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 Home Improvement
Designing Basics
Before you begin designing your home you should be aware of
a few basic things, which will help your dream home, come into being.
FINDING YOUR STYLE FOR DECORATING HOUSE
The first step towards
decorating your house is to find out your style and taste and decorate
your house with your personal touch. The most successfully decorated interiors
are the ones, which express the occupants' personality, interests, and outlook
about life. You need to find a style to call your own. You and your family need
a style that you are comfortable with, which reflect your lifestyle. Some people
are born with an inherent sense of knowing what they like, have excellent taste,
the ability to choose and blend elements, to create design that reflects their
style. Other people cannot easily do this.
Following are the guidelines on how to easily find your house
decorating style:
1) Where do you
live?
Do you live in the city or suburbs? Do you live in a town or
village? This is important to flow with the style of the place where you live
and look of the home, keeping the initial theme consistent. You may want to
continue the same style in your interior to make the home really flow.
2) Is the home dark, excessively sunny, light and airy?
If the home is dark, then lighten it up in colour, furniture,
mirrors, etc. If the home is excessively sunny, take care of the sun problems
when planning ideas for decorating your house.
3) How would you like to furnish your
house?
Look at the existing furniture
to see what you have selected in the past and have a tendency to prefer. What do
you choose to take while decorating your home? Work with these items in color
and style.
4) Colouring your home.
What are your favorite colors, and which of these favorites
colours would you like to live with for a long period of time?
5) Assorted styles are always a very comfortable way to
decorate.
Eclectric arrangements and combinations add interest and
relief from too much of the same look. You may want to invest in artwork. Use
the artwork as the focal point. Use the colors of the artwork to decorate the
room around. Look through books and magazines. See what you consistently seem to
prefer. Decide what you like about certain elements and ideas over others.
6) Study your surroundings.
By
studying your surroundings you will gain insight to using the style in your home
and also touring model homes and seeing the actual rooms decorated will benefit
you a lot. Snap pictures of ideas you see that you particularly admire. Visiting
friends and neighbours homes will give you a range of design ideas. Tour
decorating shops and studios reflect in your decorating selections and
preferences for a wide range of displayed styles and effects. Your occupation
will also reflect in your decorating selections and preferences.
7) Style according to your personality and status.
Do you entertain a lot, and desire elaborate treatments to show
your status in life? Is the home primarily a backdrop for entertainment? Your
lifestyle will heavily reflect upon your designing style.
8) Be sure to think about your animals while designing your
home.
9) Your lifestyle.
Are you home often?
Do you put the home to full use or do you just come home to sleep, bathe, and
change clothes? Are you seeking a comfortable, cozy feeling, or is an extremely
clean atmosphere desired?
10) Interior selection.
Try to decide how you really want your interior to look. You and
your family are the ones who must live in the home with the interior selections.
You should have what you really want. If what you desire is not affordable, do
the decorating in stages.
11) Ultimate analysis.
When you decide which design direction you are going to go in for,
assemble all the fabric samples, flooring samples, and wallpaper samples. Look
at all the samples together in the home. Live with the combination for a few
days to see if you and your family are happy with the selected design. Try to
match all the things together and try to relate it with your personality,
lifestyle, taste and choices and there you go your have the best design for your
home.
 CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLOUR
The next step
towards decorating your house is picking the right colour. Color is important.
It is the key. A person's choice of color for their home depends on many things;
trends, childhood influences, etc. Try using colour which match your taste and
sense of style. When it comes to using colours that aren't going to be replaced
often, choose a neutral colour. Reserve the more daring or trendy colors for
your accessories, such as rugs, pillows and art, because these can be changed
cheaply. If you cannot decide upon a colour then simply chose a colour, which
will match with your furniture and curtains. If you want to try out some bright
and vivacious colours then listed below are a few colours, which are trendy and
vivid.
Red
expresses excitement, high energy, warmth and vibrancy.
It is the strongest of all colours. It is a very stimulating and
active colour. It would be a beautiful colour for an entrance hall or lobby.
Warm reds are also inviting and intimate in the dining room.
Green represents nature, growth and relaxation.
It is a soothing colour and may remind us of rebirth. Green goes
with almost any colour and in its darker and more neutralized shades can be used
as a neutral. A green kitchen feels fresh and clean.
Pink hints at trustworthiness, happiness, youth and
sweetness. Pink is a very complementary colour to skin tones and is
an ideal colour for the bath room.
Blue reflects
a calm, restful and relaxing environment. Blue is one of the most
popular colours and tints of blue will make a room appear more spacious.
Yellow represents happiness and optimism,
however vivid and light tints can appear even brighter and more
glaring than white. Yellow is an excellent colour to use in a room that does not
receive any natural daylight or in a dark hallway.
Brown conveys contentment and comfort. It is a subtle
and masculine colour and would be a perfect choice for a library.
