We tend to pay a lot of attention to the things that make our rooms unique, layered and interesting — and rightly so. But a home with nothing tying its spaces together can feel haphazard or even uncomfortable to be in. By making a few key choices about materials and finishes and applying them throughout your home, you can bring unity to your space.
Here are eight features to create continuity with, from the big areas (flooring and paint) to the tiniest details.
Jennifer Weiss Architecture
1. Hard flooring. If you are redoing floors or choosing flooring for a new home, a great choice to make early on in the design process is to go with the same treatment throughout the space. You can maintain a sense of continuity even with several different flooring materials as long as they make sense together. For instance, try using stone or tile floors in the entry and mudroom, and wood floors in the rest of the space.
Jennifer Weiss Architecture
This dark floor continues up the staircase, leading the eye upward and giving the space a natural flow. This clean treatment provides a perfect foil for the furniture and artwork.
Jennifer Weiss Architecture
Upstairs in the same home, the same gallery-white walls and wonderfully rich floors expand the sense of space, allowing the eye to travel from one room to the next on an unbroken path.
See more of this home
Mackle Construction
2. Trim color. Sticking with a single color for trim, window frames, doors or all of the above is an easy way to unify your space. Painting just the inner frames of your windows black, as shown here, gives any room a very finished look, and repeating the treatment throughout the house is a subtle way to offer a sense of rhythm.
Mackle Construction
In this home, the black frames are repeated on a number of windows and doors. For a subtle and sophisticated look, try a wash of gray or crisp white instead.
Tim Barber Architects
3. Hardware. Even something as small as a switch plate or drawer handle is worth your attention. Rather than picking out hardware at random as needed, make a conscious choice from the get-go and be consistent.
Tim Barber Architects
The designers of this home went with old-style push-button light switches, the kind I remember from the turn-of-the-century Craftsman home I grew up in.
See more of this space
Tim Barber Architects
Even the knobs and pulls in the kitchen subtly reinforce the brass color of the light switches. Take into account the style of your home as well as your personal taste, and decide on a style that will mesh well with both.
Schwartz and Architecture
4. Window treatments. Choosing a single window treatment style for your home is one simple way to connect the rooms. Roman shades are a classic choice — they look good with any style decor, and they can be layered with curtains if you want to change things up.
Schwartz and Architecture
Roman shades were used in many rooms in this home, but the colors were chosen individually to complement the decor in each room — a great strategy. Other classic choices for window treatments include plantation shutters, bamboo blinds with curtains layered over, and full, floor-length curtains alone.
Guides to window treatments
Hillary Thomas Designs
5. Lighting. While statement pendants and colorful lampshades are fun and definitely have their place, you might want to keep some of your lighting constant. Try wall-mounted swing-arm lights over a seating area in the living room, flanking a bookcase and in the bedroom.
Hillary Thomas Designs
This designer used classic black lampshades in a number of rooms, from the living and dining rooms to this bedroom workspace.
See more of this home
6. A signature hue. Paint color can be a great unifier — or an interruption to flow. Encourage the eye to travel through rooms and give the entire space cohesion by picking paint colors in shades of the same hue or analogous hues.
Guides to choosing color
This home is filled with a rich and interesting array of shades of green, from neutral almost-beige to pea soup. In this view down the hall, the subtle variations in color lead the eye pleasantly into the next rooms.
Lauren Liess Interiors
7. Rugs. Natural-fiber rugs are a no-brainer for nearly any space, making them a great choice for providing consistency in the home. Use coir or sisal carpeting to cover a staircase and in the living room, halls and bedroom. Natural-colored carpeting, as shown here, is the classic choice, but black or espresso would be quite sophisticated.
Lauren Liess Interiors
A tactile fur rug was layered on top of the natural fiber carpeting for softness in this bedroom. You could also try layering colorful kilims, Turkish rugs or fluffy Moroccan rugs for an eclectic look.
User
8. A clean backdrop. This cottage feels spacious and serene, thanks in great part to fresh white wall paneling throughout. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, but an all-white space really can work wonders.
See more of this 540-square-foot home
Fotograf Lisbet Spörndly
White walls can also be a wonderful way to tone down an exuberant collection of colorful objects or artwork.
Tell us: What tricks or tips do you have for unifying a space?
