How to Decorate Your Home Like a Pro

Decorating your home can be both time consuming and overwhelming. But you don't need to hire an interior decorator to get the job done. While it's a big task to undertake on your own, it will allow you to incorporate your personality and desires rather than being forced into the latest fads. And with some good advice, you can make it look like you're the professional decorator. Here are some steps so you can do just that.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A decorating checklist
• A determined budget
• A color wheel
• A listing of local furniture/home decor stores

1. Determine your style. Each home should have a specific style, whether it's rustic, contemporary, classic or just plain eclectic. Decide which style best defines you and decorate accordingly.

2. Decide on a color scheme. Maybe you want your home to feel warm and cozy, maybe you prefer cool and serene. Determine a color scheme depending on the feeling you want to convey and find some complimentary colors to support it.

3. Determine a budget. Don't have much to spend? Or maybe you want to go broke completely redecorating your entire home. Lay out a budget plan and how much you're willing to spend...and then refuse to go over it. Determine your best payment plan at the same time.

4. Shop around. Visit plenty of home decorating and furniture stores. Check the fliers for sales and special deals. Plan on getting some good deals, so wait for the sales if you have to.

5. Map out a furniture arrangement. Once you've purchased the furnishings necessary to decorate, map out an arrangement for your home to determine what will go where. This will save you a lot of headache once the furniture arrives.

6. Add personal touches. Once you have everything needed to make your place a home, personalize it! Having only store-bought items will leave you feeling like you live in a showroom. Bring out pictures, family heirlooms, treasured tokens or anything that makes your place your own.

Tips & Warnings

• Purchasing furniture in neutral colors is oftentimes your best bet. You can add any kind of accent color to brighten it up. If you tire of the tan furniture and blue accents in your living room, you can create an entirely different look by keeping the tan but swapping the blue with red. And you won't have to re-do the entire room just to get a different look!
• Make sure you find complimentary colors to go with the major color scheme in the room. Having a room decorated entirely in blue can be overwhelming. Add some touches of orange or yellow to compliment it, then another neutral color like cream to neutralize anything too overpowering.
• Avoid mixing styles. It's going to look a bit silly if you try to mix rustic log furniture with a minimalist contemporary style. You don't want your home looking like a garage sale, so if you can't make up your mind, use the different styles in separate rooms. After all, there is such a thing as "too eclectic."