Your home is where you spend a big part of you time in, hence a lovely home is crucial to your well being and self-esteem. Your home is also a reflection of your status and what sort of person you are.
With home improvement, there are two ways you can work on - the expensive way or the do-it-yourself approach. Although you still need to hire helpers to do extensive works like cabinetry and plaster ceiling, you'll be surprised by how much you can actually achieve on your own.
Firstly, let's look at things that you already have to determine what sort of theme you will be employing. The reason for this is because you will want to stick to your budget and not forking out money to buy new furniture. Say for example you have an antique carved-wood couch and but you've selected a minimalist concept. Your couch is not going to fit into the picture so you've got to buy another one that matches. So the kind of look and concept that goes well with your couch (or any main piece of furniture in your space, for that matter) is the retreat, Balinese type of setting.
Sometimes your existing furniture may not fit into any specific look so the next best thing to consider is how to make subtle modifications to it. For example, if you have a plush couch that is in modern leather finish and you wanted a country look, simply cover a big portion of it with a drape that is in pastel tones to neutralize the leather's sharp effect. You may also leave it as it is but neutralize the leather dominance in the room by adding cheaper and complementing pieces, such as a beanbag, or a rocking
chair.
Some people has furniture pieces that totally do not match each other, such as antique upholstered Victorian dining set and stainless steel framed shelf. Just how do you make that work? Bear in mind that you can have different theme for different enclosed space in your home. You can have a colorful kids study room, a lavish gothic concept master bedroom and a French cafe themed kitchen. If there's really no way you can modify a particular piece of furniture, try placing it in another room that has a more
relevant theme.
Now that you've figured out the look you want, make a list of all the things that comes to your mind when you think about your concept or theme. If you want to achieve a minimalist look, you will have items such as transparent glass vase, white lilies and lacquered stools on your list. Likewise if you wanted to do a Japanese Zen look then your list will feature items like tatami mat, bamboo drawing, clay unfinished ornaments and pebble stones. You can also surf the internet to check out on things that is relevant to your theme. By now, you should have fresh and exciting ideas on how to incorporate these items into your space.
An important factor to consider in your design is your habit. Are you an avid movie fan? Or are you someone who does not bother to clean your room? This piece of information will determine how things will be placed in your home. A movie enthusiast will need to access his/her collections of DVDs frequently so storage must be easily accessible. In fact, storage should be planned in this order, giving priority to frequently used items. If you do not want the hassle of constant house cleaning, do not store your stuff on open shelves. Put them in nice labeled boxes so you don't have to dust them.
Other great storage ideas includes using wall mounted shelves and having an ottoman that doubles up as storage. You can also have a low cabinet that doubles up as a daybed. Just put some plush pillows on it. The possibilities are endless.
Want to have a wardrobe that fits exactly from wall to wall? You don't need a designer to do that. The most important thing is to have a horizontal rod and some simple shelves installed. Then, get sliding door contractors to do a sliding door across - voila! Most sliding doors are only six or seven feet tall so what about the top cover? Top covers can be in the form of wall mounted cabinets - this is not expensive but you need to get cabinetry people to come in. These top spaces are perfect to store seldom used items such as bed sheets, extra pillows and photo albums. If you cannot afford to do a sliding door, then a curtain is good enough. However, a sliding door panel can be in wood, glass, mirror-finished or a combination of these. Besides acting as wardrobe doors, they can spice up an otherwise plain room.
Furniture aside, the very thing that gives ambience to a space are the walls, ceiling and floor finishing, and not forgetting lighting. Yearn for the warmth of expensive wood laminated flooring instead of your cool marble floors? Rugs and carpets are good alternatives to achieve warm looks. Why not give your stone flooring a good polish? They will be gorgeously reflective and is cooling during warmer days. Wood flooring can be easily revived using a layer of shellac.
You can do wonders with walls without spending a lot of money. Put emphasis on a feature wall and paint the rest white - the cheapest color of paint you can buy. Invest in texturized wall paper for your feature wall and your space will instantly feel luxurious and classy. Another worthy investment for your walls is to have mirrors. Not only do they make your room look bigger, they brighten up a space as well. Walls and partitions, when done properly, hold the key to make a small room appear bigger. Use a slightly reflective or material to give the impression of more space beyond the wall. You may also use opaque or transparent material to indirectly emphasize the continuity of space after the partition or wall, and to eliminate the feeling of being confined in a small enclosure.
An empty wall can be compensated with a piece of art that reflects your living taste. If you cannot afford expensive paintings, print out your family vacation pictures in both color and black and white and place them in multi sized rectangular frames of a single color. Say if you want an ultra-modern pad, use matte stainless steel frame for all the pictures. When you hang them on your wall, hang them in a cluster in a perfect square shape. This itself is a work of art and it's uniquely yours too.
Lighting is an inexpensive way to instantly transform and set a mood or ambience for a room. Avoid glaring single source of direct lighting whenever you can. The secret to achieving a cozy look is to use indirect lightings - that is, lighting that is bounced off from another surface before it reaches your eyes. This kind of lighting is not irritating to the eyes as it is more diffused and soft. To achieve this, you can place lightings above a cabinet that is directed upwards to the ceiling before bouncing off to other areas of the room. Complement that with the use of pendant, table or standing lamps. Make sure you have several lighting sources, not just one primary light source, to bring about an air of coziness.
The color of a light source can influence moods as well. Warm colors with yellowish tint are good for general use, while colors such as blue can impart calmness and purple is usually associated to romance. These mood-enhancing colors must not be overwhelming and is ideally used as secondary light sources.
Finally, wrap up the entire presentation with soft furnishings. Your curtains can be layered with sheer fabric for a tropical look, or can be simply be tied to a curtain rod with ribbons. It is fine to use curtains with prints except in the event that you also use prints for your feature wall. Choose just one or it will be clashing each other. For a cleaner and minimalist look, forget curtains. Instead, go for blinds. Blinds can be in fabric (Roman blinds, roll up blinds), bamboo (Japanese blinds, Balinese blinds) or white nylon blinds for that modern look. Next, pick a color from your curtain print or wallpaper print to do pillow covers for small pillows you can throw around your couch.
Don't limit yourself to just a single design or color for throw pillow cushions. Have a few variations with corresponding colors and prints. This variety of pillow covers adds life to the entire space. This trick will unite the whole look as one harmoniously.
Steff Lim is a former interior designer but currently writes for her really-useful-articles website, [http://www.groinker.com] She is addicted to writing, collecting and publishing precise and resourceful articles on various topics online.
