seeking whimsical, quirky and magical decor ideas for a maximalist

December 3, 2023 9:44 PM

what are some whimsical / quirky / fun items for your home that fits a maximalist vibe? I want my house to feel like a cross between a bohemian who finds cool uses for ordinary things and a wizard whose place just feels magical and makes you want to look and look.

I'm in the process of redecorating my home and am aiming for a unique blend of styles: creative, unusual, enchantingly magical. Here are some specific aspects I'm considering:

1 - Multifunctional pieces: Items that have more than one use or bring an unexpected twist to everyday objects.

2 - Magical elements: Decor that evokes a sense of wonder

3 - Bohemian flair: Pieces that are vibrant, eclectic, and artistic

4 - Conversation starters: Items that are not just decor but can spark curiosity and start conversations

5 - Art: Captivating prints that can add a burst of creativity and color to the walls.

6 - Word and Letter Decor: Items that incorporate words, letters, or phrases

I am partial to yellows and greens mostly. But if there are other colours that complement this I would love to know. Not really partial to red or pink but I can be persuaded. Also I don't have pets but I love dogs, and I have lots of plants. And books! So many books. (I am a writer and designer)

I would love to hear your suggestions or experiences with decorating in a similar style. Photos or links to where I can find such items would be incredibly helpful.

Thank you for helping me transform my home into a whimsical, magical, and maximalist haven!

posted by benimaru to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

I love this. It’s sort of what I’m always aiming for too, but with a different palette and my best friend is a woodworker so I have a gradually growing collection of meticulously finished minimalist wood furniture covered in doodads.

Since you like yellows and greens, your spaces will probably lean warm toned. I would suggest settling on two other general colors to look for in decor - a contrast color and a base neutral. For the contrast, you’ll want something cool, so ranging from turquoise to purple. For the neutral you should probably trend warm, so ivories, beiges, dark browns, or warm tone greys. You will find it easier to mix and match disparate aesthetics and tchotchkes if you use these colors to guide your acquisitions. The cool contrast color will make your warm toned neutrals and primary colors pop, and the neutrals will give some space and breathing room to your many details so they can be appreciated.

Please note that I’m not saying if you pick cobalt blue as your contrast color that is the only one you can use. But if you are perusing an antique market for nifty glassware and you see bottles in a range of blues, and bottles in a range of purples, go for the blues if you have decided on blue as a contrast so you can have an easier time incorporating them into decor you’ve also chosen with that color in mind.

Your neutrals can do a lot to control the impression of size and airiness in a room, so you will want to vary its brightness by the room’s purpose. If you like an open and bright bedroom, go for ivory or soft dove grey as a base for walls and floors, then fill it up with all your colorful textures and art. If you want a cozy reading nook as a living room, go for deep browns in things like drapery or large furniture, which will let items like throw pillows and wallpaper really pop. Or, you can reverse this - a dark and cozy bedroom with dark wood floors and dark bedding, and a spacious light living area with ivory walls to display a gallery of art and light floors for colorful accent rugs. It’s all about how you want to use the different spaces.

Some specific suggestions, culled from my own list of ideas for when I eventually snap and throw my entire life savings into gutting this old house I’m in:

- I have a whole floor to ceiling set of shelves for cookbooks in the room off of my kitchen, and what I want to eventually do is have a walk in pantry with swinging doors from the pantry to the kitchen, and inside the pantry is a bookcase that is actually a SECRET DOOR that leads to a dining or sitting room. The pantry side of the bookcase would be cookbooks obviously, and the other side would be cookbook overflow and culinary anthropology, plus related decor.

- I’ve always wanted to do at least one room with upholstered walls. I did a cheap version of this as a teen with my bedroom, I got a bunch of patchouli scented Indian tapestries from a local store that sold crystals and incense and whatnot and stuck the tapestries up all over like a patchwork with upholstery tacks. Hurt the bejesus out of my fingertips and my mom ended up doing a lot of the work because I had no dang follow through, but it was pretty cool. If/when I do this again I would buy upholstery fabric and follow directions from a decorator who has actually done this, and do it in a small room, like maybe a foyer or hallway, or maybe just an accent wall, and do a tassel border around all my edges and seams because it would be fun.

- wallpaper has definitely made a comeback and I think it would go with your aesthetic perfectly. I would caution you to not wallpaper every single room though. Go for like, half of them? For rooms that you have a lot of things you want to display already, a painted wall is much easier to maintain and also will let you get more things on the wall to feel like they belong together. Also in places you want to be focused in, like an office or kitchen, wallpaper can be too much. But anywhere else? Hell yes. If you already have a small selection of items that you know belong in a room, maybe use them to help guide your wallpaper selection. I used to visit a friend’s family home who had a separate nook for the toilet in their guest bathroom, and the wallpaper in there was a giant map full of islands and sailing routes, in a tonal stained parchment brown and ink color way. Most interesting bathroom breaks ever. Obviously the rest of the bathroom had technical drawings of boats in frames to each side of the mirror and nautical themed hardware. So cute!

Here are some links which you may enjoy, or you may weep because you are not a bajillionaire, but either way I hope are inspiring -

Bradbury & Bradbury
Daniel Merriam’s Bubble Street Gallery
Artiphany
Rifle Paper Co.
Angela Adams
Baba Studio
Studio ROOF
Seletti
Gudrun Sjoden
posted by Mizu at 11:13 PM on December 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

The other day, I was looking at online pics of chairs and benches that flip/fold over... like chair/stepstools, and bench/tables.

