How to start designing home interiors.
A very important thing to be done before decorating your home interiors.
It is always said that if you want something well done you better do it yourself rather than delegating and then not being satisfied with the results. Naturally, this does not apply to fixing your own car if you are not that good in car mechanics, but when it comes to designing your very own interiors, there is nobody like yourself to achieve exactly what you want. It really does not matter if you are not an interior design expert, you just need to take some time to do things in the correct way.
When it comes to the interior design of living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, etc; the very first step is measuring the room space. After you get all the meters written down, do accurate scale sketches of the room (try to use several perspectives). To do this you can use your very own hands or a computer program. After you have done this, make some copies of it, you may need them if you wish to go over several designs and then choose your favourite. If you have a design style in mind, do some research first: my first design was for my bedroom and I went with oriental style, Chinese to be more specific, so I looked into ancient china designs to have a notion of the color pallets and art.
One important thing in this stage is to foresee how you are going to move around the room. This may sound superficial, but the truth is that there are parts of the floor that are going to be more used as everyday walking paths (I once read, many years ago, that before designing a park, landscapers –I think it was in Japan, yet not sure- waited for some weeks to understand how pedestrians moved around the area, then they proceeded to build the walking paths using the marks that have been settled in the grass by people). You will know how you are going to be moving around the specific room by watching where the doors to the other rooms are and integrating these to the drawing (don’t forget to add the windows too) and knowing where to put rugs.
Flooring comes next, and this is something that you need to get right for they are usually the most expensive thing when it comes to interior design. Not only they will play a great role in the overall room design but also they have to last for long, so it is recommendable to spend an important part of your budget on quality flooring. Think about the color and then proceed to paint it on your sketch.
Walls come afterwards; you can use paint and/or wall paper. It is also recommended not to paint all the walls the same colour but to choose one accent wall to add a second color (in this wall, you can use wall paper). If you are not sure about the colors, use the other copies of you sketch to try them out.
Furniture is the following item on the list: think about the furniture disposition first, so then you know where they are to be placed in the room and you can select the size of the tables, sofas, coffee tables, etc.
Then –or it can be done before the furniture selection- think about lights and light fixtures and last, about curtains and ornaments.
The excellent thing about having sketches consists in the possibility of giving expression to the ideas that are floating in your head, giving them shape and knowing before hand if it is really going to work. Try to carry some copies with you so if you have an idea somewhere else, you can capture the inspiration in paper.