Purple is a regal colour, which can denote
nobility, dignity and luxury. Deep purple or plum is a wonderful
colour to have in a guest room to make your visitors feel like they are getting
the "royal treatment."
Orange symbolizes spirit,
warmth, comfort and action. Orange would be pleasing in a family
room, but, an extremely vivid shade of orange can be tiring when used over a
large surface.
Taupe communicates conservative
thinking and is considered a very sophisticated colour. A taupe
living room will appear rich and glowing.
White
implies virtue, purity, cleanliness, spaciousness and innocence.
White rooms tend to be very dramatic and create a feeling of quiet luxury. A
master bedroom with large amounts of white could become your oasis from a hectic
world.
Gray depicts a sedate, neutral and composed
environment. Gray is a very appropriate colour to use in a
home/office office.
Of course, there are many different shades and tints
of each of the previous colours and each will have it's own distinct
personality. Designers should base their colour selections on how their client
feels about a particular colour. A room filled with bright vivid colours may
energize one person; another person may find the intense hues tiring. So
ultimately it boils down to one thing is how well you adapt to a colour and
which is the colour you want to live with and with which you are comfortable.
Colour scheme basically highlights the personality of a person and whatever
colour you choose should identify with your personality.
FURNISHING - HOME FURNITURE
 Furniture is an important part
of your house. Just as you dress up yourself you have to dress up your hoME with
furnitures. The important thing to remember is whatever furniture you choose to
go in for should match with the designing style and the wall paint. Do not make
the room over crowded with furnitures.
When
buying furniture for your home, you may want to think about versatility. Look at
items that have more than one purpose. Shopping for secondhand items and putting
them to new purposes can be a cheap way to put a spark in an ordinary room.
Secondhand furniture -- or your existing furniture -- can be updated
with painting or a refinishing. This will save your from spending a huge amount
in buying new furnitures and will also give you an added advantage of changing
your furnitures which will match any new design style that you wish to go in for
or if you have changed the wall paint. Experts suggest reviving an old sofa or
chair with fabric slipcovers give you the flexibility of mixing and matching
colours from time to time, perhaps when the seasons change.
Area rugs and
plants can also change the feel of a room. It will give the room a fresher look.
Plants placed in nice pots and lit from beneath so the light can bounce up off
the leaves gives the room a very energetic look.
Use the following
guidelines while dealing with furniture's in decorating your home:
-
Try to have a
simple and neat furnishing.
-
Adequate
storage space is an important factor while decorating your house. Kitchen
cabinets, beds with storage space under them, built in furniture (cupboards,
seating, tables etc) all utilise space well and hence try to go for it.
-
Go for cane,
metal, modular furniture, which looks light and airy and
can be moved around
now and then also.
Just as you think of furnishing your indoor have you ever thought
of furnishing your outdoor as well. Today is the time to enjoy nature and a
simple life. Thus relaxing in our garden or chatting with friends and relatives
is a welcome thought. Whether you have an acre or an apartment balcony, you've
got what it takes to create an outdoor space that is cheerful, relaxing, and
functional.
If you have a big lawn or garden then a nice table with
chairs would encourage lunch a la fresco or a dinner under the moon. There are
many options for a good quality table and chairs that are not plastic. If you
are more inclined to relax outside and lay under the sun while reading a book. A
variety of lounge furniture is more your style. Reclining chairs, lounge chairs,
folding chairs and benches would be a handsome addition to any outdoor area.
Once that new furniture is in place it is time to accessorize. Decorate
your outdoor room the way you would indoors. Some of the most popular and
satisfying additions are potted plants and flowers. Or, consider some brightly
colored dinnerware and glasses to entertain guests. Candles are also a good way
to cast a soft glow when you are dinning outside.
Now your outdoor area
is furnished and accessorized. It is time to enjoy the spring breeze and nature
around you. Sit down and relax, drink your ice tea, a glass of chilled beer and
enjoy yourself in the cozy comfort of your beautiful garden or lawn.
TRUST YOUR TASTE
 One important thing to
remember while planning an Interior Decorating Project is always trust yourself.
Know that you are the best judge of what you want in your house, be it style or
colour or furniture. You have to make the ultimate choice.
Always
collect the interior designs you like or saw in a magazine and keep it safely.
It can be used later on when you plan to renovate your home and then you will
exactly know what you want without going through a tedious job of picking a
design in case your are not sure of what you want.
Sometimes interior
designing could be as easy as flipping the furniture from one place to another
or adding a touch of a different colour to a room with pillows, fabrics, or
flowers. Another easy way to change a look is if you have a bookcase that
usually holds books, remove the books and put baskets, candles, and dishes in
the bookcase instead. Candles are also a new fresh idea. Candles are being
manufactured in many shapes and sizes and add a glow to any room.
Thus
designing your home simply needs a little bit of time and some innovative ideas
and then you can really change the entire look of your home.
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