5 Essential Tips for DIY Interior Decorating

5 Essential Tips for DIY Interior Decorating : When it comes to interior decorating, sometimes a professional touch is nice, but we want our homes to reflect who we are and what we care about. Doing it ourselves is much more rewarding and personal.

Inferior decorating is something you can definitely undertake yourself, and with a few basic guidelines, the process is pretty easy to understand. Here are five essential tips for DIY interior decorating.

Evaluate What You Have

The first step is to understand what you have. What things are already in your home that you can keep and use to decorate your home? If you are looking at rearranging and going for a different look, what items will still be useful, and what will you need to get rid of or re-purpose?

This can include many things:

Artwork
Furniture
Window coverings
Rugs
Flooring
Kitchen Appliances

This is just a small list of the many things you will have to evaluate. Base your evaluation on the usefulness and function of your pieces as well. If you get rid of the entertainment center, what will you do with the TV? What storage and other options will you lose with getting rid of that piece of furniture? How easy will it be to replace?

When evaluating what you have and deciding if you should replace your things, consider switching your old decor accessories with new unique pieces, as well. Having a theme or motif in mind will help you set aside clutter to be replaced with more relevant objects. Think about the kind of vibe you want to create. If you want to achieve a soothing and light atmosphere, beach decorations for your den will work well. You will be able to fit these accents only if you have enough space, so it’s a must to declutter your old decor first.

When looking to get rid of items, first determine if you can sell them. This will generate some money toward the replacement items. If not, try to give them away or at the very least recycle them so the materials do not totally go to waste.

Look at What You Want

Once you understand what you have, you need to evaluate where you want to go. What are your goals with this renovation? What rooms do you want to remodel, and how deep do you want to go?

For instance, let’s look at the kitchen:

Do you want new cabinets, or will you refresh the old ones?
What about flooring?
Do you need/want new countertops?
What about sinks and other hardware?
Do you want/need new appliances?
What is the lighting like?

Every one of these items can be a part of a kitchen remodel, but you don’t have to do them all, or do them all at once. You can redecorate in stages.

In the same way, other rooms can mean anything from replacing art and furniture at the least to replacing carpets or other flooring, repainting, and even replacing windows and doors along with all of the lighting fixtures.

Only you can determine how far you want to go with each project and the steps you want to take to complete them.

Determine Your Budget

Once you have determined what you want, you will also need to determine if you can afford those things. A warning though: a budget is about more than just the cost of the redecorating. It is about your time and the inconvenience you will experience, and the other costs associated with that.

For instance, if you are going to remodel your kitchen from the floor up to the cabinets, you will be without your kitchen during the time it takes you to do the remodel. If you do it in the summer, you may be able to grill often, but if not, you may have to eat out frequently. This is an additional expense that also costs you valuable time you could be spending on your project.

The other thing to consider is the time and effort it may take for you to learn some new skills you may need to complete your project. Pouring concrete counters may be a totally new thing to you or installing countertops at all. Plumbing and setting up a modern ada sink maybe a whole new world.

Your budget should include money, time, and inconvenience for it to be complete. Once you have evaluated what you need, decided what you want, and set a budget, you can move ahead.

Use Space Wisely

The one thing it seems like you never have enough of in many homes is space. The space you have needs to be used wisely, and this means planning ahead. For instance, if we go back to our kitchen example, maybe you want a larger stove or more cabinet space. To get it, you might lose some counter space.

If counter space is already at a premium, this can be a problem. How do you solve it? Well, maybe you have room in the center of the kitchen for a small island or butcher block. This gives you back some counter space while also giving you a little more storage. This is but one example of using space wisely. For instance, a small home office space might mean using built in shelves or a hanging cabinet for office supplies. One of those surfaces might have to serve as a printer stand, and you can be creative with the kind of desk you use.

From storage to décor, the wise use of space is an essential part of your DIY interior design.

Bring the Outside In

Finally, the use of light, plants, and other elements of the outside often create the best atmosphere in our homes. Even if you are not good with houseplants there are some that are very low maintenance and that are difficult to kill. These can help purify the air and improve the look of your home in many ways. From living areas to bedrooms, plants make a huge difference.

So does natural light, and you should use it whenever possible. If you are doing big renovations, adding skylights or improving windows will do a lot toward bringing that light in. Make window coverings easy to open, and make sure windows are functional for letting in both air and light as well as serving as good insulation when they are closed.

DIY Interior Decorating can be a great sense of accomplishment but be sure to start off on the right foot. Know what you want, what you can afford, and use your space and the environment around your home to your advantage. Your home will then reflect who you are and the atmosphere you want to provide for your family and your guests.