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Home Improvement Guide

Have you ever looked through home improvement magazines and wished your living room looked like the picture? Maybe you think the dining room featured on the cover of the next issue should be your own. Determining the design style for a room is an exhilarating challenge for some and a nightmare for others. Whatever the comfort level or skill set, following a few basic decorating techniques can create a beautiful, elegant look.

Perhaps you’ll prefer to leave it to the professionals. Hiring an interior designer to design the room provides a quality look with a limited amount of stress. Discover what you should know to find the designer that is right for you. A little homework will still be involved to ensure the final look is reflective of your desired style and personality. Whether you decide to do-it-yourself or to involve an interior designer, this section helps you create a room you’ll be proud to show off.

There is no wrong or right way to design a room. However, finding the right balance of color and style can be the difference between an eye-catching room and a chaotic mess. Knowing a few design tips and guidelines focuses the decorating on the key elements that will create an ideal room.

Getting Started
As the first step of the process, strip the room of excess clutter. Try to create as blank of a canvas as possible. If the room has been fully remodeled, this process is easy. However, when creating a new look in an existing room, stripping the room to the bare minimum will remove any distractions. Too many collectables or excessive elements make a room look chaotic and cluttered. Remove all pictures from the wall, vases, and other decorations that could influence a style direction.

After removing the clutter, thoroughly clean the entire room. In addition to the standard vacuuming and dusting, ensure that the furniture is clean, the draperies are washed, blinds and are clean, and the walls are washed. This creates the ideal canvas to start designing. Prior to adding new furniture, paint or wall decorations, reduce the room to its simplest form. Establish an open foundation that can be molded and decorated to fit any style and allows you to envision a myriad of possibilities.

Get Inspired
Search home decorating magazines and websites and pull pictures of rooms that inspire you. Use a file folder or binder to hold all of the pictures. After selecting a variety of pictures, review them as a whole to establish a foundation for color and style. Are there certain elements that are represented in the majority of pictures? Do they have a common color? Is the layout of the room similar? Are there furniture pieces that are used in several photos? Studying the collage highlights commonalities that help establish a desired style.

Set a Budget
Before the shopping starts, outline the available budget for the project. Even if funding is widely available, overspending on a room can make it cluttered and overwhelming. Avoid over purchasing and over spending by establishing a budget up front. If funding is limited, design the room and complete it over time. Purchasing elements in stages spreads the budget over weeks or months while still finalizing the project.

Establish a Style
Defining a style for the room determines the mood and overall look it should maintain. Revisit the collage and select four or five ideal rooms. From these pictures, establish the type of style you want to create in the room. Do you prefer a more formal or casual look? Are you more traditional or contemporary? Choose a style that is most appealing to you based on the chosen pictures and answers to these questions. The style you choose directs purchasing decisions that create a cohesive look in the room.

There are a variety of styles to choose from and each style outlines established rules regarding the type of fabrics, furniture, wall decorations, and molding designs that are incorporated into the look. Some of these styles include: traditional, country, contemporary, colonial, Victorian, eclectic, retro, chic, Southwestern, French, Spanish, Moroccan, etc. Unless you are trying to recreate an exact room from a time period or design for a publication, feel free to follow or break the rules as necessary. Using design style as a guideline helps in decision making but feel free to stray from the norm to create the look you want. Combining some styles will look out of place so work to ensure the mood of the room remains cohesive.

Style should also take into account the existing architectural structure of the rest of the house. Designing a contemporary living room in a Southwest style home will dramatically stand out. Every room should blend and create an even flow throughout the house.

Select a Focal Point
After selecting the style, determine the function of the room. What is the main activity that takes place in the space? Will the layout be formal or casual? Based on the function, what are the major elements that will be included in the room? Design a paper layout of the space and create a few different options to determine the optimal arrangement. Once a layout is established, select a focal point. This serves as the central, physical element around which all other design elements will be placed. It will be the first impression and all focus will steer toward this point when someone enters the room. Fireplaces, picture windows or even an open wall can be striking focal points.

Applying the rules of design requires knowing a few key terms that will help you design a balanced and stunning room. These design rules are universal and can be used in a variety of smaller scales like laying out pictures for a wall or a large scale such as landscaping the front yard.

Scale
This term refers to the size of the elements in the room relative to the room itself. The key is to find a balance between the two. Placing larger, overstuffed furniture in a smaller room makes it feel crowded and overbearing. Small furniture in a large room with high ceilings makes them look even smaller.

Proportion
This refers to the size relationship of all elements to each other. Again, the key is to establish a balance. Placing a small futon in front of a large picture window makes it look dwarfed and out of place in the room. Small, petite end tables placed on both sides of a large, overstuffed sofa draws attention to the unbalanced look. Establish a proportional balance with each element in the room to maintain a harmonious and cohesive space.

