Love the Japanese style and want to make the design of your apartment the prototype of the Land of the Rising Sun? It will be easy. But it should be understood that, despite the minimalism characteristic of the Japanese interior, there will be a lot of financial investments. This is due to the fact that residents of eastern countries prefer to decorate the interior with natural materials. Look for ideas and tips for creating an apartment design below.
What kind of people should prefer the Japanese style
If you are a fan of wealth and luxury, then the interior, made on the prototype of the house of an oriental person, will definitely not suit you. Here one cannot see luxury, splendor or any excesses. In Japanese interiors, everything is reserved and strict. Dominant minimalism sets its own atmosphere. In such a laconic apartment, a person rests in his soul. The Japanese are used to leaving all worldly problems behind the front door. That is why their home is like a kind of Eden. There is practically no furniture and decorative elements, which means there is no mess.
The Japanese believe that the house should be a continuation of nature, its organic complement. Of course, this opinion was confirmed thanks to territorial features. Due to frequent earthquakes, people did not build heavy monolithic structures. They used to build their homes from bamboo and paper. In Russian climatic conditions, such a building will not survive one winter. But here is a prototype of interior decoration is widely used. Its adherents are people who do not want to live for show. They want to be able to rest and relax at home.
Kitchen
The Japanese style in the interior is minimalism. It is this effect that must be sought. In Japan, unlike Russia, a house is one big room. Our compatriots are not used to it. Therefore, the houses and apartments of Russians are divided into small rooms. How can you make a Japanese-style kitchen design? It should be understood that all the furniture of the eastern people is low and squat. It is clear that the kitchen counter will be impossible to make below human height, but the dining table can be made low.
If you’re not used to sitting on the floor, and in fact in Japan they eat just that, then get a wooden table and chairs to match it. But this should not be a massive thing made of oak, but something light. For example, a set of pine. And where to put the equipment? If you are doing the design of the kitchen in the Japanese style, then prefer the built-in appliances. Yes, this way you will greatly reduce the space, but the interior will become more like your prototype. Of course, you need to understand that it is not worth creating eclecticism. That is, when creating a Japanese-style kitchen, do not load it with unnecessary items. A dishwasher or washing machine will look especially inappropriate in such an interior.
Living room
Creating a Japanese-style room is quite problematic. Why? In the Land of the Rising Sun, it is not customary to clutter up rooms with equipment. That is, there can’t be any talk about any TV sets or music centers. The same goes for furniture. Since in Japan there are no rooms, respectively, they do not have a living room. People do all their leisure activities at a low table, at which they have tea ceremonies. Therefore, if you want to make a room in the Japanese style, you will have to abandon unnecessary furniture. Choose a wooden sofa, and replace the chairs with soft ottomans. Yes, it will not be entirely Japanese, but our contemporaries are not taught to sit with their legs crossed since childhood.
What can decorate the interior of the living room? Decorative niches. Yes, drywall constructions are out of fashion, but if you can’t make niches in another way, don’t be afraid to use such panels. What to put in niches? You can buy a couple of ceramic Japanese vases and several figurines. But family photos and soft toys will look inappropriate. Windows in Japan are not decorated with fresh flowers. A traditional plant is a dwarf pine. Usually a pot with such a plant is placed on the floor, closer to the window.
Bedroom
The apartment in the Japanese style involves a minimal amount of furniture. Therefore, the bedroom should be decorated very ascetic. In the center of the room should be a low wooden bed or lay a mattress on a low pedestal. But the citizens of our country still prefer beds. The Japanese do not recognize any pillows. But here you can make yourself a indulgence. The bed is covered with silk sheets. There should not be any decorative elements in the bedroom. Also in it there are no niches and plants. A person, falling into a dream, should be relaxed. His gaze should wander around the room and stop at nothing. Such contemplation of uniform surfaces can be compared with a kind of meditation.
If you can’t imagine a room without any decorations, you can hang a mat on the wall. The same mat can be put under your feet. Such litter looks ascetic and discreet. But some artists can depict on the mats an unpretentious drawing of the domestic genre. Engravings are also popular. You can place them over the bed. If you prefer painting, then hang a picture made using the batik technique.
