The Basics to Decorating a Room

How to get started with an empty space and build it into the room of your dreams

What do you want the room to be?
Always think about the functionality and use of the room you’re setting out to make. You may know that it’s a bedroom or a living room or a dinning space but that isn’t enough. You shouldn’t buy furniture based on the general purpose of the room. Let’s say you like a nice bookrack and think it’ll look good in a bedroom but there’s a possibility that the book might never be used. It will depend entirely on the person who uses the room. Just buying pretty furniture will never help create a functional room. It’s more likely that the furniture will take up useful space instead of giving the room the look you want.

Make an outline … and stick to it
Decide in advance what you plan on getting for the room. This means you decide if you want paint or wall paper, a carpet or a rug. Decide the color scheme before you go out to buy furniture. The color scheme shouldn’t be based on the furniture available in store but rather on the size and amount of light in the room as well as the purpose of the room and the person who’s going to be using it.

Will you need to add something and are there any constraints?
If you’re renting a space (as opposed to living in your own home/ apartment) you might be faced with some restrictions to the improvement you can make to the apartment. You may not be able to put up more shelves and things like. If your rooms lack storage you’ll need to buy furniture to make up for it. You might also be restricted from changing the flooring and if you choose not to have a carpet put it, you’re floor will influence the room’s color scheme. If you need to put shelves up make sure that you keep in mind how much space they’ll take up (it’s better that you put them up first).

Can it be a multipurpose room?
Is there a chance that the room will serve multiple purposes? A lot of people combine the kitchen and the eating space or a spare bedroom with a sitting room so you need to take in to account if the room can be used for more than one purpose. There’s never anything wrong with using a room for more than one function, most interior designers try and give rooms maximum functionality and buy furniture specifically for it.

What do you need?
Once you’ve got this all mapped out, you need to make a list of some basic furniture that you’ll absolutely need, like a bed in a bedroom and sofas in a living room. Decide what size of furniture will work for the room. If your spaces are small, don’t buy big furniture, it’ll make the room look overcrowded and claustrophobic.

You’re ready to shop furniture!
Now that you’ve got this basic outline in your head, you can start shopping for furniture. If you want a better idea of what your room should look like go online and look for ideas that fit your room. Never worry about not finding the furniture you need in the right color, colors are always out there you just need to hunt for it.

How To Make A Small Room Look Bigger

If you have huge rooms, high ceilings and an unlimited budget, it isn’t very hard to decorate it, or to redecorate it often. What proves to be real challenge is to make smaller spaces less claustrophobic and more livable. If you have a small space that you need to turn into a usable room, either for studying or into a guest room, here are a few things you can do to make it look bigger and better.

Hidden storage
No matter what you use the room for, you’re bound to need to put stuff somewhere. Since you’re space is already small don’t try putting up shelves or buying racks and stuff. Find furniture that provides hidden storage space. Beds and tables with storages spaces can easily be found.

Mirrors
To make a room seem less claustrophobic, use mirrors with lighting. Mirrors against any one wall, whether narrow or wide can help to make a room look more open and fools the eye into thinking it has bigger dimensions.

De-clutter
Since you’re going to be using hidden storage spaces it only makes sense that you keep any and all clutter out of the room. Don’t mount too many pillows on the bed if you’re making it in to a guest room, or if it’s a reading room, don’t do overboard trying to fill it with too many rugs, pillows, chairs, and any other kind of seats.

Lighter colors
It’s okay if you use a dark color sparingly but keep most of it in a lighter shade. Lighter shades in the carpet, on the walls and in the curtains will make a room seem bigger and less overwhelming.
Smaller furniture
If you know you’re room has limited capacity don’t fill it with the biggest beds or sofas or racks. You can find nice modern and functional furniture in smaller sizes. Even sitting chairs come in less space consuming designs.

Find space saving furniture here (with lots of ways to arrange it)

Wall Paper To Go With Your Sofa

Ever have one of those irresistible desires to change how your wall looks? I know it sounds strange but when you’re walking past a store (or idly browsing its isles) you can’t but help imagine how great some of these patterns would look on your wall. I’m a sucker for anything with gold or silver trim because to me it gives the ultra sophisticated look (not to mention a hint of royalty). To satisfy my wall paper desires I have one wall reserved in the entrance hall where I change a panel of wall paper whenever I feel like it. There’s a nice little varnished table that sits there and I put a matching vase or some other decorations piece on the table and it looks just wonderful. For someone like me, whose compulsive at best whenever I see a new pattern for anything, this is the only thing that can be done. However, if you’re the calm and sensible home maker who doesn’t get giddy just walking past fabric you can do so much more to bring out any old room with a simple wall paper change.

You’re probably thinking that you’ll need to make some serious changes in your furniture if you decide on a wall paper that doesn’t go with your current scheme but there are a lot of other options. If you ever look closely at how rooms are made over, you’ll notice that the designers create a more sensible color interval to bring out the furniture. Color interval isn’t something official; it’s what I call it when there is a neutral color between any two matching strong colors. Say you’ve got a bold wall color, your sofa and cushions will be less bland but the center rug is going to be just as flashy as the wall.

When you re-paper the wall you just need to add something at a good interval. Let’s say you’re entire room is furnished in pink and you suddenly decide on sky blue or green wall paper. Add a matching decoration piece in the center of the room and at all corners that draw attention. You can purposely place something that matches the new wall color under bright light or add one or two cushions on the sofa to match the new color and tie in the whole theme.

Arranging Furniture…Rearranging Furniture

Where to put the Sofa? Rearranging the rearranged furniture

I spend countless hours going through magazines, catalogs and exploring sites just looking at chic sofa sets and cushions and stunning furniture layouts. There was a time when I thought that the look that came from these arrangements could only be achieved with that kind of furniture and that it’s pretty useless looking at interior design catalogs since I’m never really going to be able to afford a living room revamp as it is. upholstering doesn’t appeal to me because I can’t do it myself and the economy being what it is, I can’t dish out cash to have someone do it for me. so what I’ll normally do, when I’m not even up for changing the cushions and throws is rearrange the furniture.

A good way to start out with furniture rearrangement (from what I’ve learnt) is to always define your must haves, for example if your living room leads to the backyard, you can’t have anything blocking the way. You might want to avoid carpeting the area and just do with a simple rug in order to avoid having to clean dirt off later.

Someone once suggested that I should inventory all the furniture in a room before rearranging it, Just so I don’t forget to pick out the place for something but I find making a nice illustrated layout for it to be better. It’s what HGTV suggests. I prefer it because it gives me an entire picture of where I’m going to put what instead of just giving me the number of furniture items that I have.

Then there’s the whole question of just how many ways can I rearrange the same sofa and coffee table? Furniture galleries have always been my aid when it comes down to it. Interior warrior has some fantastic furniture and a really great gallery. Even if I don’t follow the layout as it is, I can usually pull something good off.

Take these two furniture layouts from Interior Warrior. While the two sofa sets are almost the same, they’re arranged different and look amazing either way.