One of life’s greatest pleasures might be relocating, but it can also be a period of uncertainty, particularly when it comes to decorating. How can you design your area to appear its best and express your unique sense of style? If you do it right, your house will be cozy and joyful. If you do it incorrectly, you’ll have a jumble of furniture, fabrics, and paint colors that never come together into a visually appealing whole. You’ll have a lot more success if you plan ahead and take the same actions that experienced interior designers do.
Start outside of the furniture store
It’s common knowledge that it’s best to avoid grocery shopping when you’re hungry since you’ll make bad decisions. The same rule applies to furniture shops: don’t rush out to buy something just because your house is vacant. You do require a sofa. But if you choose the pink-striped sectional purely out of aesthetic preference and without considering the size of the space, you’re stuck with it. The remainder of the area will need to be created around that sofa, so if it’s too big, it will always look out of place.
Armed with a measuring tape and a notebook, begin in the room you wish to furnish.
Understand Your Measures
It’s important to match the size of the furniture to the size of the space. A large sectional sofa can easily overwhelm a small space, and slim chairs might disappear in an expansive loft. Measure the length and width of any space you plan to decorate, as well as the ceiling height and any potential obstacles like stairs, columns, radiators, and other obstacles, before you begin planning. In order to prepare for window coverings, it’s a good idea to measure window openings as well as the wall space below, above, and to the sides of each one.
According to David Kleinberg, founder of the New York interior design firm David Kleinberg Design Associates, “the first mistake most people make is that they buy things that are the wrong size. Sofas that don’t fit in the room, sofas that don’t fit through doorways, tables that are too small, desks that are too big, and nightstands that hang into the doorway. Precautionary measurements can help you prevent such issues.
Design a floor plan
When you have your room’s measurements, use them to create a floor plan that offers you a panoramic picture of your entire house. The president of Mark Hampton, the New York-based interior design company established by her father, Alexa Hampton, stated that “every assignment should start with a floor plan.” You must be familiar with the area.
A floor plan can be created the old-fashioned way using paper, a pencil, and a ruler. However the majority of designers in the industry utilize drafting programs like AutoCAD. Programs like Magicplan, Floor Plan Creator, and RoomScan Pro, which aim to make it simple for homeowners to create floor plans (some even automate measurements with your smartphone’s camera, but double-check those numbers), fall in the middle of these two extremes.
Once you’ve figured out the overall arrangement of the space, you may experiment with where to position the furniture, just make sure to scale the footprints of each piece to fit the size of the picture.
Choose Your Style of Living
There are no right or wrong answers in this hard part. Rooms might be formal or casual, old-fashioned or contemporary, visually warm or chilly. You should do your best to figure out how you want to live in a certain location, Ms. Hampton advised. “What are you going to do? How big is the population there? Are there kids around? What aspirations do you have for your ideal way of life?
A home should be set up differently from one for someone who dines out every night if they frequently host large dinner parties. The living room of someone who wants to organize expensive fundraisers should be distinct from the living room of someone who merely wants to nap in front of the TV.
Be like the pros
To hone your personal style, look in design books and publications as well as online resources like Houzz, Pinterest, and Instagram. Create a dossier of your favorite photographs and identify the style that appeals to you the most, advised New York City interior designer Brad Ford.
Study the details once you’ve found some photographs you like, Mr. Kleinberg suggested. Look at where pattern is employed as opposed to where solids are, and where color can be used well or not, he advised. Also, it will give you information on everything from potential window treatment options to the style of furniture you would enjoy.
Glue It Down
Use painter’s tape to mark where furniture will go on floors and against walls in the actual area to take floor plan ideas one step further.
Owner of the New York interior design company Tilton Fenwick Anne Maxwell Foster commented, “We use blue tape on the floor to box out distinct aspects. The rug will be where? Does it require cutting? How much of the coffee table is exposed? Even if we have a furniture layout with every detail down to the last sixteenth of an inch, it still helps to walk around and picture everything in the room.
Create a Budget
The math is clear: If you spend extravagantly on an unusually pricey chair, you won’t have as much money left over for the rest of the house. As Mr. Ford advised, “you want to make sure you’re being strategic about how you spend your money. A budget provides a road map for dividing the costs of items among rooms. He added that if you locate a one-of-a-kind dining table, you can still make an exception, but you’ll need to think carefully about other areas where you may make savings in order to pay for it.
Organize the Phases
It’s messy work to complete drywall, refinish hardwood floors, and paint ceilings. It’s preferable to have this type of work finished before bringing any furniture or accessories into the room, if at all possible.
If it is unavoidable, secure major furniture with plastic drop cloths and accessories with boxes of tape.
