How To Approach Your Minimalist Home Renovation

In recent times it has become more popular to think simple. And this is becoming more and more of a consideration in design trends. If you want to blend simplicity with elegance, you would benefit from knowing how to approach your minimalist home renovation.

What is Minimalism?

Before we get into the things you can consider when you start your minimalist home renovation, it might be helpful to know a few things about the minimalist movement. It is important to understand minimalism’s past and present so you can make choices that keep your minimalist vision consistent.

History Of Minimalism

The minimalist art movement began after the second World War and caught on more strongly during the 1960s through the 1970s. But it was not until the late 1980s that minimalist architecture began to grow in popularity. Modern minimalist home renovation pulls from the established trends and philosophies of the historical minimalism movement, but has made updates.

Minimalism has historically been associated with the opposite of luxury, choosing to focus on inexpensive materials and buildings with limited space. But many modern minimalist designs bring out the elegance of simplicity in large areas with open floor plans with higher-end materials.

The new tenants of a minimalist home renovation focus almost exclusively on a rejection of flourishes and extras. Everything is meant to feel effortless without being understated. Size, form, and attention to detail are what make these construction projects stand out as eye-catching designs.

Minimalist Exteriors

Exterior designs focus on flat plains and rectangular shapes, often referred to as a “clean” aesthetic. Colors tend toward black, white, or unpainted wood or stone. These structures resist a plain look with the appearance of modular stacking, breaking up the flatness with overhangs for terraces and canopies along with different colors and materials.

Minimalist Exteriors 

If you do not want a minimalist home built from scratch, you can still do some interior remodeling. Minimalist interior design is heavily influenced by the traditional designs of Japanese architecture. The focus on functional and simple spaces is meant to be an escape from the cluttered and directionless nature of urban life.

1. Lines & Overlap

Lines are one of the most powerful elements in design, and an outstanding minimalist home renovation takes full advantage of this. For example, instead of placing fencing panels vertically in a backyard, horizontal orientation pulls the eye in and can even make the space look bigger.

When lines overlap and have different depths, this also keeps a structure from looking overly flat, which is one of the main concerns for minimalist home renovation. Alon Design and Remodeling takes the extra time to consider how lines direct attention and create visual interest.

2. Removing Walls

The open floor plan has become a main staple in minimalist home renovation. This is certainly not a traditionally minimalist choice, but it does help to simplify the space and allow a room to breathe. Even outside of a minimalist renovation, this is a popular local contractor service.

Fewer walls can make a space much more inviting. And in terms of livability, it is literally removing boundaries. The opportunity is always there to interact with guests and other residents while you are in technically distinct areas like the kitchen and living room.

3. Colors

A muted color palette can still grab attention as bold blacks and ostentatious whites break up earthy tones from unpainted natural materials. A minimalist home renovation is all about drawing attention to the complexity of what should look simple through thoughtful and intentional juxtaposition.

For example, a large white room can appear very plain. But when you add an inescapable black with a paneled texture on a portion of the ceiling, it helps the eye break up the space. Include a warmer-toned exposed wood floor and other accents, and the eye is drawn through the whole space.

4. Natural Materials

One of the best tricks to adding interest to the design of a minimalist home renovation is the use of natural materials like stone and wood. You can leave natural materials unpainted to add an effortless color break. And the texture of certain materials can add a lot of visual interest.

These materials achieve aesthetic goals along with being structurally sound and incredibly good building materials. But be sure that you are using the appropriate materials for a space. You don’t want your bathroom remodeling to feature materials that do not hold up well in the presence of moisture.

5. Sleek Fixtures

The flatter you can get things to lie, the better your minimalist home renovation will tie together. This means it is better to use sleek fixtures. A dimmer slider or rocker might be more aesthetically in-line with your wall than a traditional light switch.

If you are hiring an ADU builder to make a separate space with its own aesthetic, you can more precisely dial in the fixtures to blend together no matter what part of the home you are in. But if you are changing one room or adding a room, a new minimalist fixture aesthetic might stick out like a pink suit at a funeral.

6. Lighting

The right lighting creates new shapes with shadows. It also adds gradients to flat colors and pulls out subtle textures with highlights. All of this assists in creating almost a secondary home design. With a minimalist renovation, your home can become something different in artificial light than it is during the day.

But you need to know when it is a good idea to create these effects and when it will be an unwelcome distraction. For instance, kitchen remodeling is dealing with a very practical space, and optical illusions that affect depth perception by changing the space throughout the day can be a bit of a hazard.

7. Flooring

Almost everything we have discussed about minimalist home renovation ties into your flooring. You can use lines, color, and natural materials to inform your floor’s aesthetic and have it blend into the rest of your minimalist home design.

Carpeting is usually something you want to stay away from during a minimalist home renovation. But you can break up a wood or tile floor with a rug or purposefully placed floor covering. Also, consider how the flooring for potential room additions might tie spaces together or draw attention to something being built at a different time.

Final Thoughts 

As you can see by the descriptions in each of these sections, there is a lot to know about design to make something minimal look great. What is most important to a successful minimalist home renovation is having the right team in your corner. So call the perfect contractor for your minimalist renovation!