Are you struggling with finishing or even starting to design a room. It’s something we have all experienced, even us decorators and designers. Life is so distracting sometimes and it can be hard to move forward. However, the key is to keep making decisions and to focus on ONE ROOM AT A TIME!!!

I know, I know, I always say that your home should be cohesive and it does, but trying to design a whole home can be hugely overwhelming. So tackle one room at a time and I think you’ll see that one room leads to another.

Here’s the way I design:

1.  Make a plan. Decide on how you will be using the room, who will be using the room and what you need to do that properly.  If it’s a family room and you will be using it to watch television and do crafts. You’ll need to have comfy seating for the tv and a large table with appropriate flooring and lighting for craft time.

2.  Plan your lighting. Lighting is so important to a room.  Just think how annoyed you are when you don’t have the proper lighting when you are trying to do something.  Make sure there is ambient lighting (the general lighting for a room) and the appropriate task lighting (such as table lamps for reading or pot lights set over the craft table).  Decorative lighting can be added for mood and ambience in the form of sconces, candles or a decorative floor or table lamp.

3.  Style and colour. This goes along with #1 in that you need to have an idea of what style you would like.  The best way to do this is with magazines – pull out pictures and keep a file or make a pinterest board. I’m eventually going to post some tips on keeping your pinterest boards on point.  After you have a bunch in the file or pins on your pinterest board, a clearer picture of your style will emerge. Tada you have your inspiration. Colour will also show up in these photos. The colour of the walls will be determined at a later stage once you have the bigger pieces decided upon.

4.  Large pieces. Now is the time to invest in the larger more expensive pieces for the room.  Such as a sofa, area rug, draperies and case goods.  These are the items that you will be keeping for the long term and they form the base of your design.  This is where you usually spend the bulk of your budget and because of this I usually stick with classics and neutrals for these items.  You can however diverge from this tract, if for example you love red and fall in love with a red sofa.  GO FOR IT!  This is what will make your room, you!

A note here about pattern, if the larger items that you have decided upon are all solids you may want to add some pattern either in the area rug or in a smaller upholstered chair or ottoman. This gives the room some pizzazz.  Otherwise I would consider adding some wallpaper to the walls instead of a solid paint colour.  The key with pattern is to ensure that the pattern sizes are not all the same. For example, if you have a large pattern on the area rug then have a smaller pattern on the ottoman, so vary the scale of your patterns.

5.  Shopping. Okay now that you’ve decided on the larger items and their cost, you can form a budget.  This will guide you as to where you can splurge and where you can save.  A great room always has some of each in it – that is what makes it interesting.  Remember to keep some money for paint and accessories (usually about 15-20% of the budget).

6.  Paint colour.  I look at all the major items purchased and the rest of the home and then decide what would be the best colour choice.  Paint is one of the most inexpensive parts of the design process and with so many colours, this works the best. Once I know the main colour of the walls, I can then go on to the next step, accessory shopping.

7. Accessories. I do up a list of what I think I’ll need. For example, small round end table, gold framed rectangular mirror approximately 24”x12”.  This is also when I check to see if there is an abundance of one shape in the room.  If there are lots of square items, I balant with some round smaller items and accessories.  Most decorators and designers will pick up way more accessories while shopping. Gives us a great bunch of choices when doing the final placement.  Just return the items that you don’t need. So be sure the store you are shopping at has a great return policy.

8.  Keep on track.  Now is when you’ll usually get distracted and start looking for items for another room in your home.  Try and keep focused and only purchase for the one room. Your budget will thank you and you’ll have one room done instead of all of them in progress.

9.  Put everything in place. If you have managed to hold off now is the time to put everything in place.  Of course, first off the room should be painted and then the larger items positioned in place. Then the smaller furniture pieces and accessories, such as artwork, mirrors and decorative pieces are added.  And Voila!! a perfectly finished design!!