How to Interior Design Your Own Home

If your home is anything like mine, you have a limited budget and are practical, but want your house to feel like a home. Use these ideas to get the most out of your current decor or create a new interior design.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• digital camera
• catalogs or website photos

1. 
    
   Gather and display items with common themes.

   If you are the kind of person who collects various items or likes the comfort and fun of unique decor, group your collections by common themes. It is human nature to view things in patterns or classifications. Grouping items allows the viewer to see each item for its own uniqueness instead of trying to make sense of a bunch of unrelated items spread throughout your home. You can place items on shelves, tables, window sills or counter tops. When items are not sorted by a common theme, they can look cluttered or give the appearance of a flea market or garage sale no matter how precious or expensive they are.

2. 
    
   Group and display items by common color.

   Another way to group items to design your home is to display them according to common colors. Complementary colors work well alongside each other.

3. 
    
   Use eye shadow packs for complimentary color ideas

   To figure out color designs for your home that compliment each other, go to the makeup section of your local grocery store or pharmacy. You will find that eye shadow sets have colors that contrast and look good together. You can also go to the paint or hardware store. They provide paint strips with colors that work well.

4. 
    
   Add decor to a photo of the room you want to design.

   Take a digital photo of the room you want to design. First, remove pictures from the wall and any object off of the floor you want to change. Print an 8 1/2X 11" copy of the picture. Search online for paintings, couches, lamps, etc. from web sites and print them off. Cut the home design images out and place them at various places on the paper copy of your room. Once you have the room design you want, tape the images onto the picture of the room you printed. Try different versions using the same basic room photo and various decor items. Note: See the link below for how to copy and resize images.

5. 
    

   Another way to design a room is to insert the photo of the room you want to decorate onto a PowerPoint slide. Select photos from web sites (see directions below) and insert them into the PowerPoint of your room. Power Point allows you to resize the image to fit the space in the room and actual image size. For easy reference, I include the name of the web site, item and cost below each image I insert so I can refer back to it when I'm ready to make a purchase. See links below for favorite web sites.

6. 
    

   To gather ideas for room decor, get onto web sites for various companies that sell household furniture and interior design decor. Many have catalogs you can flip through online. For contemporary designs, I use www.crateandbarrel.com. For simple home decor designs go to www.thomasville.com. For country home design I go to www.countryliving.com. They also have virtual home tours on their website.

7. 
    
   Decorate to compliment a favorite item.

   Unless you like to use a whole variety and great number of items to decorate your home (refer to Step 1), the best rule of thumb it to keep your design simple. Leave empty space. Don't try to fill up every floor or wall space. If you are starting your home decoration from scratch or adding to your interior home design, select one item in your home that has the greatest value or is the most unique. Select the rest of your colors and designs to match or compliment a favorite object. There is a good chance your favored item represents what you want your home interior design to say about you.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are using a Mac, drag photos from web sites directly onto your desktop.
• If you are using a PC, right click your mouse and select "Save As". Name the image for easy reference. I save it as a JPEG because most applications will take the JPEG format.
• Most computer applications such as Microsoft Word have a Help option on the main menu. Select "resize image". You will be prompted through the steps for resizing the photo on your document.

Resources

• Quality and Well-Priced Rugs and Art
• Country Decor and Home Tours
• Varied Lamps and Wall Decor
• Contemporary Home Decor Ideas

[teachermom]

on 2/21/2009 Thanks for the great tips!

[FrazzledNanny]

on 2/19/2009 I've always wanted to design my own home ~ inside and out. Great tips. Maybe someday...5*

[GreenMomma]

on 2/10/2009 great tips!