How to Be Your Own Home Decorator

While many people hire expensive interior designers, others learn how to be their own home decorators. This has many advantages--not only do you save money, but you get a home that has your own individual touches that is exactly to your taste, and you get to have fun doing it!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a color chart
• decor magazines
• money

1. Learn about color and how it works together. Purchase a color chart and decide if you want to go with a monochromatic scheme or a complementary scheme. You'll see how even slight color variations can make or break a room.

2. The pros use software to figure out everything from color to measurements to furniture placement and more. Home decorating software can figure out expenses, help you arrange cabinets in various configurations and generally end up saving you a lot of money. Look in the resources section for a very professional software solution for home decorators that is very affordable.

3. Think about the size of your house. This is going to play a major role in how you, as the home decorator, make decisions about color, furniture placement and myriad other things. Small houses in particular require a lot of advance planning, although they are ultimately less expensive to decorate.

4. Take advantage of the custom upholstery that you can order. Get to know a good seamstress as well, so that you can coordinate soft furnishings.

5. Think about how your rooms will blend together. As a home decorator, you don't want the rooms in your house to have a choppy, chaotic look. Use color and texture to blend the rooms together so that your home has a good flow.

6. Don't forget about the outside of your house. The style of the outside of the house should compliment the inside. A home decorator looks at all aspects of the home when making design decisions.

7. Become an expert home decorator by reading a variety of trade magazines and books. You may also want to take interior design courses at a local college.

Tips & Warnings

• Be careful about taking advice from too many people. You, the home decorator, are in charge. Listening to many different opinions will cause you to get conflicted and perhaps end up with a mishmash of designs.
• Don't take on too much at once. Start with one aspect of the house--walls or flooring--and go from there.

Resources

• A Must Have for the Home Decorator!!

[AlishaV]

on 12/28/2008 No decorator is going to make your home be yours. Great artcle.