Do you have anything personal or quirky in your living room,
bedroom or bathroom? Have you continued to marvel at what is possible in a
magazine that you’ve thumbed through, but when it comes to redecorating your
living room or bedroom, you stop in your tracks? What’s the block? It may have
to do with your uncertainty about whether you are a minimalist, or love fancy
ornate ornamentals everywhere you turn, or a combination that doesn’t
necessarily fall into one category, but maybe creates a restrained tension
between luxury and simplicity. Or maybe
the idea of melding budget-friendly with ‘wow’ factor seems impossible so you
might as well leave it alone.
Stop giving yourself all the reasons not to start living in
the home you want. Do begin to design each room to share something about the
people who live there. One of my favorite interior designers that I recommend
invented the term cozifications. Her name is Deborah Needleman, currently the
editor of WSJ Magazine. Find a designer that teaches you something.
Sometimes the answer lies in hiring an interior decorator
that can walk through the steps with you to see what kind of space you’re
hoping to create, but that might depend on where you are in developing your
style. Other times, you might want to learn as you go.
One of my favorite books comes from Needleman, “Domino: The
Book of Decorating,” cowritten with Domino editors Sara Ruffin Costello and
Dara Caponigro. This timeless book teaches you to use a step by step approach to
figuring out how to answer the question “Is this me” as you flip through
magazines and consider your lifestyle. It suggests using “the domino
effect”—finding a key element, maybe furniture, maybe a painting, for a space
and working the rest of the room from that element. It’s a great kick starter.
While you might be searching for ways to define decorating a
room as representative of your personality and lifestyle, remember there are
decorators out there who are quite aware that budget friendly options are
important to consider. Take for example, interior designer Sondra Phillips, who
is using technology to provide a lower-cost alternative to quality interior
design services. “After living through the economic effects of 9-11 and the
housing crash, I realized that interior design is a luxury that many cannot
afford and that the do-it-yourself movement is an undeniable reality’” she
admits. So, she began marketing Interior
Design Schemes as a concept that allows do-it-yourselfers to access and buy predesigned
color and design schemes.[1]
There are lots of ways to implement great interior design to
your liking. So what are you waiting for?
[1] http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2013/04/skp_design_of_kalamazoo_melds.html
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