Express your style in your house decorating.
Fill the interior spaces of your house with design and decorative elements that showcase your preferences and style, while creating comfortable spaces you can enjoy and relax in for hours. You'll need to consider many aspects of decorating so to pull together elements and make them work together cohesively, even when they traditionally don't. This is where the decorating takes on the design taste of the homeowner.
Instructions
1. Work with the color. This can be the first approach to the room -- starting from a favorite color or pulling colors from an inspirational design piece that has a place in the space. Play neutral colors, such as whites, black, grays, browns and taupe, as accents, highlights or backdrops in each room.
Pull out your favorite color and spin it on the color wheel. Pair it with its analogous, or similar colors, and then match it with its complementary colors on the opposite side of the wheel. Balance the tones between warm (reds, oranges, browns and yellows) and cool colors (blues, greens and purples) to make the color palette express the feel that you want for each room of the house.
2. Install flooring in each room. Carpeting is a warm and cozy flooring option for bedrooms, family rooms, living rooms, dens and office space, but when you have the option of working with existing hardwood floors, or plan to have them installed, incorporate accenting area rugs in these spaces instead. You will have the best of both worlds, and you will be able to appreciate the interest their contrasting textures add to the floor.
For kitchens, bathrooms, mud rooms and basements, tile floors tend to be the most functional in terms of cleaning, and the most durable and long-lasting in terms of wear and tear. If you prefer the warmth of wood, install faux wood ceramic floor tiles instead.
3. Position the furniture in the rooms for efficient function and to enhance the traffic flow through each space. How you place the sofa, the bed or the table in each of their designated rooms determines the feel of the room. The scale of the furniture must also appropriately fit the size of the room. Fitting a king-sized bed in a 10- by 10-foot room with a five-piece bedroom set does not leave much room for the people who need to use it.
Align furniture along the walls farthest from the door in areas with limited space. For more open areas, position the furniture as the room's focal point, or turn them toward the focal point, such as a fireplace or a fantastic outdoor view.
4. Select lighting that complements the style and function of the room. Lighting can make or break the design -- too little lighting steals from the ambiance of the room, while too much lighting takes away from how comfortable the room really could be without it.
Balance the lighting between general lighting that fills the room and spot lighting or task lighting that can be used upon demand. Incorporate lighting design into each room by choosing fixtures that replay the theme of the room's design, in terms of metal finishes, glass types, and shapes.
5. Dress the room with accenting window treatments. Repeat similar colors throughout the room in the window treatments. The continuity of design gives the room a cohesive feeling. Work with blinds for privacy, shade and insulation, and curtains and drapes to dress them up, soften the window lines and blend them into the room.
6. Incorporate artwork into each room to complete the room's design. Artwork has a way of taking a room from the ordinary to the extraordinary, especially when a piece really speaks to the design elements in the room, in color tones and in the theme of the art. The artwork can also be a focal point in a room, or it can function as an accent to a wall or space that needs a new definition.
7. Add accessories to each room to give them a personal touch. Even in selecting your own paint colors, flooring, furniture and window treatments, a room can still feel generic when it does not reflect unique, personal touches of the person behind the design. Accents can be any three-dimensional thing -- from the most expensive, exquisite, one-of-a-kind pieces to the free gifts anyone can harvest from nature in the backyard. It is all about the meaning that you give it, which shows through in its artistic placement in the room.
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