Step one:
Choose your theme or style. A home is an expression of yourself, and how you decorate it says a lot about your personality. However, some people have a few too many themes going. So, choose a style you like, whether it is country, Tuscan, modern, eclectic, etc. Then do your best to stick with it. You do not have to be totally matchy-matchy, or have everything be rustic, or modern, etc. but mixing country chickens with Tuscan grapes in the kitchen is just going to look silly, so try to pick and stick.

Step two:
Find a piece you love. Every room should be built around something you love, whether it is a fabric swatch you adore, a throw pillow that has great potential, or a framed piece of artwork. This is entirely up to you, and should once again reflect who you are. If you love the ocean it might be a photograph of you on the pier. If you love quilting it might be your favorite quilt. It may not even represent something you love, it may simply be that you saw a great knick knack in the store and decided to build a room around it.

Step three:
Use the piece you found as your guide. So, you have found a piece or item you love. So, now build the other elements around that piece. For example, if you find a great striped pillow with rich colors, you could choose one of the colors from the pillow for your window treatments, and another color for your throw rug. You could choose art work or frames that bring out some of the rich tones, and let the pillow tie the whole room together. If you were using a piece of artwork that has the ocean, you could match your wall color to one of the tones of aqua in the painting, and accent the room with sandy colors, whites, and other shades of blue.

Step four:
Add your personal touch. The one thing you want to do when choosing accents for your home is to have them be personal. While having a home that looks like a designer model home sounds appealing, you also want it to have a bit of you in it. This is often done with photographs or meaningful keepsakes being displayed. So, find ways to add personal touches while keeping to your theme and color palette. For example, you could use a few of your favorite photos to act as book ends on a bookcase shelf. You could use photo coasters on your coffee table, or have the family bible on an end table.

When you choose your accents for your home, remember that it is YOUR home, so choose items that look and feel like YOU.