Walls
The Japanese attach great importance to paper. The wallpaper they use is a plain material, often on a fabric basis. A pronounced texture on such a wall decor is rare, and drawings are even less common. But in Russian interiors, Japanese-style wallpapers most often have sakura drawings. This option of wall covering is suitable for an interior in which several stylistic directions are intertwined. For example, you can highlight one wall with wallpaper with a tree. But in this case, all other vertical surfaces should be light.
Wallpaper in Japanese style is always something bright. People living in the East believe that white, milky, beige and peach colors are soothing. And the Japanese favorite designer trick is to use dark decorative inserts with light walls. In this case, a good contrast is created, which can emphasize both the geometry of the room and the objects. So if you are still in doubt about how to make Japanese-style walls, cast aside doubts. Use light wallpapers. Or you can just whitewash the walls. But in this case, the vertical planes of the house or apartment should be perfectly flat.
Floors
If you can still afford to save on wall coverings, then you have to invest in flooring. The Japanese are very fond of wood, so they use it everywhere. And the floors were no exception. It is clear that it is pointless to cover bamboo floors, and cork flooring is very expensive. Choose the appropriate parquet option. Of course, if your finances are very limited, then you can cover the floor with a laminate that will mimic a wooden floor. But believe me, the effect will not be the same. If you want to add coziness to the living rooms, you can put tatami under the Japanese-style furniture.
Well, how to make the floors in the bathroom? Putting a wooden floor in a damp room is a bad idea. Therefore, you can use the stone. This is also a natural material, which, if treated with special impregnation, will not damp and mold.
The Japanese, like our compatriots, take off their shoes at home. And so that your feet do not freeze, you can purchase or tie the tracks in the Japanese style. These peculiar slippers resembling socks will be the most appropriate shoes in an apartment with an oriental interior. If you do not have enough home-made shoes to distribute to all guests, you should not worry. The Japanese go home or barefoot, or in socks.
Furniture
Have you chosen the wallpaper and laid the floors? Now it remains to buy furniture in the Japanese style. What should it be? All interior items of the Japanese apartment should be made of natural materials. Therefore, prefer wooden furniture. If you think that a wooden sofa or bed is too austere, you can choose models with soft pillows. The fabric should be either cotton or silk. These materials are most often used by the Japanese. They despise synthetics.
Wooden furniture should not be carved. The Japanese are well versed in arts and crafts. But still, they do not decorate objects of their everyday life. The interiors of Japanese houses are dominated by straight lines and strict silhouettes. And this applies not only to cabinet furniture. Shelves and racks, which are found in the apartment in a minimum quantity, must also have a geometric shape. Tables and chairs need to choose squat. The Japanese spend most of their leisure time on the floor, but for our compatriots such a life is a lot of inconvenience. Therefore, you can choose ordinary tables and chairs, just not elegant shapes, but more stocky designs.
Shine
The Japanese-style house should be done in bright colors. Dark details are accents. Light rooms always seem bigger than they really are. Our compatriots are accustomed to natural light from the windows. But the Japanese most often close the windows with rice paper. What for? The fact is that above all the windows in the houses are low cornices that block from slanting rains. Therefore, the view from the Japanese apartments is not the most interesting. In order not to look at the wooden cornices, people simply curtain the windows. Moreover, such paper curtains do not open either at night or during the day. Yes, paper passes light, but it cannot be said that the room is well lit. Therefore, the Japanese use lamps.
Today in Russia, such plafonds are very popular. They consist of a metal frame on which fabric or paper is stretched. But it should be noted that such lamps in the Japanese style give too dim and diffused light. Therefore, in Japanese homes there is always a slight twilight. Although people are used to it. After a walk under the bright sun, the coolness and shadow in your own apartment are perceived as a blessing. Therefore, if you decide to make an interior in the Japanese style, you should use a large number of paper lamps. And to dim the natural light, you can insert stained glass or frosted glass into the windows.
Details
The house in the Japanese style differs from the European home in the absence of a large number of decorative products. Eastern people prefer asceticism. It seems to them that it makes no sense to become attached to things. Buddhism teaches this. But, despite this, the Japanese respect art. On their walls you can find engravings and batiks. Most often, such works of art are triptychs.
When decorating a house, the Japanese give great importance to fabrics. Our compatriots often see a Japanese-style dress in the pictures. These colored bathrobes do not look too ascetic. But home textiles are very different in color and pattern from everyday wear. The fabrics decorating the home are usually light in color and discreet decor. These can be images of a floral ornament or a strip of hieroglyphs.
