Practical & Stylish Ways of Decorating With Baskets

Decorating with baskets may be the cheapest, easiest, and lowest-effort way to improve your home decor. Baskets don’t cost much, they double as storage, and they’re so pretty!

I love finding new uses for baskets around my home, so I have a pretty impressive basket collection at this point. There’s probably at least one decorative basket in every room in my house!

Since I’m such a fun of basket decor, today I want to show you how to decorate with baskets. But before I share my favorite basket decor ideas, let’s talk about baskets themselves…

Beautiful Decorative Baskets

The biggest problem I have with decorative baskets is that there are too many beautiful ones! Seriously, if I could fit any more in my home, I absolutely would. Instead, I have to restrict myself to just pinning them! I mean, how cute are these?!

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That said, one of the best things about decorating with baskets is that you don’t have to spend a lot. Decorative baskets can be expensive if you buy a lot of them brand new, but there’s no need to do that if you don’t have the budget.

One of the best ways to find affordable basket decor is by visiting your local thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets. You should be able to find plenty of used and vintage baskets for just a few dollars. You might even find some baskets with really unique looks and character!

Alternatively, you could buy some cheap baskets and decorate them yourself. It’s surprisingly easy to transform a plain basket into a basket that looks high-end using just paint and tape, or by adding ribbons, handles, or tassles.

And the most fun and creative way to grow your basket collection? Make your own! I actually made my own wire baskets once and they turned out so well! But I’m sure you could make your own woven baskets or fabric baskets just as easily.

My Recommended Ways of Decorating with Baskets

Of course, there are loads of ways of decorating with baskets, but I’m going to stick to ideas that anyone could achieve, no matter their budget or eye for design.

1. To Contain Everyday Clutter

If there’s one reason I love decorating with baskets, it’s that they make clutter look intentional. Clutter is a part of life. It’s not going to go away. We’re never going to get on top of it. The best we can do is contain it and make it look pretty.

This is where decorative storage baskets come in. They’re perfect for grouping everyday items so they feel styled instead of scattered. And they come in all different shapes, sizes, and materials, so they work for almost any kind of object.

Here are a few specific ways you can use decorative baskets to contain your clutter.

• Corral chopping boards on the kitchen worktop
• Keep napkins or cutlery handy in a small basket in the dining room
• Store toilet paper in a large basket in the bathroom
• Create an entryway drop zone for hats, gloves, etc.
• Keep all your daughter’s hair accessories in one place
• Put all your dog’s accessories, snacks, or toys in a designated basket
• Collect all those mismatched socks in one place until you find their partners
• Create drop zones around the house for anything that’s been left out and needs putting away
• Keep remote controls tidy in a shallow basket on your coffee table

We may not be able to get rid of clutter altogether, but we can absolutely use decorative baskets to make it look intentional, organized, and honestly… kind of charming.

2. To Hide Unsightly Objects

Let’s be honest… toys aren’t always the prettiest things in our homes! Yes, we want to make sure our kids have easy access to their playthings, but that doesn’t mean we want brightly-colored plastic taking over our living room.

Storing toys in baskets is an easy way to keep them out of sight but within easy reach. And they make tidying up super easy too – just throw the toys in and you’re done.

Consider using baskets for:

• Dolls and their accessories
• Toy cars and trains
• Dressing-up clothes
• Plushies

The same idea also works for other not-so-pretty objects, for example cleaning supplies. Keeping sprays and wipes in each room makes it much easier to stay on top of mess, but it can kind of spoil the overall aesthetic. So why not put them in smaller baskets that complement your decor?

3. As Decorative Pieces in Their Own Right

Baskets aren’t just pretty storage solutions. They can also be beautiful decorative pieces all on their own, with no specific purpose.

Try styling baskets on open shelves or on your coffee table. Fill them with beads, baubles, or tassels to make them look that bit more special. 

You could also hang some platter-style baskets on the wall, in the same way that people display decorative plates sometimes. Or literally just hang a basket from a wall hook to add a bit of visual interest to the wall. Quick, easy, and affordable!

