I feel hanging shelves and putting tchotchkes on em really add a lot of personal touches. I went with some geometric shaped shelves that I placed in a pattern on the wall and put some object de arte on em and that did a lot of good for making it feel more homey. I’m embellishing a bit on “object de arte”, I got a go set, a red wax elephant, a Star Trek ship and a small plant on there, just some stuff that relates to my interests and a few splashes of color.

If you’re nervous about putting holes in the wall, some wire frame shelving units can work, too, and you can get them in all sorts of shapes and sizes these days. If you search using the keywords “geometric” or “asymmetrical”, you can easily find some designs that help break up the flat lines of a book case style shelf that I feel adds a dynamic feel to the decoration.

Lastly, if you can splurge for it, there’s always the classic paintings. Find an artist you like and go for a print or two. I went with stuff by Kandinsky, but I really like that sort of abstract, dynamic piece, to my boyfriend’s chagrin, so maybe talk about it with the people you live with first more than I did (he’s come to tolerate it plenty fine though and we get compliments all the time so haha I win).