Contrast
Adding contrast to a room draws interest and excitement to the space. However, too much contrast can make the room feel chaotic and unbalanced. Sea green on a black leather couch or a cherry red centerpiece on a white tablecloth immediately pulls the eye and dramatically stands out in the room. Using too much of any contrasting colors however quickly takes over and muddies the room. Maintain a balance of contrast by incorporating only a few accent elements or one larger contrasting element.

Rhythm
Rhythm can further establish balance in the room by repeating a look within the space. The repeated look can be a color, fabric print, or style motif. While the technique is much more subtle than adding contrast, ensuring a rhythm to the room helps it blend and ties the space together.

This is where the fun begins. Adding color to a room makes it feel warm and cozy or cool and sleek. There are an endless number of colors to choose from and narrowing a selection can often be difficult. Once a prime color is chosen, what other colors complement it best? Gaining a basic understanding of color will provides some much needed guidance to create a balanced and harmonious room.

Color Wheel
A standard color wheel consists of 12 basic colors. Each of these colors is categorized as follows:

Primary Colors: These are colors that cannot be created by mixing any colors together. They are red, yellow and blue.

Secondary Colors: Secondary colors are created by combining two of the primary colors together. Example: Orange – mixture of red and yellow; Green – mixture of yellow and blue.

Tertiary Colors: Tertiary colors are created by combining a secondary color with a primary color. Example: Blue-purple – mixture of purple and blue; Yellow-green – mixture of yellow and green.

Additional colors are created by adding white, black or gray to each of the 12 colors. Depending on the amount added to the basic color, it can dramatically lighten or darken the color. The following terms indicate which color element has been added to create a new color.

Shade: Adds black to the color

Tone: Adds gray to the color

Tint: Adds white to the color

Color Schemes
Using the color wheel as a guide, a variety of color schemes can be developed to create a dramatic or harmonizing effect. Some of the basic color schemes are as follows:

Analogous: Combines colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. This combination is found often in nature and creates a harmonious feel that is pleasing to the eye. Ideally, one color should dominate and the other color or colors support.

Complementary: Each color has a complementary color that is found on the opposite side of the color wheel. This color scheme uses a combination of these two colors. As the colors are opposites, this scheme is more vibrant and dramatic and can be overwhelming is used in their full strength. Complementary colors can blend more when using a shade, tone or tint of the opposite color.

Triad: Combines three colors evenly distanced from one another on the color wheel. Used in their full strength, it can produce a vibrant look and even scaled down versions of the color can still be dramatic. To create a more harmonious blend, focus on one lead color and use the others as supporting colors.

Split Complementary: As a softer version of complementary, this scheme employs one prime base color with the two colors that are on either side of its complementary color. It also creates a vibrant and dramatic look but with a softer feel.

Tetrad: Combines two complementary pairs of colors. Using this combination creates a rich look by employing both warm and cool colors in the scheme. In order to balance the look, let one single color dominate and the remaining colors support.

Square: Similar to the triad, this scheme combines four colors that are evenly distanced from one another. The combination should be used similarly to the tetrad by combining variations of these warm and cool colors while having one single color lead.

Employing Color
Once a color scheme is chosen, how each color is used in the room dramatically changes the look. The amount of color and the intensity of the hue alter the appearance of the space.

Enlarge a Room: Use a light hue to make the room seem bigger than it really is. Painting the ceiling white makes it appear taller than its actual height.

Shrink a Room: Larger spaces are closed in using darker hues. Continuing that color or a darker color on the ceiling makes it feel lower as well.

Create Warmth: Reds, oranges, and yellows create a feeling of warmth to a room as they are associated with heat. Evoking a resemblance to fire and sunshine, these colors make rooms feel inviting.

Cool Down: Blues, purples and greens create a feeling of cool as they are most associated with oceans and meadows. Drawing from a resemblance to nature, these colors evoke a feeling of relaxation and tranquility.

For some, working with an interior designer may seem out of reach financially or intimidating if they envision they will not like the final outcome. However, if job or family responsibilities leave you with a limited amount of time to design a room or the entire house, consider using an . Costs and services can be adjusted to work with any budget and employing the skill set of an interior designer creates a dream room with a limited amount of stress. Keep communication lines open with your designer throughout the process to ensure the final result is a reflection of your personality and vision.

As you start the process of finding the right designer, follow the guidelines below to help choose the one that is right for you.

Develop a Plan
Before talking with any potential designers, develop a plan for the room. This should involve selecting a variety of pictures and room decorating examples from magazines and the internet. These examples demonstrate the style you find most appealing and reflects your personality. If there are particular colors or fabric patterns that should be avoided, include them in the plan. Specify the primary function of the room and who will be using it the most. Outline if children and pets will have free reign on the space. This will influence possible color and fabric choices. Inventory the room and outline what pieces need to remain ad which ones can be removed.

