Decorating! Where and How Do You Start?

Decorating_lounge_room_350 People catch the decorating “bug” for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the children have recently left the nest or you’ve recently come into an unexpected “pot of money”. Maybe you’re simply tired of things as they are and you want to freshen things up. In any case, you know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, so you wonder where you should start. And how do you start? Is there one best room to start from and one best way to start?

Let’s assume the “where” question has to do with which room in your home would be the best place to begin. There are several answers to that question; depending on you and your personal tastes and abilities.

Some expert designers would tell you to start with the room that is most frequently seen by visitors to your home. This is a perfectly sound strategy, but if the kitchen or one of your bathrooms or your master bedroom is an area that bothers you the most about the way it looks, one of those would be a better choice. Selecting a room you feel is most in need of attention suits your needs, not the needs of your visitors.

A final strategy has to do with your level of confidence in your own abilities. Starting with an out of the way den or study that is less frequently used by members of the family only gives you the opportunity to practice and perfect your decorating skills.

Once you have a “where” to begin you’re ready for the “how” portion. There is a hard and fast rule here: start with a design plan for the room. The plan should spell out in detail how you would like to use the room – its function. For some, this means noting that they use their bedroom as an entertainment center as well as for sleeping; they like to watch Television there. The design plan influences the decorating components you’ll select for the room. In the bedroom example, this means you might add a formal entertainment cabinet, instead of leaving the television on top of your dresser as it is now.

If your long term plan is to redecorate your entire home, or most of it, you need to realize that each room does not exist in isolation from every other room. Good designers tell us homes make statements about the people who live within, and those statements should be consistent throughout the home. So before you begin decorating the room where you’ve decided to start, you need to consider its design plan in relation to the rest of the home.

Some of us who are new to decorating are just not that sure about what we like and don’t like. How can we consider a design them or motif that will be consistent throughout the home if we’re not sure what appeals to us? Here’s a way to start answering that question.

Designers tell us most rooms should have a central focal point of interest; and all design and decorating elements should flow around that point. If you have a lounge room which serves as the family’s principal entertainment area, you’ll want to add an Entertainment Center Cabinet as a focal point. If you shop for one and find the sleek look of embossed black laminate cabinetry with chrome and glass touches, a modern style is probably your thing.

On the other hand, if you find cabinets made of natural wood with intricately detailed carved moldings and trim, traditional styles are for you. You can apply the same test to lounge room furniture. If Victorian style camelback sofas or heavy tufted leather chairs appeal to you, you’re a tradionalist.

With the room selected and a design plan in hand, you’re ready to begin and we are back to the “where” question. Where within the room you’ve chosen should you start?

You might find some decorators who’ll advise the color of the walls or the flooring, but a better choice is almost always the focal point. In a bedroom, as an example, that is the bedcovering on the bed. It is much easier to find a paint color that complements an elegant quilt or bedspread or comforter you have selected than it is to find bedcovering to match the colors you’re already painted on the walls! Start with the central focal point, and let your decorating support it. Good luck!