Maybe you just moved into your new home or maybe you’ve been there for a long time, but one thing is for sure — decorating your home can get overwhelming very quickly.
Like most things in life, if you take the time to properly prepare for your project, you will be well rewarded when you actually start to decorate.
Give some thought to how you are going to use the room
No, I mean really give it some thought. Sure, a living room is for living but are you planning to entertain family and friends in this space, or maybe you want to read or listen to music, or occasionally work from home, or maybe use the space for impromptu dance parties.
Thinking through how you will use the room will help you understand what paint colours you should consider and what pieces of furniture, lighting and other accessories you may need for your room. And if you are hiring a professional to help you with your project, sharing this info with them, will help you get the most out of the money that is being spent on the project.
If you are looking to decorate every room in your home, this might actually be a good place to prioritize the order in which you want to decorate the different rooms in the house. Decorating a whole home can be daunting and expensive. Tackling one room at a time will likely help you plan out your investments and make you enjoy the process more. Hopefully, it will help you stay sane, too!
Set a budget for each room
This is one of those things people have a really hard time doing. Setting a budget when it comes to anything is hard but it’s even harder when it comes to room design and decor.
Here’s the thing – having a budget, big or small, helps you understand what you can afford. A sofa can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. Knowing what you can afford in that spectrum will help you shop smart and sleep better at night after you pay for it all.
Setting a budget also should be based on balancing what you need in the room with what you can afford. If you have $2000 budget for your living room and blowing it all on a sofa will not help you get your room done!
Having a budget, however, does not mean you have to buy everything you need all at once. And knowing your budget means you can then figure out how you will finance the decorating project. Will you use savings, line of credit, a loan, or some other means to pay for your project? Or can you plan out your purchases over a period of time?
One way to get started on setting a budget for a room is to make a list of all the must have items for that room. And then do a quick search on the internet to get a sense for how much each item may cost you. Add it all up to get the total budget for your room.
Figure out what decorating style you are into
Are you into a decor style that is more traditional, modern, contemporary, Scandinavian, farmhouse, eclectic or something else or a style that is a mix of different styles? Let’s face it –most of us don’t really understand what these labels actually mean but we can tell when we like something and when we don’t.
Knowing what you like is key to ensuring that you end up in a space you feel comfortable and happy in. Rather than trying to pigeon hole yourself into one style based on a label, look through design and decor magazines and blogs and create a Pinterest or a Houzz board for your project.
Having Pinterest or Houzz boards are also helpful if you choose to hire a designer or a decorator to help you with your project. It will help them understand your style better and in the end help you get a room that reflects who you are.
Choose a colour scheme for your room
When we think of decorating a room, we almost always start by picking a single wall colour. Instead, what we should be doing is choosing a colour scheme.
Having a colour scheme allows you to not only choose paint colours for the walls but makes it easier for you to choose the colour of your furnishings, rugs, window coverings and accessories for the room. That means less stress when you are ready to go shopping for your room.
In the end, having a colour scheme means your room will look more coordinated and you will save time and money in your decorating journey. You won’t be wasting your money on things you see in the store but may not work with the overall room design and save you the time on having to return or exchange things.
So, how do you choose a colour scheme? Start by googling colour psychology and colour theory to learn about how different colours impact how you feel and which colours work with other colours.
The easiest way to pick a colour scheme is to look for something that inspires you like a throw pillow or a painting or a photo and pick the colours from that as your colour scheme. You will often hear design pros using these objects as jumping off points for their projects.
Stay tuned to our blog. We will be doing a post on how to choose a colour scheme in the very near future. While you wait, check us out on Instagram and Facebook. Every week, we post a colour scheme you can just lift and use!
Create a design plan that includes a style board and a floor plan
What the heck is a design plan and why is that so important? Well, in our view, a design plan for a room decor project should include a style board and a floor plan, at minimum.
Having a design plan will make it easy for you to figure out what you need for your room, give you an idea of what your room could look like, and help you understand and plan out the items you need to purchase to pull the room together.
It will also help iron out differences in opinions if you are a couple with different styles trying to decorate your home together.
Creating a style board can be super simple. Start with an online tool like Pinterest or Olioboard. This is where some of the previous steps will be helpful. Use the colour scheme, your design style, your budget and the list of items you used to estimate your budget to help select items for your room. From there, refine, refine, refine. When you are happy with what you have on your style board, that means you are ready to start this project!
Decide where each item will be placed in the room – at least for the pieces of furniture, rugs and lighting. You can use an online floor plan tool like Room Sketcher or SmartDraw to help you with this.
Now that you have a plan in place, it’s time to start your execution. Having done the prep work above will make this a more fun, enjoyable experience for you.
