How to Get the Most Value From Your Decorating Budget

In order for you to get the most from your decorating budget, you need a reasonable plan of action. The following steps will assist you in putting together an organized plan, making your decorating effortless and enjoyable. Additionally, by staying focused, you will be able to assure your decorating dollars are wisely spent.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Graph paper
• Pencil
• Ruler

Get Organized to Decorate

1. Consider your current style of living. Do you prefer a formal or traditional style, or more of a contemporary mode of living? Do you like larger more stately pieces, or modular free flowing pieces of furniture?

2. The actual time spent at home should be your next consideration. If you and your spouse both work outside of the home, there will not be a great deal of time to spend on housework. In such case, you will need to set up an arrangement of convenience as far as your decorating and design scheme. Within the kitchen area, you will want to place utensils within easy reach. Additionally, cupboards should be well organized in order to attain items for fast retrieval when in a hurry. The furnishings and carpets should be easy to maintain, comprised of materials that make care effortless.
   
   How about children? Are they very young? Your youngsters may easily turn the living arrangement into a play area; therefore, you will not want to risk placing a delicate high maintenance fabric on your sofa or putting a light colored throw rug on your flooring.
   
   Keep the decorative items and furniture you purchase compatible with your lifestyle.

3. Other considerations include the frequency of overnight guests, the necessity for private areas of study and/or reading, and the possible rambunctious nature of a pet dog or cat. All should be factored in to your plan when putting together a decorating scheme. Such variables will affect your choice of furniture, fabric, color and the use of the space within the living arrangement.

4. You may now decorate mixing and matching pieces of various styles and eras, as it is no longer essential to decorate according to only one style.

5. The next portion of your decorating plan should be devising the floor plan. The second set of additional steps herein will be beneficial to you in this regard. Please refer to the second section of this article entitled: How to Devise a Floor Plan.

Devise a Floor Plan

6. Make an assessment of the general layout of your home. Take note of the space with which you are working for each room. Pay special attention to the location of the electric wall sockets, windows, doors, fireplaces and the like.
   
   If you are remodeling the area, or have plans to remodel, you will want to coordinate any new furnishings within the proposed renovation.
   
   It will be necessary to make up a floor plan to assure all of the furnishings will accurately fit the space you plan to decorate.

7. Take a sheet of graph paper and outline each of the rooms you are planning to redecorate. Make each of the squares on your paper precisely equal to 1 foot. Additionally note the location of any built-in features on your paper.

8. Record the wall length and ceiling height. Dimensions may be obtained by using a folding ruler or metal tape measure.

9. Once you have your room on paper, you can then proceed with ideas as far as furniture placement and providing maneuverability about the room. You may want to create furniture templates in order to complete this process.

10. Decide on the focal point of the room. You can use a particular group of windows, fireplace or some other built-in feature. Arrange furniture pieces in accordance with the room's main focal point.

11. Create a color scheme based on your favorite colors. You may wish to set up your rooms in a related color scheme, such as blue and green. Or you may opt for a complimentary color scheme, such as blue and orange.

12. Keep your seating pieces in organized groupings.

13. Don't ever feel you have to furnish every available space in a room. Allow yourself some free space for comfort and mobility.

Tips & Warnings

• Allow enough space in order to maneuver around furniture. You should be able to walk comfortably through a room. Traffic lanes should be approximately 2 feet in width and around 3 feet at entry ways.
• Your furnishings need to be relative to each other as far as size. Also the size of the furniture needs to correspond to the size of the room. Do not place large pieces in a small room as the effect will be overpowering; small delicate pieces will be "swallowed up" in a large room.
• When making a decision on fabrics for the floor, walls or furniture be aware that having everything match as well as contrast is much more subtle in appearance and the look you want to achieve.
• It is not advisable to have everything match perfectly or to put together fabrics that contrast sharply. The former may be considered as a bit excessive and the latter much too severe.
• Very large rooms may be broken up a bit with the use of area rugs.