6 Ways to Incorporate Japandi Style into Your Home

Japandi interiors are practical and cosy, rustic and functional. Here’s how you can incorporate japandi style into your own home.

We’ve previously written about japandi style, the interior design trend bringing the best of Japanese and Scandi style together in your home. Our original post was about what japandi is, running through the basics of what it generally means and consists of. You can combine the functionality and rustic aesthetic of the two styles to create a beautiful and relaxing interior.

This post is going to be more of an in-depth “how to” to help you achieve his gorgeous design style within your own home! Japandi is practical and relaxed, with choices that aim to make a room feel both calming, functional, and free of clutter.

Creating a Japandi Colour Palette

The first step, the base of the room, is the colour scheme. You’ll want to decide on your palette early on in the interior design process, because it will inform what decor and furniture you need.

Japandi favours neutral and pale colours, mixing Scandi neutrals and whites with the natural colours of Japanese interior style (blues, greens, greys, earth tones).

The style is calming, so you don’t want to fill a room with an overwhelming amount of colour. It’s a general rule of thumb that you try to keep your palette controlled and avoid both very bright hues as well as dark shades.

What to Do with the Walls

Following the colour palette created in the last step, you will want to stick with a more muted colour for the walls of any japandi room. Patterned wallpaper - while lovely - risks looking too busy and conflicting with the values of the style. A simple and smooth colouring of the interior wall is perfect.

It is also more in keeping with the anti-clutter goals of japandi to restrict the amount of art on your walls and keep an amount of open wallspace. Also - as will be discussed further in this post - japandi thrives off of natural light, so paint that reflects light well would be a strong choice.

If you do have art you desperately want to display in the room, limit your number of pieces as much as you can and if there are multiple, try to create a consistent aesthetic by sticking to contemporary pieces by the same artist.

You should take precautions to make sure that your walls do not serve as a distraction.

Making the Space Feel Open & Calming

In trying to create a calming and anti-cluttered space, japandi emphasises spaciousness and aims to prevent rooms from feeling constricted or claustrophobic.

To this end is japandi’s favouring of interiors that feel open and enjoy a lot of natural light (as alluded to in the previous section). Unfortunately, part of this relies on the construction of the actual space, so not every room will do this perfectly, and not every interior redesign is able to involve renovation. If you are wanting to use japandi style in a room that does not already have the the high ceilings and large windows that this is best suited to, then a handy technique to both make the room feel larger while also making the most of the natural light the room does receive is to use tall or round mirrors. They can provide the room with a feeling of depth, and when well positioned in relation to windows can spread the natural light around the space.

Another method to make a room feel less cluttered and more spacious without major renovations is to use low furniture. This can really open up a space. Although be careful not to use too much, as going overboard on furniture can still make a room feel cluttered - and you may accidentally turn the room into an obstacle course, which decidedly goes against the functionality that japandi aims to provide.

Minimalism and Simplicity

This openness can be furthered by ensuring that only those items that serve a purpose are kept within the space. Japandi obeys edicts of “less is more” and “quality over quantity” in order to prevent overwhelming or cluttered rooms.

This can be difficult. No matter how Marie Kondo may word it or make it sound easy, I have often found myself keeping things even if they didn’t “spark joy” or have a perfect place or use within a room out of sentimentality or stubbornness. Worst case scenario, when redesigning your room you can at the very least feign minimalism, by instead of clearing out all the excess or potentially unnecessary items, storing them within the room or about the house.

“Out of sight, out of mind.”

To speak more practically of the japandi style, have decor with only subtle patterns (if any) or geometrics, and focus on clean lines (and cleanliness) throughout. Individual pieces with ornamentation or more than two tones can make an interior feel overly busy, so should be avoided.

Decor and Furniture

Combining both the functional and sleek with the rustic and textured of its two parent aesthetics, there are two primary things to keep in mind while searching for furniture ideal for a japandi space above all else: functionality and quality. Pieces that are simple but effective are great because they play into japandi design’s emphasis on practicality and straightforwardness, while also being well-made (if craftsman-made as opposed to mass produced is possible this is much preferred). Japandi style prefers pieces that are made to last and will be present and used for many years.

As suggested at the beginning of this section, japandi furniture thrives off tactility. Items with wood textures are a brilliant choice - you can even have multiple finishes of wood in the same space as long as they are within a particular tonal range.

Contrast between the two styles that japandi was born of can also be incredibly effective when decorating a room. Japanese pieces - sleek and modern with striking silhouettes - are surprisingly well-complemented by the more rural aesthetic of Scandi decor, which places stock in cosy fabric textures.

As opposed to the ornamented and accessorised, a japandi room can be tied together by bold statement pieces. A utilitarian Japanese vase at the centre of an empty table, or a large painting on one wall while the rest are bare (although remember to keep the art within your chosen palette).

When choosing colours for your decor, having items that contrast colour with the walls of your room as different shades of the same colour (a variety of pale blues in an off-white room, for example) can make the room stand out in a really nice way.

An important aspect to remember (so much so it is the focus of the final segment of this article) is japandi style’s link to the natural world - as well as placing items like Scandi throws, wabi-sabi ceramics, and maybe even a couple of books around the room, japandi rooms look great with natural accents like plantlife and flowers. Plus, plants are not just great at helping create a calm atmosphere - which japandi is all about - but growing plants within a room will also help replenish the oxygen and keep the air fresh!

Sustainability

Another suggestion when looking for high quality pieces for your japandi interior is to prioritise sustainability and natural materials. Both cultures and styles this trend is inspired by have deep connections to, and respect for, the world around us. The rooms you design should have a similar appreciation. Ensure that you are buying sustainably and ethically and - where you can - sourcing locally and from small businesses.

If you’re looking for sustainable decor ideas for a japandi style space, Hidden Botanics offers a wide range of dried and artificial flower arrangements for all kinds of styles! Find our Etsy here or our instagram @hiddenbotanics! Dried flowers last significantly longer than fresh, so are much less wasteful, and, as a business, we are committed to making our business as sustainable as we can!

Hopefully this article has been helpful in guiding you in designing your new japandi style interior! It’s such a brilliant recent trend that merges the practical with the calming, the utilitarian with the relaxing, and we hope your redesign is a success!

Alex x