Also, I've previously seen stairs for attics or tiny houses that had a horizontal hinge across the middle that allowed them to fold up.

Then today, I saw a photo on a house listing where there was a set of wooden deck stairs with both a slanted roof and what appeared to be a plywood lining under the steps, so you couldn't see through them to the ground below. The way it looked, seemed that if you could just lift the steps up, there was a pair of slides underneath. (Either that house or another one I saw around the same time had a hanging bridge that led from the deck to a treehouse... I swear, if I ever own my own house...)

And so then all that led me to wonder if there was a way to make it so that a set of stairs could have a VERTICAL hinge instead, so that you could fold the stairs over on themselves to one side, revealing a slide underneath. (Yes, I KNOW that you could just have separate slide and stairs, but it's the combo idea that fascinated me...)

For that matter, consider a secret room or cubbyhole of some sort.

Oh. And my saved stash of "interesting" places...
And check out photos of the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House.
And the bathroom of Grateful Bread Bakery.
The vibe at Hippo Hardware & Trading Co.
This crazy place still exists - Dick and Jane's Spot. Maybe a little Zymoglyphic Museum?
Or Wyrd Leatherworks and Mead?
Don't judge Bible Club PDX by the name.
Oooh. Raven's Manor.
A dash of Freakybuttrue Peculiarium.
Some Creepy's.
Any VooDoo Donuts location.
Maplehold / Wonderwood Springs / whatever it's called.
Lex's Cool Stuff in Netarts.
posted by stormyteal at 11:39 PM on December 3, 2023

I recently watched Amy Sedaris’ home tour which might give some inspiration!
posted by actionpact at 4:40 AM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Will be keeping this thread top of the bookmarks pile for reference.

For me your mention of books jumps out; so so many of the interior ideas that make me drool come under the search term "architectural bookcase".

I've never been able to find an image of what I dream of doing with my books, but I'm happy to try to share the idea... I have a fairly small main living space that has a relatively extremely high slope-roofed ceiling. On the high back wall where I currently have banks of white Ikea Billys, I dream of putting in place double ≈ 15 foot high columns of bookshelves that are against the wall but free hanging or mounted on some kind of vertically oriented racetrack shaped arrangement, with a system of belts and pulleys to rotate the whole thing as one continuous 0-shaped-ring and move shelves from top to bottom. The whole would frame central static shelves with radial lighting, and be surrounded by the same height strings of suspended low-light indoor trailing plants and vines.

As I say I've never found anything remotely like this, and given the likely custom work and mechanical skills involved in getting it made, I seriously doubt I'll ever actually take it on.
posted by protorp at 5:06 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have this lamp.

It's just as cool as it looks.

(It's listed much cheaper on Amazon, if you're into that.)
posted by phunniemee at 5:29 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

For inspiration, check out author and artist's Akwaeke Emezi's vibrant, colorful home that they named Shiny the Godhouse, featured on Apartamento Magazine. The house has an instagram.
posted by wicked_sassy at 6:18 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Perhaps you would enjoy Rachel Maksy's home decorating content? I appreciate her niche that's she's a creative person with average equipment and skills who's not afraid to jump right in (or redo things that go wrong).
posted by Gable Oak at 6:21 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Inspo accounts:
Ericka Hart (she usually posts political stuff, but she also just did a reno and I love her taste. Reno info is saved in her highlights under Reno Part 1 - 2 - 3, and if you go back in her archives a few months, her former home had beautiful green walls)
Studio Mucci - Pastel rainbows
Tay Beep Boop - Pee Wee Herman type weird awesomeness
Banyan Bridges - Vibrant handpainted geometric and graphic murals
AfricanBoheme - Beautiful use of yellow
posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:45 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

hellenhighwater on Tumblr (of the "we do this not because it would be easy but because we thought it would be easy" banner, if you've seen that making the rounds) has a fascinating house. Here are a few specific posts about it that might be fun to check out, but if you're on Tumblr, she's a pretty interesting poster to follow.
posted by EvaDestruction at 8:58 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you drink, transfer your bottles to the fanciest ass decanters you can get your grubbies on.

I am slowly working on a collection of decanters for our entire liquor shelf (we roll a lot of tiki cocktails, so we have a number of bottles we only use a little bit of a time of; so far mostly only our liqueurs, not base spirits are in weird bottles). The goal is that no single bottle on our shelf is in the 'stock' bottle. It is slowly turning our hutch from a liquor cabinet to merlin's potion station.
posted by furnace.heart at 10:58 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

this is very much my style! one of the ways I do it is with layering fabrics / rugs / textiles.

For example, I have dark blue tulle hanging over my bed so it looks very whimsical and romantic in my room. I used an embroidery hoop to secure the layers of fabric and suspended it with fishing line to the ceiling.

I also just have random fabrics draped over furniture (like on the back of any otherwise boring chair) or on tables.

Basically everything in my apartment is second hand (thank you facebook marketplace and craigslist) or things that I found and refurbished (I found my desk on the street and refinished it).

Another thing is dried flowers everywhere! I have some strung up in my kitchen and I put flowers in old wine bottles etc.
posted by allymusiqua at 3:02 PM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

OH MY GOODNESS.
I just discovered a new-to-me furniture brand that quirky and whimsical is a perfect description of.
Dust Furniture
My first thought was "I want!!!"
My second was your question.
So I had to come share, and hopefully you'll see this.
posted by stormyteal at 7:59 PM on December 6, 2023 [1 favorite]