Japandi Interior Design | Everything You Need to Know

Have you hear about new rising star called Japandi interior design?

One of the most popular minimalist trends over the past few years, called Japandi is for someone who wants a more cultural design pattern with modern twist.

As the name suggests, Japandi is a mixture of traditional minimalistic Japanese and more modern Scandinavian design.

In this article, we will discuss the different features that Japandi has to offer. I will give you few tips how you can incorporate it into your home and what are some of its best features. Read more!

What is Japandi interior design?

As we mentioned, Japandi is a combination of Japanese and Scandinavian design.

As an example in above picture you can see small stones, tree and other greener in form of natural life decoration. This is tipical Japanese design. At the same time there is Scandinavian style present in form of furniture, stairs and overall house design.

You will see, Japanese design is mostly known for frase “less is more” and demanding lots of natural light. On the other had Scandinavian love natur light as well but design is more modern oriented.

They are both minimalistic so they can work really good together.

When you combine the two, you get a beautiful, warm, and elegant result. Don’t you agree?

The main goal for you when implementing Japandi interior style in your home is to create a clean space that does not have too much going on.

This is where the minimalism comes in. It’s important that you look for a few pieces that would be considered statement pieces as opposed to having lots of small knick-knacks.

Two words describing Japandi style: wabi-sabi and hygge.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese word that describes the phenomenon of being able to find something beautiful in something that is flawed.

Hygge refers to a Scandinavian design pattern where your main goal is to create a space that is both cozy and warm.

How to Bring Japandi into Your Home

There are so many different ways implementing Japandi into Your Home. Let’s explain some simple tweeks:

Focus on the furniture

When implementing any design pattern in your home, one of the most important details that you can focus on furniture it self.

1. Since Japandi interior design is all about natural, homey pieces, it will be best if you choose furniture pieces that are made out of wood. You will see some plastic and metal items present mainly in Scandinavian design but my advice is : stick to wood 🙂 Best choice would be Oak and white.
2. Since Japandi overall places such a strong emphasis on minimalism, try not to opt for pieces that are loud and that have a lot going on.
3. Search for simple pieces of furniture with basic or better no visible handles.
4. Monotone design patterns are the best (for upholstery). Remember less is more!
5. As far as the color, I would search threw natural color palette and find shades that don’t stand out.
6. Japandi interior style focuses on having one or two staple pieces in a room and then keeping the rest of the room minimalistic. You may want to outline what you want to have emphasized in each room. This items could be table in the dining room, a sofa in the living room, your bed and bedside tables in your bedroom. The possibilities are endless.
7. Final advice: Play around your main items to blend all together and create minimalistic warm place to enjoy many years after.

Have some statement accessories

Statement accessories are key to creating a beautiful space with Japandi interior design. But what’s important is that the accessories you choose serve some sort of purpose.

Think of the term functional minimalism. You don’t want your space to be cluttered since the main focus here is on keeping everything at a minimum.

So, you want the pieces that you choose to decorate your space serve some sort of purpose and will help enhance your everyday life.

One of the best pieces when it comes to statement accessories can rug benith your sofa.

You can also get creative with throw pillows and blankets.

If you’re designing your kitchen, you may choose to decorate the space with trays or minimalistic pieces such as bowls and vases.

There are lots of different accessories that you can use to spruce up your space, so you’ll definitely want to spend a few hours browsing the aisles at your local home improvement store or favorite online shop.

3 main color tips for your accessories:

1. Make sure that the color scheme you choose corresponds to the overall Japandi theme.
2. You should buy accessories that are one tone warmer or one tone bolder colors.
3. Don’t search for too patterned accessories that would deviate from the overall minimalist appearance. 

Choose a contrasting color scheme

When you think about the differences between Scandinavian and Japanese design, one of the biggest differences lies in the color schemes.

Scandinavian often uses darker upholistered fabrics on sofa and chairs. Below dining chair design is tipical for Scandinavian style.

On the other hand Japanese furniture is often perfectly blended with its exterior in very minimalistic way. Few great examples in my other article about Japanese Interior design.

On the other hand they both like lot of natural light. Scandinavian probably becouse they don’t have it enough. They are situated to far north that some places are half of the year in dark.

On the other side of the world, natural light is part of Japanese design tradition. They always design open plans always thinking about sun movements and how they can benefit from it the most.

Some of the main colors blended in Japandi style are navy and earth green for accent walls with added light beige and off white for the rest of the color palette.

Include some natural elements

If you’re completely stumped on what kinds of accessories to get, you can always go for house plants.

You don’t need to buy and search for colorful flowers. Green plants such as aloe vera, snake plants and spider plants are excellent choice. You can find plenty of them that are easy to maintain and will help to clean the air in the space you live.

We live in a society where so many people are so hyperfocused on Luxury, forgeting about the basics.

Something as basic as a house plant that will add natural beauty to your space and clean the air around is proper Japandi mindset.

Find simple minimalistic glass vase like this on Amazon and your table will transform in to amazing nature inspired environmen.

Combine the different styles

And lastly, perhaps the most important thing that you can do is make sure that you have a nice combination of both Japanese and Scandinavian style present in you space.

We’ve talked about the differences between both of these styles, including the color schemes and what each style places an emphasis on.

There are plenty of different ways that you could implement these elements of both styles in your home without making it look overdone.

Conclusion

Japandi interior design places a huge emphasis on functional yet minimalistic interior . You want to make sure that the accessories and furniture you purchase serve some sort of purpose in your daily life. It’s an interesting trend that creates inviting spaces in any room of your home.

I love Japanese Zen gardens. Get inspired like I did and read my extensive blog post about them.