Welcome to the Minimalist home decor style guide where you can see photos of all interiors in the Minimalist style including kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, foyers, and more.
Related: All interior design styles | All residential architectural styles |Creating Nordic Minimalist Interiors
Minimalist Style Homes (Exteriors)
Check out these spectacular homes showcasing the Minimalist style homes.
1. Mirma House by Carles Faus Arquitectura
See more of this house here.
This is a look at the back of the house that has white foundations that support large glass walls looking over the large swimming pool area of the back.
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2. GR House by Paulo Martins Arq&Design
See more of this house here.
A modern house with minimalist designs in its interior and exterior. It also has a wide outdoor area along with glass windows and doors.
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3. By The Way House by Robert Konieczny KWK Promes
See more of this house here.
Aerial view of the house boasting its modish exterior along with stunning pathways and the landscape surrounding it.
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4. Miami Beach Intracoastal Contemporary
See more of this house here. From TopTenRealEstateDeals.com Source:www.sothebysrealty.com
Exterior view of this Miami Beach mansion showcasing its gorgeous architecture and outdoor swimming pool.
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5. Ribera House by Carles Faus Arquitectura
See more of this house here.
Minimalist house with a modern exterior painted in white. These are complemented by the white marble panels of the base as well as the gray gate and railings.
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6. Ibiza Villa by Norik Karavardanian
See more of this house here.
This is a view of the back of the house that has a simple bright design to its exterior walls paired with glass walls and windows that give it a warm glow.
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7. Coconut House by D.LIM architects
See more of this house here.
This is a front view of the minimalist house that has consistent light gray panels on its modern exterior walls complemented by the windows and the main entrance in the middle with a door in a covered area.
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8. VIEWPOINT HOUSE by Jim Caumeron Design
See more of this house here.
This is the front view of the house exterior that has consistent bright white exterior walls complemented by the unique windows that glow warmly and wall patterns. These walls match with the outer walls of the house that has a dark gate.
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9. Villa Criss-Cross Envelope by OFIS Architects
See more of this house here.
This is a look at the exterior of the house that has a minimalist design of concrete wall panels and glass giving the house a unique and simple look.
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10. House in Takamatsu by Fujiwaramuro Architects
See more of this house here.
A super modern house with a stunning white exterior and a minimalist-style interior design. This is complemented by the warm lighting.
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Minimalist Style Interior Examples (by Room)
The following are photo examples of Minimalist style interiors (room-by-room). Below each photo are links that take you to extensive Minimalist style photo galleries for each room.
The following examples are from this house (Architecture byCarles Faus Arquitectura).
Living Rooms
See more Minimalist style living rooms here.
This is a close look at the living room and its large L-shaped sectional sofa contrasted by the dark tone of the coffee table.
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Kitchens
See more Minimalist style kitchens here.
This is the long and narrow kitchen with black panels to contrast the white ceiling and to match the dark tone of the flooring tiles.
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Dining Rooms
See more Minimalist style dining rooms here.
Here is the dining area beside the kitchen. It has a white modern dining table paired with black chairs that blend with the black flooring. These are then topped with a decorative chandelier.
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Bedrooms
See more Minimalist style bedrooms here.
This is a look at the bedroom and the bathroom from the vantage of the balcony. You can see here the bedroom on the right with a large black bed with a sitting area.
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Bathrooms
See more Minimalist style bathrooms here.
This is the modern bathroom with a white floating vanity beside the white floating toilet. On the far side is the frosted glass door of the shower area.
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Entry Halls
See more Minimalist style foyers here.
This is the view of the foyer. Here you can better appreciate the modern design of the staircase that stands out against the white marble flooring, walls and ceiling.
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Minimalist Style Home Landscaping
See more Minimalist style home landscaping ideas here.
This is a view of the house’s front with a miniature garden and glass walls on the side of the driveway that has concrete bricks and a large white gate.
What is Minimalist Home Decor?
“Less is more” is a phrase often used to explain what minimalist style is all about. Minimalist designers create beauty by stripping away excess. While other styles are defined by their approach to decorating, minimalist style claims the home and its furnishing should be so beautiful, in and of themselves, that they don’t need decorating.
Coco Chanel, an early minimalist, once said, “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” Minimalists dress homes impeccably – in almost nothing at all.
Key elements of minimalist style include:
- Functionality
- Open spaces
- Lots of light
- Comfortable, well-built furniture with simple lines
- Architectural features that are beautiful without being ornate
- Limited use of color
- The creative combination of light, the outside world, materials, and forms create beauty
Though it may sound boring, a minimalist style is anything but. In fact, it is the very lack of certain traditional architectural and design elements that makes minimalist homes striking.
From exteriors featuring bold, clean lines, monochromatic cladding, and walls made entirely of glass ─ to interiors featuring unpainted wood, open floor plans, and built-in surfaces with absolutely nothing on them ─ the essential components of minimalist style work together to produce visual impressions, feelings, and even physical effects that are greater than the sum of their deceptively simple parts.
