6 steps to create the house of your dreams

Imagine you just bought a house, or rented an apartment.  You have a blank canvas, a space to furnish, decorate and call home. You’re excited and can’t wait to turn a few rooms into your special place, your oasis.

Only….Where do you start?

Should you first choose your colour scheme? Or maybe your  flooring…? Wall treatment? Furniture layout? And what furniture? You’re eager to start your new project, but you just don’t know how to proceed, and feel overwhelmed…

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I often feel overwhelmed too, especially when I want to tackle something that I’ve never done before. Just a few months ago, for example, I bought my first digital SLR. Until then, I’d always used an automatic point-and-shoot camera, and I didn’t know anything about aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, and so on.  I opened the box, unwrapped the much-desired camera, placed it religiously on my desk and looked at the  manual.

The manual… 250 pages of instructions. I flicked through the first few pages, and even looking at all the different buttons and functions made me queasy. My heart sank. I wanted to learn everything, quickly, so I could start having fun with my new camera. But the things to learn were so many, I just didn’t know were to start…

After a few weeks of  struggle, I finally decided to attend a beginner’s photography course to learn the basics. I was lucky to find an excellent, enthusiastic photographer who shared his knowledge generously and taught me how to approach shooting a photograph. Basically, he gave me the tools and taught me a method, a process I can follow every time I want to take a photograph and make it look  a certain desired way.

The same concept apply to interior design: if you want to design your space, you just need to work with  a method – like I did when I started learning about photography.

Today I’m sharing with you the process I use every time I work on a new interior design project. If you follow these 6 steps, you’ll find designing the house of your dreams much easier than you thought!

Step 1 – Clarify

That’s a vital part of the design process. Before you start making any choices, you need to have a clear picture of your starting point. This means knowing the answer to four essential questions:

● What’s the image and  feeling you want your house to reflect?

You might already know the answer to this question, and have a  clear picture of your ideal home; if however, you’re a bit confused, I suggest you identify what you like, what inspires you, and what mood you want to achieve. To do this, you can create a mood board, create “style files”, and write down in a few words how you want to feel in each room. This will help you understand your preferences  in terms of colour, texture, shapes, pattern, look, style, materials, mood, etcetera.

● What are your functional requirements?

Some requirements are basic and universal – like the need to have a bed to sleep in, some storage, or privacy in the loo – but most are highly individual and can change widely from person to person. For example, you might need your living room to double up as a children’s playroom, or  you might need a working area with space for a desk and a computer, or a screened off reading nook, or some room to make yoga…You might need plenty of storage for your clothes and minimal storage for your kitchen, or maybe you like skiing and need storage for large sport equipment. You may like an open plan environment, prefer a traditional layout with separate rooms for every different function, or maybe something in the middle – living room with dining area, but separate kitchen; kitchen with dining area, but separate living room…and so on.

To assess your functional requirements, I suggest you write down a list of:

● storage needed for each member of the family (clothes, shoes, books, toys, linen, sport & hobby equipment, kitchenware, cleaning materials, food, personal effects, pet food, collections, etcetera). This could be a good starting point for thinking of what you really want to keep in your house, and streamline your possessions Your storage requirements will be much easier to satisfy!

● activities you and other family members want/need to perform. Thinking of your daily and weekend routine is a good starting point to work out your list of activities.

● other needs & desires you can think of, like wanting surfaces that are easy to keep clean, dedicated areas for your pets,  desired level of privacy and noise, and so on.

Analysing your functional requirements will help you identify the different areas you’ll need in your house – like sleeping area, dining area, office area, reading area, food preparation area, exercise area…

● What’s you existing space?

Before you start making any kind of decision you need to know the dimension of your house/rooms, which means doing a survey of each room and drawing a plan. If this seems daunting, keep in mind that you don’t have to produce a perfect architect drawing! A simple outline drawn on graph paper will be enough to have an idea of the space you have; you’ll find it easier to work out the best spot for the different areas you need, and you’ll be able to choose the  right size of your furniture – no more oversized sofas that don’t even fit through the door!

● What’s your budget?

Last but not least, you need to identify the amount of money you can spend on your house. I know that working out what your budget is doesn’t sound fun – I personally dread it – but once you know what your budget is, it’ll be much easier to make decisions and plan your house decoration.

Step 2 – Generate ideas

After the analysis stage, it’s time to generate ideas.  But how do you do that? You can approach this stage in different ways:

● Take your list of functional requirements, select one or two key needs, and try to develop different ways to satisfy your needs.

Example: in the bedroom, you want a make up area  and a quiet spot for reading. Possible solutions to the make up area: a dressing table with mirror; a narrow, tall chest of drawer with a mirror hung over it at eye level; a cabinet with a sliding mirror, that slides open to reveal all your lotions & make up. About the reading area: a comfortable easy chair that can be suitable both for sitting at the dressing table  and for reading; a window seat; a bench; a raised platform with a few large cushions…

● Look for interior design ideas that address needs similar to yours, take them as model and see if you can apply them to your own house/room. You can check your local library for magazines and books on interior design & decorating, or search the internet.

● Think of the ideal solutions for your main requirements, and see if and how you can apply them to your  space, style and budget.

Try to think up as many ideas as you possibly can: lots of ideas = good starting point!

Step 3 – Evaluate ideas

Once you’ve generated enough ideas, it’s time to evaluate them and compare all the various alternatives. To do this, examine each idea and ask yourself these questions:

● Does this idea satisfy my requirements?

● Is it within my budget?

● How effective and suitable is it?

● What are the main benefits and strengths?

Referring to example of the bedroom – the dressing table might be your ideal solution, but your budget isn’t enough for both table & armchair; the sliding cabinet sounds good, but you need extra storage so the tall chest of drawer might be more suitable. You like the idea of a raised platform, but you don’t have enough room for it. Your friend is moving soon and she’s selling most of her furniture; she  has a lovely armchair that only needs re-upholstering,  would that be in your budget…and so on.

Step 4 – Combine into a whole design

Once you have evaluated your ideas and worked out all their pros and cons, it’s time to decide which ones are most suitable for you. See how your design and decorating ideas work together, choose the ones that satisfy you most, and integrate them together in a whole.

You could do this with  sketches, collages,  sample boards, drawings and notes. You can draw furniture on your plan, or even just circular or rectangular shapes  that define areas: sleeping area, make up area, reading area, etcetera).

Step 5 – Refine & implement

Leave your design alone for a few days, then get back to it and see if you can implement it in any way. Sometimes you can become so engrossed in a project that you fail to notice silly mistakes; taking some time off from your project will allow you to look at it with new eyes, and easily spot hidden flaws and possible improvements. Make sure to update your boards, drawings and notes with the new changes.

Step 6 – Finalise design

Once you’ve re-evaluated and implemented your design, it’s time to finalise it: gather all your updated sketches, boards, notes and drawings together. If you like, you can paste your sketches, dimensions, notes and samples in a sketchbook that you can carry around, so when you shop around for furniture, materials etcetera you can refer to it.  Now that you know exactly what you want, you can prepare a schedule and start decorating your place!

And remember: this is supposed to be FUN! You’re creating a home, making your nest, so  enjoy every step of the journey.

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If you’d like me to feature a particular interior design tip, just send an email to cristina@positivelybeauty (dot) com and I’ll do my best to accommodate your request.
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Tagged as: Interior Design - Tips