How to make art that fits your home (not just your Pinterest board)
You know when you see a piece of art on Pinterest and it just works. The colours feel right, the scale feels right, the whole space around it makes sense. You save it thinking that’s exactly what I want. But then when you try to bring that same feeling into your own home, it doesn’t land the way you wanted it to.
It’s not bad, it just feels a bit off. And it’s hard to explain why.
It’s not you, it’s the context
It's important to remember those spaces haven’t just “come together”. They’ve been thought through as a whole.
The art, the furniture, the tones in the room, the lighting, the scale. Everything is working together. The artwork isn’t carrying the space on its own, it’s part of something bigger.
So when you take one piece out of that and try to make it work in a completely different environment, it can feel disconnected.
Why creating your own changes everything
This is where creating your own artwork shifts things completely. Because instead of trying to fit something into your space after the fact, you’re building it with your space in mind.
You’re not guessing whether the colours will work, you’re choosing them based on what’s already there. You’re not hoping the size feels right, you’re making it to fit the wall it’s going on. You’re not trying to match a mood from somewhere else, you’re responding to your own home.
So the end result doesn’t feel placed. It feels like it belongs.
What actually makes a piece work in a space
There are a few things that tend to make the biggest difference, and you’ll naturally start noticing them once you’re creating something yourself.
Tone. Not just the colours, but how they feel. Softer tones tend to sit quietly in a space, whereas high contrast or bold colours will stand out more. Neither is better, it just depends on what you want the room to feel like.
Restraint. Not every piece needs to be complex to work. In fact, a lot of the time it’s the simpler pieces that feel the most considered, because they leave space for everything else in the room.
Scale. When something has enough presence, it anchors the space properly.
Scale matters more than people think
Scale is one of the biggest reasons something can feel slightly off, even if everything else is right.
A piece that’s too small on a wall will almost always feel a bit lost. Not because it’s a bad piece, but because it doesn’t have enough presence to hold the space on its own.
But that doesn’t mean everything needs to be oversized.
A really nice way to work with scale is to think in terms of composition instead of a single piece. Two pieces side by side, or a small series, often feels much more intentional than one piece trying to do all the work on its own.
It creates a bit of rhythm on the wall and gives the whole thing more weight without needing one oversized statement piece.
This is something we think about a lot when putting our kits together as well. You can go for a single larger piece, or build something more considered with two canvases that work together.
Both approaches can feel just as strong, it just depends on the space you’re working with.
Start with inspiration, make it your own
Pinterest is great for inspiration, but those images are one version of what works, in one very specific setting. Your home is different.
So instead of asking how do I make mine look like that, it becomes what would actually work here.
And when you approach it like that, creating your own piece starts to make a lot more sense than trying to find the “perfect” one somewhere else.
Your home just needs to feel right to you
The easiest way to get there isn’t by searching for the perfect piece. It’s by creating something that was always meant to be in that space in the first place.
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Emmi
Co-founder of Plan