8 rarely talked about tips for designing your home

IMAGE: HUMPHREY MUNSON / LIGHTS JIM LAWRENCE

In this guide, I’m going to share with you the proven home decoration tips that work that I practice daily as an interior designer, to support those of you who are currently designing a room. Developing your eye for interior design is hard to teach but I have witnessed how easy some design principles can be (even for a novice) to put into practice, all of which I share in Home Design Lab (the next best thing to hiring an interior designer without the costs and need to hand over control).

Gaining an understanding of how an interior designer thinks and works, can help you experiment with home design, and think differently about your layout so I hope these tips help you and by all means come and further your knowledge on design in my online home design course. Keep reading for actionable points you can apply to your design plans today, which will edge you closer to making confident decisions for your home.

IMAGE FROM: These three rooms

1. Make lighting decisions first

Start your design plans thinking about lighting. Natural light as well as ceiling lights, floor lights, wall lights and the rest of it. Too often I see renovators and home decorators consider lighting too late, or worse, disregard it completely, then add a few lamps here and there after finishing the room thinking it’ll be OK, but having to forever live with pesky wires on show. Optimise natural light first, by adding skylights, large windows and glass doors where you have a bigger budget, or invest in non-obstructing window dressing, mirrors and reflective surfaces for smaller revamps. Why think about lighting first? Because when it comes to the crunch on electrical planning, if you want a professional look you need to have your lighting scheme complete well before electrics begin – don’t leave it to the last minute.

Not planning to have electrical work done in some rooms? There are ways around retrofitting lighting if you aren't keen on the dust and expense of rewiring. Our living room light fittings post will share some examples.

2. Clarify what is worth splurging and saving on – and make your decision early on.

A lot of home owners and renovators struggle to know what to splurge and what to save on when they decorate a room. In my experience, investing in the big ticket items that make up 50% of the visuals of the room, such as a sofa, flooring, worktops or large pieces of furniture is best. Save on the items that are smaller such as rugs, lamps, mirrors and home accessories. Taking this approach will give you higher impact transformation and you'll have a better canvas to work from to keep adding to and improving your decor in the years to come.

Fed up with your living room because your sofa is tatty and dated? Happy with your furniture but your floors have seen better days? New cushions, a new mirror and a new rug will breathe life back into the room but the higher impact transformation is achieved when you invest in replacing the larger areas first and work on the finishes later. If budgets are an issue it's well worth saving for the updates that will make an impact rather than settling for second best. Chip away at the overall look and buy piece by piece. It might take longer to finish but you will be far happier with the results and your home design will give you such a positive mentality.

Our student Zoe, putting visualising techniques in practice (She’s @temposreno on Instagram)

3. Take photos and draw everything – to allow you to imagine possibilities

One of the hardest things to do when you're designing a room and investing money into a house is to visualise your options. If you knew exactly how things would look you'd make decisions a lot faster, right? If you're struggling to visualise I recommend starting with Home Design Lab which teaches people very useful ways to visualise design decisions. I share techniques that you will take with you through life.

A quick way to play with ideas, is to take pics and just draw! One of our students Zoe does this really well (pic of her kitchen ideas above). Doodle and play with photos using paint apps on your phone. And of course, live in the property for a while so that you can get a feel for the house and sit on your ideas. It's amazing how quickly ideas can develop and change when you start work and see the possibilities coming to life, but you don't really want to be shifting the goal posts around mid-way if you can help it. It may cause delays to projects and increase costs.

4. Create 2-3 vignettes (minimum) in each room

I remember when I first learned what a vignette was many years ago from fellow home design bloggers in a private Facebook group I was a part of. Back then they taught me that a vignette in interior design is a 'view' with a styled piece of furniture wall art, shelving etc that produces a focal point (or many focal points) in a room and now it’s something I factor into every room I’ve decorated since.

