Inner city styling: Top design tips to bring serenity to compact spaces

While inner city living often means sacrificing space for a vibrant lifestyle and location, it doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing serenity.

There are plenty of ways to turn your home into a peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of urban life – from adding greenery to your outdoor spaces, to using ambient lighting, calming colour palettes and embracing mindful minimalism, this article will cover a range of practical design tips to help you create a calming vibe for your home, regardless of the size of your space.

Add greenery to small outdoor settings

Spending at least two hours a week in green spaces is proven to have beneficial effects on our health and wellbeing. But, depending on where you live, it can be hard to find green spaces in the inner city.

If your home has a small outdoor setting, like a balcony or a courtyard, make the most of it by installing planter boxes and cultivating your own little slice of green paradise.

If you like cooking with fresh herbs, why not try growing your own? Or if you’re a fan of flowers, you could pick a few varieties that will flower across different seasons so that you get year-round enjoyment from your compact garden.

If you’re not much of a green thumb, don’t worry – there are plenty of options for easy care! The ZZ plant, for example, is often described as ‘thriving on neglect’, since it can handle low light and infrequent watering. Talk to your local nursery and see what they recommend for your space and level of expertise.

With smaller spaces, you want to avoid a cluttered feeling, which for greenery means going for large statement plants in place of lots of smaller ones. Large monsteras and birds of paradise in your planter boxes, or even potted trees, work well on balconies or in apartments, and you can add one or two smaller ones around them to provide layering and balance.

Use ambient lighting to make compact areas feel cosy

Getting the lighting right can make such a difference when it comes to setting the tone for your home. If you’re lucky to receive plenty of natural light during the day, you could use sheer curtains or drapes to help diffuse it around your home. Then, once the sun goes down, having a variety of warm lights around to provide overall illumination (e.g. ambient lighting) can keep your home feeling calm and cosy.

If you want your home to feel more inviting and comfortable, stick with warm lights (between 2700K-3000K), particularly in spaces like the living room and bedroom. If you need a more energising effect in certain spaces like the kitchen or study, cool lights (4000K-5000K) will be your best friend. Colour-changing bulbs or dimmable switches can be a great option, as you’ll be able to control the feel of the space without needing to swap between different sources of light.

Consider a calm colour palette

Colour can have a serious impact on our mood. To create a sense of serenity in your home, opt for soft, muted shades in your colour palette, such as a sage green, light sky blue or gentle grey. While these cooler colours are often associated with a calming effect, warm neutrals and light pinks or oranges can create the cosy feeling that we associate with home.

If you like the blank canvas of white walls, there are literally countless off-white colours that are so subtle your eyes can’t notice much of a difference, yet they naturally add more character.

Be intentional with your choices and make sure they reflect your personality and taste. For example, if you love the colour pink, you could incorporate soft pink shades into your home decor. If you’re a fan of neutrals, try a more monochromatic palette based around a warm beige (you might have heard this being called the ‘sad beige aesthetic’, but if it makes you happy, that’s all that counts).

When you go for softer tones, you could try adding one bold colour somewhere and notice how it pops and creates depth to the space. You can also try mixing neutral modern with vintage furniture for a more complex, expansive mood.

Try mindful minimalism

Living in a smaller space means there will always be a need to consider just how many things it’s really worth owning.

Being surrounded by clutter can have a negative effect on your stress levels and mood. By contrast, taking a mindful approach to minimalist home design helps you prioritise the items that bring the most joy (Marie Kondo-style) and curate a home that feels both calming and welcoming. It also helps encourage you to be more mindful in general, leading to an increased sense of contentment and overall wellbeing.

Mindful minimalism doesn’t mean getting rid of everything and turning your home into a lacklustre beige showroom; rather, it encourages intention and a deeper appreciation for the things that truly bring you happiness. If you love books, for example, you don’t need to stop buying them entirely, but you might consider borrowing new titles from the library first, before deciding whether you loved it enough to buy a copy for keeps.

When deciding what to keep and what to give away, remember Marie Kondo’s enduring question: Does this spark joy? Or, you could try the common minimalist guideline question: Have I used this in the past six months?

Play around and let your style unfold

There are plenty of options available when styling your inner city sanctuary. Take advantage of planter boxes to add greenery to compact outdoor settings, with low-maintenance plant varieties to suit your busy urban lifestyle and level of expertise in gardening.

Use ambient lighting to create a cosy, calming atmosphere, complemented by your choice of colour palette in softer, muted tones. Lastly, embrace mindful minimalism to curate your home based on the things that truly bring you joy.

Of course, we’d all like to get our space feeling tranquil on the first attempt, but it can take some time to sit with new style decisions and see what you like and what you don’t.

So, try the ideas mentioned and be patient with yourself to sit in your decisions until your ideal living environment comes to life.