Tea ceremonies play a big role in the life of every Japanese. It goes without saying that the porcelain from which people drink tea must be of the highest quality. Painted mugs and teapots, saucers and bowls - all this can be considered small works of art.
Screens
Want to do something in the Japanese style with your own hands? Create a screen. As already mentioned above, in Japanese houses there are no rooms, so people use partitions. Screens replace walls for them. When a person wants to retire, he can isolate himself from his household and meditate in private with himself. How to make such a screen? First you need to assemble a wooden frame of the desired size, and then use a building stapler to attach silk or paper to it. Such partitions are light and translucent. This allows you to block the room without blocking the room.
How are screens used in Japanese-style Russian apartments? Our compatriots use this decorative element only to decorate the room. It is rare when you can see a screen that is used for its intended purpose. Sometimes parents share a translucent partition of their children's rooms so that each of them can feel secluded. But more often, decorative screens with an interesting pattern on silk adorn female boudoirs.
Hieroglyphs
When viewing various glossy magazines, one involuntarily glances at the Japanese style of clothing. It is unique, even though Europe today imposes fashion on the whole world. Japan manages to successfully combine interesting decorative solutions, both stemming from its own culture, and borrowed from other countries. That is why objects of Japanese life, which have a rather ascetic appearance, can still be decorated with hieroglyphs. Such signs are considered by some to be sacred, and some believe that it is a tribute to fashion.
One way or another, but bizarre hieroglyphs adorn chests of drawers, shelves and cabinets of the eastern people. People can post entire messages on the walls. Of course, this technique will be stylistically justified. For example, a person can hang a beautiful carpet made of mat or tatami. A variety of inscriptions can be found on household items. For example, on mugs and even tablecloths.
Plants in the interior
Strange as it may seem, plants in Japanese homes can be seen quite rarely. And why should residents of private estates arrange a garden at home? They have the opportunity at any moment to go out onto the lawn next to the house and be alone with nature. But our compatriots do not have such an opportunity, and indoor flowers are part of the interior familiar to everyone. Therefore, even creating an apartment with a Japanese design, experts still place plants around the room. What could it be?
Dracaena Sander is a bamboo-like plant. Some people call him that. The branches of the plant are strong and really very similar to their Japanese prototype. Such a plant can not only decorate, but also divide the space of the room. Orchids, so beloved by our compatriots, are also suitable for the Japanese interior. They will bring liveliness and bright colors to a rather restrained interior. Fatsia and abutilon are those plants that are very reminiscent of Japanese maple. Small trees are planted in flowerpots and placed around the room. Pots with plants can be placed even in the most remote corner of a bright room. For many people who do not start plants, because they forget to water them, it will be nice to know that Fatsia and Abutilon do not need frequent watering.
Landscape design
Nature for the Japanese is an integral part of life. Just like in the interior, in the exterior, the inhabitants of the East want to see more naturalness. Unlike our usual gardens, Japanese houses are surrounded by randomly planted plants. But the chaos here is very orderly. The Japanese style in landscaping is created by stones, low trees and grass coverings. If you decide to reproduce a piece of such a landscape near your home or in the country, then do not try to find fancy plants native to the East. It is better to use local flowers, but arrange them in the style of a Japanese garden. First of all, you should ennoble the whole territory and plant it with stunted grass or moss. Now you need to arrange the stones in the future garden. This should be done in a chaotic manner, but so that there is no compositional advantage. Simply put, so as not to give the impression that the left is thick and the right is empty.
After the stones are laid out, you can do tree planting. Here you should focus only on your taste. You can plant cherries, apple trees, thuja or maple. Everything you want. Not a single Japanese garden is complete without a reservoir. You can make a small pond on your site or put up a fountain. Now you need to break the flower beds. It should be remembered that the color scheme of your garden should be quite muted. Use should be green, gray, white and brown. You can add some bright colors. But there should be no more than two. Looks interesting garden, decorated in one color scheme. For example, you can plant all the plants in white shades.
Paths should be arranged around the garden. They should not be placed randomly, but in clear harmony with the composition. Paths can lead to trees, flowerbeds, a fountain and benches. If you like to sit in the shade of trees, put a bench under the apple tree, and if you want to sunbathe, then place it in the sun. . , .