Wonderful wanderlust: how do your adventures inspire your interiors?

Personalising your home interiors is one of the best parts of having a place to call your own.

No matter whether you’re renting or if you own the property yourself, putting your exclusive stamp on a place can really give it that ‘home sweet home’ feeling. There really is nothing more satisfying than that.

That is exactly what today’s post is all about. We’ll be guiding you towards using your own life experience to leave your mark on your interiors with some simple DIY home décor project tips. Cultivating your own vision in your home interiors is so important and will endlessly enrich your creative life.

Knowing where to begin when DIYing your décor can be overwhelming though, so in this post we’re looking exclusively at travel, and how you can use your wanderlust to stimulate your style.

Define your décor style: where to start

Using your travel adventures to inspire your room décor is more about capturing a certain feeling rather than recreating a particular place or event.

There are a few ways to grasp hold of this feeling while still giving your décor style a cohesion.

1. Context. If you want to put a cosy meditation corner somewhere, thinking of putting it in a high traffic area such as the kitchen isn’t the best idea
2. Light. It’s the cherry on the cake of your interior design and can hold your flow together really well
3. Accent colours. Again, thinking through what accents you’re going to use helps the entire room hang together

Focus on your home interior design goals

Keep your focus tight.

Using your adventures in your home interiors doesn’t necessarily mean that everywhere has to feature eclectic design, but if it does, then eclectic design doesn’t necessarily mean clumping everything together in one place either.

Have a goal for each room – or a theme, even.

This can work even if you’re decorating a smaller space like a studio apartment.

Keeping the place clutter-free is important though (for your visual effect as well as your mental health), so really use your favourite striking pieces to reach the maximum effect.

Souvenir display (the fun part of your DIY project)

Shopping is a natural part of travelling: no matter how minimalist you are, it’s natural that you’re going to collect interesting bits & pieces during your adventures.

Enhance your interiors through your collections, even if that collection is a pile of beautiful, irregular rocks or little jars of white sand from some far-off beaches.

Can you tell we’ve been re-reading Mary Randolph Carter’s A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of a Misspent Life? Check out the rest of our favourite interior design books while you’re here.

Read on for some unusual ideas for display cases.

Creative home décor ideas that you can use right now

We asked our team to brainstorm a few DIY design ideas, and they didn’t disappoint.

Here are the highlights:

Use decorative trays. This is a great way to display souvenirs, and this storage solution can be easily moved around your house if you change your mind.

There are a dozen ways you can go with this, for example…

1. Stick with one travel destination per tray
2. Evoke a certain vibe rather than recreating a destination
3. Have a ‘found objects’ tray
4. Paste ticket stubs onto the surface of your tray and cover with a fitted sheet of glass. Perfect!

Think outside the box. There are a lot of unusual display wall art ideas out there on the internet to use to your advantage.

Think: map displays, colourful globes, wall galleries or ways to display wall art that aren’t in a gallery wall like leaning pictures and posters against the wall or using a picture rail instead of hanging them.

Display cases. The beauty of a display case is that once you start thinking outside the box, everything can be one.

A sideways drawer? Yes! A mason jar on a shelf? Absolutely! Even repurposed packing cases can display your travel wares.

Custom storage solutions. You could go even further and look at customising your display solutions to fit your rooms instead of the other way.

Have a look around on the internet, and you’ll be surprised at how easily this can be done.

Textiles, wall hangings and curtains. Pile on the texture in your DIY interior design by throwing soft furnishings and rough-feel textiles into the mix.

We’re thinking wall hangings or using curtains to liven up your décor and as a backdrop to your souvenir display.

Wrapping up our world travel décor tips

We hope that our DIY interior design tips are sparking off some of your own! Remember to keep your style defined and your goals tight. As for souvenirs: the more the merrier!

Don’t forget to share this post with your creative friends and don’t be afraid to get personal with your décor. See you next time!