This blog post lists the best nature aesthetic décor to make your home feel more aligned with nature!
Humans are inherently connected to nature, yet it’s easy to feel increasingly distant from the natural world when surrounded by towering buildings, screens, and the fast pace of modern life. Our homes are our sanctuaries, a place to retreat to and reconnect with yourself after busy days. Using a nature-inspired aesthetic in your home décor is the perfect way to create a sanctuary harmonious with our roots in nature, creating spaces that are not just stylish but also comforting.
Aligning your interior design with nature also goes hand in hand with sustainable living, which is the main reason I write these guides. Applying the philosophy of using things “as nature intended” to interior design helps to choose sustainable materials, reduce waste, and appreciate the importance of protecting the natural world.
In this guide, I have listed my favourite simple, nature aesthetic décor design ideas to help turn your home into a peaceful retreat, bringing a little more calm and connection into your daily life.
Here are 10 easy ways to bring a nature aesthetic to your home
1. Get Some Houseplants
The best place to start is, of course, to bring some plants into your spaces! Houseplants bring a natural vibe to your home like nothing else, and have additional benefits like cleaner air and making for a calming hobby.
If you’ve never taken care of houseplants before, don’t worry, there are many easy plants to start with. Make sure you only use organic and sustainable supplies like peat-free soil and organic fertilisers, to prevent harming the environment. I started with one small Monstera plant in my window 3 years ago and now I am at 19 houseplants!
2. Incorporate Earthy Colours
Green, beige, and brown tones can make up the perfect colour palette to make your home feel more connected to the Earth. Bring in some green and terracotta accents here and there, or go bold and paint your walls a moody green. Avoid cold and unnatural colours like bright white and try to keep things soft and harmonious. If you are painting your walls, always make sure to use sustainable, VOC-free paints to protect the environment, your home’s air quality, and your health!
3. Choose Natural Materials
When choosing furniture and décor items, pick natural materials where possible. Wood is the most well known, stylish, high quality, and versatile material you can use and is sustainable as well because it is regenerative. But also consider materials like stone, ceramics, or woven jute rugs to elevate your space in a natural way.
4. Buy Natural Fabrics
The same principle applies to anything made of fabric – bed linens, curtains, sofa’s, pillows, etc. Choose natural fibres like cotton or linen as much as possible. They can be a bit more expensive than synthetics like polyester but there is a reason for that: synthetics are lower quality, less comfortable, less durable, and very unsustainable. Invest in good quality cotton or linen and enjoy them for years to come, while making your interior feel much more natural and cosy.
5. Incorporate Organic Shapes and Textures
Not just the material, but also the shape of furniture can make a big difference in making your space feel more nature-aligned. Perfectly straight angles and rectangles are hardly found in nature, so play around with organic, rounded, and varying shapes for your furniture and decorations. Also think about textures – nature is rarely perfectly smooth, and a range of textures on your rugs, decoration items, or walls can give your space a much more organic and interesting feel.
6. Include Nature-Based Patterns
Nature has been an inspiration for art and design since the dawn of civilisation. Incorporate nature based patterns like floral, plant, animal and coastal designs for décor items like bed linen or even wallpaper. Apply them sparingly to avoid making your spaces feel too busy, but a well-placed accent wall or item with natural patterns can elevate your space beautifully.
7. Add Handmade Crafts and Decoration
There is nothing more natural than choosing handmade over machine made décor items! Try to find handmade items like ceramics, macrame, or wooden furniture from local handmade shops, which supports artisans and small businesses and is much more sustainable than buying from big stores. Or get creative and do some DYI crafts! There are lots of tutorials ranging from using pinecones to upcycling old clothes into something unique and natural.
8. Source Vintage Furniture
Using vintage furniture in your décor is a great way to make a space feel more natural since most vintage items pre-date the excessive use of synthetic materials, and they are usually much more organically and intricately designed than modern furniture.
It also helps you be more sustainable by participating in the reuse economy and can result in some amazing and unique finds! Regularly browse your local charity shops, look on online marketplaces, or use vintage furniture websites online.
9. Hang Nature-Inspired Wall Art
When choosing wall art, you’ll find plenty of options for nature-inspired art like landscapes, abstract floral paintings, or animal designs. Nothing brings nature indoors like a beautiful painting or illustration of nature itself! You can go so many different ways with it to suit your needs, like big paintings or a curated gallery wall, or even wall hangings like tapestries or macrame.
10. Find Vintage Botanical Wall Art
My favourite type of nature-inspired wall art is Vintage Botanical art. Modern paintings or prints just don’t have that same charm and intricacy of vintage paintings and the colours are usually much more organic and soft. Again, it’s also much more sustainable to source vintage paintings! You can scour your local second-hand stores or find remastered vintage artworks on marketplaces like Etsy.
I happen to have my own Etsy store where I offer curated and remastered vintage botanical prints, both in digital format so you can print it yourself, or as posters printed on sustainable, FSC certified paper, in various sizes to suit your needs! Check our my shop here.
Try out these nature aesthetic décor ideas this year to create a home harmonious with our beautiful Earth!
