Summer is all about being outdoors, but how can you bring it into your home? In this article, Tracey Hague from Where Saints Go shares tips for bringing the sunshine inside through interior design.
Sunshine, blooms, and socialising — there’s a lot to love about summer! But have you considered how summer can inspire your interiors too? Bringing elements of the sunshine indoors can not only elevate your décor, but it may even give your mood a boost too. If you’d like to give your home a seasonal makeover, below, I’ll share a few ways you can use the best of the summer season to spruce up your interiors.
Create a sociable space
One of the best aspects of summer is getting to spend more time outdoors, particularly with friends and family. Nobody wants to be stuck inside on a sunny day, so look for opportunities to create spaces for socialising outside in your garden or yard. These can range from a cosy seating area to a bar or even a full-blown outdoor kitchen. As nice as it gets in the summer, British weather can still be unpredictable, so be sure to include comfort features like a fire pit for warmth.
On days when you must stay inside, you can still look for ways to bring the outside in. Larger windows that can be fully opened, fold-away patio doors, and skylights can all be used to blend the outdoors with the indoors. Bringing more plants inside is another way to do this — those with strong scents like herbs and tomato plants will create a sensory experience that’s just like being outside too. Hanging a large mirror is another tried and tested way to help bounce sunlight around your home, particularly if a room struggles to get much natural light ordinarily.
Try a new trend
Many modern interior design trends like Scandi-boho and cottagecore are directly inspired by summer and nature, so they’re great options for your home at this time of year. If you’re looking for a new design trend to try, why not give one of these microtrends a go?
Bloomcore
Similar to cottagecore, bloomcore celebrates nature and gardens but with a much greater emphasis on flowers. Floral fabrics, wallpapers, décor, and motifs — often in contrasting prints — are layered to achieve a rich and fragrant look. To make your interiors feel as summery as possible, look for florals that use summer flowers, such as roses, peonies, and lilies.
Mermaidcore
Mermaidcore uses dreamy pastels and ocean motifs to create a mythological and fantasy-inspired effect that’s perfect for summer. To pull off this effect in your home, look for furniture and décor with pearl and velvet finishes, nautical themes, and pale purples, blues, and pinks.
Get creative with colour
Summer is the season of colour, so if you’re looking for ways to brighten up your home, this is a great time of year to take inspiration from. Simply choose your favourite tone — warm or cool? Warm tones like reds, oranges, and yellows will give a hazy, hot summer vibe, whereas coastal blues, greens, and bright whites will evoke thoughts of going to the seaside. If you’re not sure which to go for, take the architecture of your home into account. If the property tends to get quite stuffy, then a cool colour scheme could help to make it feel fresher in summer.
If you like to switch up your style quite often, it can help to create a neutral base with your walls, floors, and furniture. By keeping these plain, you can then swap out various aspects of your décor, like soft furnishings, ornaments, and wall art, as each new season begins. This is a great way to keep your interiors interesting without making major renovations, and if you store your seasonal décor ready to reuse next year, it can be more cost-effective too.
Summer can be a great time of year to give your home a refresh, and the season can be a source of inspiration for your interior design. Use the tips in this guide to give you some ideas for how to bring summer into your home.
Images: Unsplash
