nature, posters, silhouettes, collections or your own creations.
Learn something about the artist or the story of your art, Rien says. “A home full of art and artists’ stories bubbles with authenticity and personality.”
If you have a work of art you really love, consider letting that piece lead the design process for the room. Take elements of color, mood, theme, culture or style from the piece to carry through in the rest of the decor.
©2016 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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