Today, the minimalist style is one of the most popular ─ particularly among the business, technology, and creative elite ─ and is considered by many to be the epitome of fashion and taste. It seems Chanel, who said, “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance,” may have been onto something.
Interior style features
Functionality
According to minimalist design principles, the only things that belong inside a home are those that serve a purpose. If you need something to sit on, you should have a chair; something to sleep on, a bed; something to eat off of, a dining table.
Knickknacks and tchotchkes have no place and are the antithesis of minimalist style. But essentials must do more than function. They must function well, and look good doing it.
Form
The design of every element of your home should be intentional. Within a minimalist style space, there is just no room for clutter, ugliness, or waste. This means that the few pieces you choose should be not only functional but pleasing to the eye.
Pay attention to every detail of every piece you choose as though it will be scrutinized from top to bottom and from every angle. Also, choose a focal point for every room and make sure that one thing is spectacular.
Quality Materials
The minimalist style maintains that interiors look best with little to no decoration. But this idea only works if walls, floors, and furniture look great on their own.
High-quality materials are more beautiful than low-quality ones. They are also more durable, which is in line with the minimalist principles of functionality and efficiency.
Monochromatic Palettes
Just as Chanel believed her trademark little black dress was the most flattering garment a woman could wear, minimalist designers believe rooms look most attractive when clad in only one color at a time (or a palette of subtle variations of one hue).
Light, neutral colors are preferred, and white is a major favorite. Non-neutral colors are typically used only as occasional accents.
One Focal Point per Room
The restraint of minimalist style allows for the great drama to be created when one point within a room is emphasized. That focal point may be a bed, a sitting area, a table, or a décor piece like a painting.
Smart Storage Solutions
Because empty space is such a critical part of minimalist style, having clever, functional ways to store stuff is an absolute must.
Biophilic Elements
One of the principles of minimalism is that neither architecture nor decor should distract from anything that is beautiful in and of itself. This often includes nature and the landscape surrounding the home.
Many minimalist dwellings incorporate nature into the home’s design by including lots of glass – sometimes whole walls made entirely of glass – so occupants can see the features of the land around the home from inside.
Some minimalist homes are purposely constructed in beautiful natural settings for precisely this reason. In these homes, views of the outside effectively function as décor. (When you can see a colorful sunset from inside your home, there is no need to hang a picture of one on your wall.)
Some minimalist homes go beyond the glass and bring nature indoors. An open-air entryway featuring trees and rocks, living walls, and biomontage walls are examples.
Design that incorporates nature, also known as biophilic design, has benefits that go beyond beauty. It is shown to reduce stress, enhance creativity and clarity of thought, improve emotional well-being and facilitate healing
Light
Few aspects of this style are more important than light. Natural light and lots of it is generally preferred. For this reason, the architecture of minimalist-style homes sometimes incorporates a lot of glass.
In minimalist structures, the positioning of windows is never arbitrary. Rather, it is carefully chosen to achieve the desired design effect.Skylights are also useful for providing natural light.
If you are designing within a structure that was not necessarily designed in the minimalist style, you will need to be particularly strategic in lighting your space. Fortunately, with the myriad lighting options available today, it is possible to create the effect you want.
Exterior style features
Simplicity
Above all, the exterior of a minimalist-style home should be simple and uncluttered. Intricately carved doors, shutters, colorful or patterned curtains in windows, and garden hoses are not what you want visitors to see as they approach your minimalist style abode.
Uniformity
Facades that are completely flat and all one color are a hallmark of minimalist style homes. No windows or windows that barely interrupt the continuous flow of the façade are also typical.
Cladding, if it is used is often continuous. Materials like concrete may also be used to create a structure that looks like one uniform block. Exterior features like gardens and walkways may be similarly uniform.
Furniture style
Minimalist furniture is not fussy. It serves its purpose efficiently and effectively and includes no unnecessary parts. It is made of high-quality materials and impeccably crafted. Design is also important.
Even unobtrusive, utilitarian pieces such as the chairs accompanying a dining table should be designed for optimum comfort and for the way they blend with other pieces in the room to create the desired look.
Danish modern furniture is particularly well-suited to minimalist style homes, as it is meticulously designed and made ─ with functionality and simplicity as its primary goals. The furniture style’s frequent use of high-quality woods such as oak and teak also fits the aesthetic.
Some mid-century modern pieces are also nice complements, with their clean lines and interesting designs.If a piece of furniture is the focal point of a room, it will sometimes be a work of art in itself. Chairs and couches used as centerpieces in minimalist interiors are often unusually shaped and quite striking.
Following are some examples of minimalist style furniture.
This is a minimalist modern set of floating shelves that follow the tone of the wall.