Use this plan as the blueprint for the interior designer. Providing them with as much information as possible up front ensures you get the look you want.

Determine a Budget
Set a realistic budget for the design of the room. Don’t be afraid to be upfront with the designer about limitations in the budget. This eliminates the possibility of over purchasing. Some decorative elements may need to be placed on hold and purchased at a later time. As you move forward with the right designer, ask them to provide a detailed breakdown of how the budget is utilized. At that time you can maintain certain elements and negotiate others.

Save additional money by handling some of the projects yourself. If you are proficient at painting, work with the designer to perform this job yourself. This can save you hundreds of dollars.

Create the Long List
Begin the process by creating a list of possible interior designers in your area. Find prospects by obtaining referrals from family, friends and co-workers, visiting local home shows and model homes, searching the internet and visiting the Interior Decorators-Designers heading at MyYP.com. Develop a list of standard questions to ask each designer and start making phone calls. During the call determine their overall design experience, the length of time they’ve been in business, the number of employees, if they have time to handle your design project, how they charge for their services, their approach to handling new projects, and if they can work with the available budget.

Some interior designers have an extensive background and education in design and architecture. Others may not have the education but have a keen eye for design. Make sure you ask them about their education and work history to determine what level of experience you are most comfortable with.

Schedule a Meeting
Based on the responses, develop a short list of potential designers and invite them to see the room. Keep this list to only two or three interior designers to make the process more manageable. Ask them to bring pictures of past spaces they have designed. Make sure they include a combination of different rooms, sizes and functionalities to get a feel for their versatility.

From this in-person meeting, enough interaction will take place to determine who is more open to your ideas and has a personality that meshes with your own. This is extremely important as you will be working with them for a while and you should feel comfortable communicating with them.

Determine the Fee Structure
Fees vary by interior designers. Some charge based on an hourly rate, flat fee or percentage of purchases. Make sure you are comfortable with the structure and how it is handled. Outline a pay schedule upfront and ensure both parties are in agreement.

Design Strategy
Once you have found the interior designer, share your developed plan with them and get their input on how they would handle the room. Ask them to provide a detailed design strategy including a detailed budget breakdown. Make sure it includes colors, fabrics, furniture pieces, layouts, decorative elements and that it takes your plan into consideration. Eliminate any unnecessary surprises by agreeing on the design of the room upfront. This is a good time to also discuss any elements of the plan that may need to be budgeted for later. Be as honest and upfront as possible about financial concerns. This will avoid any awkward or unpleasant conversations later.

Get It in Writing
When the final plan is agreed upon, make sure to get everything in writing. This is your protection to ensure nothing is forgotten and the vision agreed upon is ultimately followed.

Using an to design your room can be a pleasant and fun experience. Take advantage of their expertise in color, fabric, furniture, and décor to create the ideal room. They also have an extensive knowledge of flooring, wall coverings, windows, lighting, and sound, and can blend them together for the ultimate in form and function.

A popular method of design today involves incorporating the art of Feng Shui. Feng Shui follows a principle belief that everything in the environment, living or inanimate, is infused with movement. Along with movement, every object also has its own particular energy that radiates to everyone and to the space around it. Ideal Feng Shui design optimally balances the energy of objects to achieve the right amount of positive energy.

Chi is the positive energy that is emitted by people, places and objects. As every home is different, the flow of Chi is unique to every home. Every room has positive and negative energy and having too much of either one will throw off the balance. The fundamental principles of Feng Shui focuses on creating an ideal space that emits harmonious feelings and ultimately contentment and success.

Designers and decorators who specialize in Feng Shui design can help you create a home or space that optimally balances its Chi and keep the energy flow positive. There are a number of lengthy and complex rules that can get confusing unless you have an extensive knowledge about the ancient art. Working with a designer who is familiar with the principles can make it easier to understand and apply them.

The term universal design was originated by Ron Mace, an architect and founder of the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University. This term is based on a design approach that all products and environments should be usable and accessible to everyone – regardless of age, ability or circumstance.

Universal design should ultimately be invisible yet allow anyone to benefit from the design. An entrance ramp versus stairs provides accessibility for baby strollers, wheelchairs or moving dollies. An automatic door allows everyone right of entry.

Incorporating this approach to design into a remodeling or building project provides increased usability without requiring a significant amount of budget to make modifications after the fact should abilities or circumstances change. Physical disabilities, whether permanent or temporary, affect every family. Whether it is a broken arm, an illness or natural aging circumstances, changes will occur requiring more dependency on others. Creating an environment that is universally designed provides more independence, self-respect, and better quality of life when your circumstances change.

Work with your contractor or designer to incorporate these changes into your remodeling and design spaces. Simple universal design changes can include: lever faucets in the bathroom and kitchen, lever handles for doors, a walk-in bathtub, grab bars, lighting for stairs, and wider doorways.