So imagine this. You are taking photographs of your home for a magazine article, which angles would you shoot? Would there be only one ‘money shot’ or several? What would be included in the shot? Thinking about creating vignettes when you come to tackle your interior design can help you make the most of the room and get you thinking beyond only the furniture, wall art and flooring. As a photographer and designer, we try to bring in several vignettes in each room and plan to create more using shelving, accessories, plants, floor lamps not just relying on our furniture to create the design. They add such interest and personality.

5. Contrast your textures

This is one of my favourite tips I learned through trial and error with my own home as well as advising people on how to enhance their room decor (clients, friends and family). It's amazing what mixing textures brings to a space. When you buy juxtaposing materials for your home (for example, hard floors with soft rugs, textured baskets with smooth painted furniture) you create visual layers which warm up a space. Putting this tip into practice is easy but often requires a little bit of budget management. Every living area needs a rug (don’t believe me, just try it! Return the rug if you don’t love it) – which can be upwards of £100+ depending on the size, throws, cushions, soft window dressing and fabrics which can also be quite costly. We have a blog post sharing affordable rugs to give you ideas but ultimately, you need to budget for the things that bring in wow factor. Trust me, contrasting your textures brings a new level of warmth to a room. What can you bring into your room to contrast the materials?

6. Think in a non-linear way

This tip applies specifically to anyone planning a kitchen extension or loft conversion but it can help renovators think outside the box with other rooms they're transforming. Too often, we play safe with the structure of our homes but, if we're working with an architect anyway, we have the opportunity to make the shape of our extensions unique. Put simply, we don't have to go with a basic square or rectangular extension popped on the back of the house. Take a look at this example…

BEFORE

AFTER

This tip came to me when I saw an amazing extension (above) that was built to be in harmony with the view towards the back of the house. On the left as you looked out from the old sun room, stood a beautiful church and view of the countryside. The generic solution would have been to build a rectangular kitchen extension facing outwards but instead, the architect chose to angle the extension to emphasise the view from the inside. It's unique, it's in harmony with the house and the surroundings, and it’s stunning! I bet the flooring fitter was swearing, mind you!

7. Recognise the design that excites you

Pinterest is an amazing tool for ideas about how to design a house but it can be a little bugger when you can't decide which designs you love most, you want them all. It's why I recommend Home Design Lab members ignore Pinterest until they complete excavation work to unearth the interior style that really speaks to them. Looking at Pinterest before understanding - and naming - the style you are focussing on for your home is a recipe for magpie tendencies.

Some soul searching is required to identify what really speaks to you and gives you a positive vibe. Ultimately, your home needs to be filled with colours, shapes and accessories you love so that it enhances the way you feel every day and since we all have very different tastes, it's important not to follow trends and instead try to identify what makes you happy. In my online course I try to guide people with exercises to go deep on their design preferences. Students have found it very eye-opening indeed; they've learned about themselves and their tastes during the process and importantly, they are now designing their homes with a very clear vision that aligns with who they are. And guess what else? Soul searching is fun. Find your style and own it.

8. Play with height, scale and space

Just the same as applying different textures to layer the room you're designing, it’s also important to make good use of height and scale.

IMAGE: ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST

Being able to choose the right height and scale items for a room is very hard to teach. It comes with experience and an eye for measurements… but it starts with you choosing furniture that is the right measurements for a room in terms of height, width and depth. Sounds simplistic I know, but when I asked my Instagram followers what design mistakes they've made recently the most common mistake was not measuring new purchases correctly. When the scale is wrong, the whole flow is wrong. I'm no angel at this either, I've made my own mistakes wanting to hold onto furniture that just doesn't fit simply because I love it, but it's not doing your home or life any favours.

IMAGE: APARTMENT THERAPY

Conclusion

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Come over to Home Design Lab where we’ll deep dive into Design + Styling your home if that’s where you’re lacking know-how.

I hope this post has shared with you some unique ways interior designers think and how you can apply some of what I’ve learned through the years to your own home decoration or renovation project.

Thanks for reading!

Fi x