This is a small wooden console cabinet with a built-in shelf and drawers as well as simple and thin stands.
This is a close look at a Scandinavian minimalist-style lamp with wooden legs and a white hood. Beside it is a matching wooden flower vase of the same design.
This is a close look at the decors on the wooden console drawer with a simple minimalist lamp that has two light bulbs.
Materials
When it comes to the materials that should be used to create a minimalist style space, the only hard and fast rules are really that they are high-quality and great looking.
Decor
Pale neutral colors
Perhaps the best-known characteristic of minimalist style, a color that whispers rather than shouts is a key element of minimalist décor. White, beige, and the lightest of grays provide the perfect backdrop for the stylishly designed furnishings that are the focus of the space.
Nature-inspired and Live Plants
Biophilic décor is an important part of the minimalist style. Natural light, spectacular views of the outside world, rock, wood, and even water can all help bring the beauty of nature into your space. Live plants ─ especially succulents ─ in understated containers are one of the easiest ways to do this.
This is a close look at a bathroom vanity area adorned with various potted plants that go well with the white bricks.
Natural materials
Wood, stone, ceramic, metal, jute, and leather are just a few of the materials that work well in minimalist style home. In keeping with the principles of minimalism, these materials tend to come in colors that aren’t overpowering and bring tremendous inherent beauty, rendering decoration unnecessary.
Clean lines
To maintain the peaceful look and feel of a minimalist style home, décor should never be busy. Furniture and accents with clean, simple lines work best to beautify, without cluttering, your space.
Strikingly unexpected designs
In a space that contains few objects, the things that are there really get noticed. As such, it’s great to feature unusual objects.
Styles that mix well with minimalist
The popularity of the minimalist style has given rise to hybrids like cozy minimalism and rustic minimalism.
Cozy Minimalism
This is a close look at a cozy minimalist style bedroom with a wooden platform bed that extends to its large headboard topped with a concrete ceiling.
While minimalism places heavy emphasis on functionality, cozy minimalism adds a focus on comfort to the mix. Rooms are still designed around functionality, with the most useful part of the space (the bed, the seating area, the dining table, etc.) taking center stage. And the furniture is still minimalist in style.
What’s different is that textures and even accessories are then layered onto this foundation, allowing for added comfort and even expressions of personality, color, and whimsy. Just don’t overdo it. Clutter is still a no.
A cozy minimalist is a fantastic option for those that appreciate minimalism but don’t want to live in a space that looks or feels stark, or blank.
With this modified style, you get the clean openness and refinement of minimalism with a dash of comfort and warmth. Another name for this style is warm minimalist.
Rustic Minimalism
This is a look at a cottage bedroom with a rustic minimalist style. It has a consistent wooden tone to its walls, arched ceiling, bed, and bedside tables.
This rising style trend melds the crispness of minimalist style with natural materials, and vintage and industrial elements, to create something entirely new.
A key feature of rustic minimalist style is high contrast backgrounds like walls painted a deep bold color with bright white trim and accents. Furniture, floors, and built-ins are often made of wood, including unfinished and reclaimed wood.
Accents made of natural materials like jute, stone, and various metals also play a key part in the overall look. Like cozy minimalists, this style values comfort. Leather is a great choice for furniture as it is a natural material that adds a touch of warmth.
Also feel free to add different textures, patterns, area rugs, and eclectic art. Vintage pieces that go well with this style include mid-century some mid-century modern furniture ─ particularly when it’s made of wood ─ and rustic wooden trunks. Industrial features like pendant lighting with Edison bulbs and rustic metal kitchen and bathroom fixtures complete the look.
With all the options this style gives you, be careful not to add too many pieces, especially if your space is small. You still want your home to feel spacious and to have a clearly defined look.
Brief Historic Overview
Some say the minimalist style was born in the early twentieth century, as a product of the Modernist architecture movement, but most agree the Minimalist art movement of the 1960s and 70s was key to its development.
Minimalist art, as exemplified by the work of the painters Ellsworth Kelly and Donald Judd, was a reaction to the Abstract Expressionism that had dominated the art world for some time.
Since the 1970s, minimalism has become increasingly popular and influential. Today, its impact can be seen across the spheres of art, architecture, interior design, product development, fashion, and more.
Why it looks great
Like Chanel’s little black dress, the minimalist style accentuates the positive rather than distracting from it. It’s a timeless, tasteful look that also happens to be considered the height of fashion right now. Minimalist style makes small spaces look larger, which is always a plus.
Clean, open, uncluttered, and fresh are words often used to describe the look and feel of minimalist-style spaces. It’s no wonder experts say such spaces are good for creativity, clear thinking, and emotional and physical health.
The minimalist style also saves money by not requiring a lot of furnishings or decorating items. And because the objects in your minimalist style home should be high-quality, you will save in the long run by not having to replace things as often.