4. As Plant Pot Covers

One of my favorite ways of decorating with baskets is using them as plant pot covers. Seriously, my house is filled with plants in large baskets! They’re everywhere!

It’s such easy way to tie your indoor plants into your home decor. Just drop the pot inside the basket and you’re done.

5. To Create Vignettes

A vignette is a small, deliberate display made up of a handful of objects. You might style one on a shelf, coffee table, sideboard, or entryway console using books, candles, vases, decorative boxes, and other pretty items. Baskets are perfect for vignettes!

Depending on the material they’re made from, baskets can bring texture and warmth to a display. Lidded baskets can even be used as risers. 

6. To Support Interior Design Principles

For a living space to look good, it needs to follow some basic design principles. For example, there needs to be contrast, otherwise your decor will look flat or plain. But you don’t want to go too far, or the room won’t feel cohesive.

If your room feels a bit “off,” it might be that a well-placed basket or two can fix whatever’s going wrong. 

Here are a few ways to fix common interior design mistakes by decorating with baskets.

1. To Vary Texture

It’s very easy to end up with a room that’s lacking in texture, especially if you’ve gone for a sleek, modern aesthetic. Luckily, introducing a few decorative baskets is an inexpensive way to add more texture.

Take stock of the different textures already in the room. If you’ve got a lot of smooth, shiny surfaces like marble worktops and laminate flooring, try adding some more natural textures using wicker baskets or rattan baskets. If you’ve got lots of wooden furniture, try offsetting it with some wire baskets, like I did in this entryway.

Try placing your basket(s) wherever things feel a bit flat or same-y, and play around until it looks better.

2. To Balance Weight and Size

For a room to feel cohesive and calm, there needs to be a certain amount of visual balance. Imagine a living room with a fireplace in the middle of the far wall. If you put an armchair on one side of the fireplace and left the other side empty, the room would feel off. 

To fix that, you could put another armchair on the other side. Or you could use something else with the same kind of visual weight as the armchair – perhaps a large houseplant or a dresser.

Because baskets come in so many different shapes and sizes, they’re the perfect go-to object for adding visual balance when it’s missing. For example, you could use a large basket to anchor an empty corner or stack a few smaller baskets to balance out one heavier object in a vignette.

3. To Break Things Up and Add Variety

If a room is feeling boring or empty, perhaps because you’ve just moved house, you can’t afford to decorate just yet, or you’re living in rented accommodation, you need to add some visual interest. Probably without spending a fortune on any big changes!

Again, decorative baskets are perfect for this. They’re relatively cheap and they come in all kinds of styles, which means you can use them to add contrast.

Imagine you’ve just had a brand-new kitchen installed. It’s all looking very sleek and modern, but it’s feeling too much like a room from a show home. To bring the room to life, all you need to do is use a few wicker baskets on your kitchen worktops – perhaps to corral your recipe books, keep condiments together, or store some napkins.

It’s a very small, affordable change but it will really change the feel of the room.

Likewise, if a room feels empty, use basket decor to make it feel more complete. Fill the empty spot next to your sofa with a large basket (and fill that with extra blankets and throw pillows). Break that shelf up using smaller baskets as dividers. Decorate that bare wall with wall baskets, which you can either leave empty or use for storage.

4. To Tie Everything Together

Finally, just as you can use baskets to introduce contrast, you can also use them to create unity. By repeating colors, textures, shapes, and so on, you can tie various items together and make your living space feel more deliberate.

For example, the basket on this shelf is a similar color to the metal ornaments, frames, the flowers on the wallpaper, and even the bottoms of the jugs. It helps create a bit of harmony between those items, making it feel like they belong together.

Try matching the color of your baskets to your hardware or other accent pieces. Or you could match the texture or the shape to other items in the room. The idea is to balance contrast and harmony. 

It’s Time to Find Some Decorative Baskets!

Decorating with baskets isn’t just about making your storage pretty. Decorative baskets are home decor accessories in their own right and, if you use them correctly, they can add texture, warmth, and personality to your home.

Start small by finding a pretty basket to fill an empty corner or fix something that’s not working with your home decor, and go from there. Happy styling!