Are you thinking about doing some redecorating and need a little inspiration? Sometimes it helps to brainstorm with others. Getting a perspective other than your own can ignite that creative spark. After all, we can all use a little help now and then. With that in mind, I’ve invited other interior designers to share their favorite decorating tips. They might just provide the inspiration you need to get started on your own project.
Define Your Design Style
Before sprucing up a room in your home, it’s important to first understand and define your design style. It will make selecting furnishings and accessories much easier and possibly less costly. How often have you been at Home Goods and just wanted to take everything home? Defining your design style will help narrow the focus of what you buy for your home, helping your wallet and the look of your home!
If you prefer a more modern design style (defined by minimal detail in architecture and furniture and sleek surfaces of glass and glossy metals), you would look to items that fit that criteria. If your taste runs more traditional, you’ll design a more richly layered look with lots of architectural details, curved furniture lines, and patterned fabrics. A transitional style is a blending of modern and traditional tastes. Transitional decor is identified by simple sophistication.
When you’ve determined a design style that fits you and your home, then all the elements you choose will combine into a cohesive look instead of spaces with no commonality that together form an inconsistent look. This tip will serve you well whether you’re sprucing up your living room with new accent pieces or remodeling your entire house!
Sarah Gaffney, Design Manager
Case Design/Remodeling of San Jose
It’s All About Color
Add a new color palette. You can instantly spruce up a room just by simply introducing a fresh new color palette. The addition of color can be brought in with accent pillows, window curtains, rugs, and new colorful art. And of course, a new wall paint color is always budget friendly and provides an instant sprucing up of any space.
Tamela D. Bowie, Principal Designer & Founder
Always include something black to your space. Whether it be a black lighting unit, a piece of furniture, or a set of pillows and throw, there is something about black that finishes a space and grounds it.
Not as fun, but getting a fresh coat of paint on all your trim is a great way to spruce up a space. And remember, trim doesn’t always have to be white!
Sarah Karakaian, Interior Stylist & Organizer
Let There Be Light
Swap out lamps for new, interesting shapes, colors and, if possible, always a little glitter or reflective finish. They are a relatively small investment in money and commitment, but they act like jewelry for the room, making classic pieces look interesting.
Switch out light bulbs to new LED bulbs. Cleaner, brighter lighting without a yellow incandescent cast makes everything look fresher.
Darla DeMorrow, Designer/Home Stager/Professional Organizer
Let the light in. Strategically placing a mirror in a room can make the room appear bigger and allows more natural light to circulate, instantly adding energy and beauty to the room. For example, large mirrors work great in small rooms, adding mirrors to hallways and staircases brighten the dark passageways and making a mirror a focal point will open up the room.
Liat Tzoubari, Founder & CEO
Go Overboard on Bedding
Allocate design dollars to bedding. A splurge on high quality, soft, high thread count sheets will repay you many times over. Climbing into a bed with sheets that feel great is a soothing way to end a stressful, busy day. Put fresh sheets on beds as often as your schedule allows so that they are smooth and wrinkle free.
Do you like to read in bed? Be sure to have plump pillows to support you so that you can sink back in comfort as you settle in to read that great book or magazine. And be sure that all of your bedding is something that gives you pleasure whenever you look at it, no matter what your style!
Carolyn Wesslen
Cut the Clutter – A Popular Tip Among Interior Designers
Create a master edit of everything you love altogether. So often we store away a colorful drawing that we are meaning to get framed, box up in the depth of our closets a great serving plate that somehow is deemed “too precious” to use, or hold onto things that we don’t need or want in our space. Use it or lose it. Consider everything by going through all of your things in the room. Get rid of the things that don’t serve or reflect who you are now by donating and recycling them. Bring out the things you love that tell part of your story.
Brynne Rinderknecht, Interior Designer/Founder
Get organized. I know this sounds more like work instead of decorating fun, but you will not believe how much it will change the look and the feel of a space when everything’s in its proper place. It will allow you to enjoy the true beauty of your furniture/accent pieces, collections you may have, and it creates a feeling of newness.
Shop your home. This is a great tip when there is a “zero” budget for sprucing up your home. You can shop other rooms in your home and switch out decorative accents, wall art, rugs and even pieces of furniture into different spaces creating new looks in each space.
Tamela D. Bowie
Clutter accumulates easily, detracting from a room’s decor in addition to creating visual and physical stress. Reduce stress and allow a room’s beauty to shine by throwing out unnecessary clutter and organizing the rest of the clutter in visually attractive storage containers: toys should go in closed containers (either round or square), magazines should go in baskets, keys and other small items can be put in small ceramic bowls.
Liat Tzoubari
Ready to Get Started?
These tips from myself and other professional interior designers probably have you anxious to tackle your own decorating project. Take a deep breath and consider the benefits of hiring a professional to collaborate with you on your project. Interior designers, like everyone, have their own style but their goal is to capture yours.
CW Interiors was founded on a passion for design and specializes in creating interiors that are warm, inviting and timeless. Carolyn will work with you to bring the interior design you’ve been dreaming about to life. Call Carolyn at (609) 618-2863 today!
