Interior design is far more important than many people like to let on.
While some see the process of interior design as frivolous, the fact is that how your home looks can have a huge impact on your mental health; if you don’t like where you live, you’ll be less happy, and that’s a fact.
As such, when you’re designing your home, you’ll want to make sure that it’s exactly what you need it to be, and that’s where we come in.
Here are our 10 top tips to help you achieve interior design perfection!
Table of Contents
1. Make sure you finance yourself first
Committing to any kind of interior design plan is a mistake before shoring up the funds you need to do it.
There are, of course, many ways you can build the cash reserves to redecorate. You could look to friends and family, dip into savings, or potentially even apply for online loans to give yourself the money you need.
Whatever you do, just make sure that you don’t have an empty bank account when you start thinking about your ideal interior design makeover, because the last thing you want is to be scuppered by a lack of funds.
2. Create a plan
It’s not a good idea to rush headlong into the world of interior design. Creating a plan first means you’ll always know what you’re doing, every step of the way.
Take your plan room by room. What do you want each room to look like? Will you create a unified colour scheme? How will you approach furniture?
When you’re armed with a plan, you can create a much more cohesive interior design aesthetic, which will, in turn, likely make you happier with the end result.
3. Choose a colour scheme you love
Picking a colour scheme for your interior design efforts isn’t always easy, but choosing the right one will be beneficial to your happiness and mental health.
The process of choosing a colour scheme can be involved and intricate. It’s important to pick a scheme you like, as well as one that will gel across all of the rooms in your house.
Think carefully about vivid and extreme shades, too, as these might cause more discord than harmony for you, even if you love them.
4. Shop smart
When you’re shopping for furniture and other accoutrements, you should make sure you’re shopping as smart as you can.
That means dipping into charity shops or second-hand stores to look for items that you might otherwise neglect, and it also means asking friends and family if they’ve got anything they’re looking to rid themselves of.
You could save yourself a serious amount of money if you look in some slightly more unconventional places for the furniture you’re going to put in your home.
5. Add some art
If you’re thinking that your walls are looking a little bare right now, it could be because you haven’t installed any art.
Adding art, photographs, or murals can make your home look more individual; it can give character to empty rooms and spaces, and that character can essentially be whatever you want it to be.
Adding muted art can make a space feel austere, for instance, while adding quirkier or more unique art can make it feel more creative and welcoming.
6. Consider your lighting
Lighting is an essential part of the interior design process; it can totally transform a room and bring a completely different ambience.
While artificial light is, of course, important, you should make sure that you introduce an element of natural light to every room you possibly can.
You might also want to consider smart lighting, which will let you control the level and colour of the light to a minute degree in each room.
7. Bring in some plants
The benefits of plants when it comes to interior design have been well-documented, even if the health benefits when it comes to air purification might have been exaggerated somewhat.
Adding plants and other natural elements to a room can make it feel that much more lived-in, and there are plenty of plants that don’t require much maintenance, which is perfect if you lead a busy lifestyle.
Try to add at least one plant to each room if you can.
8. Repurpose existing items
Rather than buying everything completely new, you might wish to consider repurposing items you already have in your new interior design plans.
If you’ve got some furniture that isn’t quite serving its purpose in one room, for instance, why not move it to another, or even get creative and try to find an entirely new use for it?
Looking at the things you already have from an entirely new angle is always a good idea when it comes to interior design.
9. Don’t design for current trends
Many interior design experts will tell you that current trends are the way to go when it comes to designing your home, but you should disregard that advice.
Instead, you should make sure you design your home’s rooms according to how you feel. Keeping up with modern trends might feel good in the moment, but those trends will pass, and you might realise you never liked the design you’ve gone with.
Stay true to yourself and the people you live with, and you’ll design a home you’ll want to live in for many years to come.
10. Double-check everything
There’s nothing worse than realising your whole interior design plan has fallen apart because of something you might have forgotten to double-check.
Make sure you’re keeping track of the size, shape, and position of everything you’re installing in your home, so that adding an extra piece or changing a colour scheme won’t disrupt the entire plan.
It can also help to have someone handy – a family member, say, or a friend – to help you go over everything in your plan in order to make sure it’s ready to be implemented.
