How to decorate your home ?

Moving into a new home can be one of life’s great joys, but it can also be a time of uncertainty, especially when it comes to decorating. What can you do to make your home look its best while reflecting your personal style? If you do it right, you will have a comfortable and happy home. But if you get it wrong, you’ll end up with a mix of furniture, fabrics, and paint colors that never blend into a pleasing whole. With a little planning and following the same steps used by professional interior designers, you’ll have a much better chance of success.
Home interior design: Preparing the ground

To be able to reach the finish line, you must first know where you are going.

Avoid starting with the furniture store

Many people have heard the advice to avoid shopping when hungry, as this leads to poor choices. The same goes for furniture stores: don’t go shopping in a panic just because your house is empty. Yes, you need a sofa. However, if you choose the pink striped sectional sofa just because it appeals to you in the store, without taking measurements or thinking about the rest of the room, you’re stuck with it. You’ll have to build the rest of the room around this sofa, and if it’s too big for the space, it will still look weird.

To start, take the room you want to furnish, armed with a tape measure and a notepad.

Know your measurements

It is important to match the scale of the furniture to that of the room. A deep sectional sofa can easily dominate a small room, and thin chairs can get lost in an open loft. Before you start designing, measure the length and width of each room you intend to decorate, as well as the height of the ceiling and any objects that might get in the way – stairs, columns, radiators and other obstructions. It is also a good idea to measure window openings, as well as the wall space below, above and to the sides of each, in order to prepare window coverings.

The most common mistakes people make are buying the wrong size items – sofas that won’t fit in the bedroom, sofas that won’t fit through doors, tables that are too small, desks that are too big, tables nightstands that hang in the doorway,” says David Kleinberg, founder of New York-based interior design firm David Kleinberg Design Associates. By carefully measuring your space, you can avoid these problems.

Create a floor plan

After you’ve taken your room measurements, it’s time to put them to use with a floor plan that gives you an overview of the home. “Every job should start with a floor plan,” said Alexa Hampton, president of Mark Hampton, the New York interior design firm founded by her father. “You must know space.”

One option is to draw up a floor plan the old-fashioned way, with paper, pencil and ruler. However, the majority of professional designers use drawing software like AutoCAD. Between one extreme and the other are apps that aim to make it easier for homeowners to create simple floor plans (some even automate measurements with your smartphone camera, but don’t forget verify these numbers), including Magicplan, Floor Plan Creator and RoomScan Pro.

Once you’ve defined the outlines of the space, start experimenting with furniture placement, making sure the footprint of each piece matches the size of the layout.

Choose how you want to live

This part is the most complicated, and there are no right or wrong answers. Rooms can be traditional or modern, formal or casual, and visually warm or cool. “As best you can, you should try to discern how you would like to live in a given space,” Hampton said. ” What will you do ? How many people live there? Are there children? What do you think are your ambitions for how you would like to live? »

Decorating a home for someone who regularly hosts large dinner parties, for example, should be different from decorating a home for someone who eats out every night. The person who plans to host lavish fundraisers should have a different living room than the person who dreams only of collapsing in front of the television.

Copy the professionals

Consult design books and magazines, as well than online resources like Houzz, Pinterest and Instagram to perfect your personal style. “Determine the style you respond to the most,” said Brad Ford, an interior designer in New York, and develop a file of favorite images.

Once you have images you like, study the details, Kleinberg advised. “See where patterns are used versus solids, and where color can be used successfully or not,” he said. It will also help you determine what type of furniture is best for you and what strategy to adopt for window coverings.
put tape on

To further the plan, use painter’s tape in real space to mark where the furniture will be placed on the floor and against the walls.

“We use blue painter’s tape on the floor to delineate the different elements,” says Anne Maxwell Foster, owner of New York-based interior design firm Tilton Fenwick. “Where will the carpet be?” Should it be cut? How much will the coffee table stick out? Even if we have planned everything down to the sixteenth of an inch on a furniture plan, there is something useful about visualizing the space, and being able to walk around in it. »
Setting a budget

There’s no escaping the math: If you splurge on an overpriced chair, you’ll have less money available for the rest of the house. “You have to make sure you’re strategic about how you spend your money,” Ford said. A budget gives you a roadmap of how to split the costs of things between rooms. You can always make an exception if you find a one-of-a-kind dining table, he noted, but to pay for it, you need to think of other places where you can save money.
Plan the phases

Finishing drywall, redoing hardwood floors and painting ceilings are messy jobs. Whenever possible, it is best to do this type of work before installing any furniture or fixtures in the space.