Planning: The Key To Effective Decorating
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You have so many ideas about your new home. At least, your vision of a new home. There's a room you want to redecorate. A room you want to change into something else, perhaps into a study or an entertainment room. You also plan to change the flooring in the kitchen and the bathroom.
You can't wait to get started and you're itching to buy those paints with the in colors of the season and start painting. You want to strip down the wall hangings and window treatments in the living room right now!
With the spare room, have you chosen to decorate it into a formal study or a second guestroom?
There are many cases of failed decorating endeavors. What one had in mind didn't really materialize. What looked good in the imagination didn't exactly look the same in real life. What was thought of as an affordable home improvement became a real pain in the savings account.
Many home redecorating projects turn out badly because there was no plan to succeed. The first step in a decorating project is to develop a project plan. The temptation is to start putting paint on the walls and adjust as you go. Resist that temptation. Sit in the room to be reworked. Think about the furniture that is in there now. Are there some pieces that you must keep? What about that antique area rug? Is it to be kept? The rug is a genuine antique and should be kept in the family. Does the room need another window badly? Is the closet too small? Dwell on the room and its furnishings as they are and begin to see in your mind what changes you want to make.
Get a notebook and begin to write. Get a tape measure, write down the dimensions of the room, measure the furniture pieces to be kept. Sketch in the new closet, pencil in the new window. (There are software packages on the Internet that will let you design and redesign the room. You can get graph paper and paste on cut-to-scale silhouettes of furnishings on to the drawn-to-scale outline of the room. Then move the silhouettes around trying different positions and locations.)
When you have a pretty good idea of what you want done in that room, start making notes in your planning notebook on what style or theme you want to use for the room-traditional, Victorian, casual, contemporary, a mixture of styles. With a theme in mind, you can envision what any new pieces of furniture would look like. With your room-to-scale sketch, you can picture where the new pieces will sit. With a style chosen you will know that the antique area rug will be OK in that style but that you will need a smaller rug in the other end of the room. You can make decisions and notes about the bed coverings, the window treatments, the accessories, the paint colors.
Armed with your notes and drawings you are now ready to start gathering costs. From your planning notebook you know if any structural construction will be needed (and if you can do it or it must be hired). You know what and how many furnishings items must be purchased. You know what color paint and about how much, etc, etc. You visit vendors, you look on e-Bay, you talk to friends and you slowly bring a budget together. And you add 10-20% because first budgets always come up short. You have a family discussion about costs and timetables and disruptions. Perhaps you adjust your planning some because of budget considerations. Perhaps you re-plan the project in stages.
As everything falls into place, you can now start looking for contractors, repair person, designer and the like. Ask friends for recommendations and do research as well for credible service professionals. The more prepared you are, the more you'll know your stuff, the more you'll be able to direct the people helping you out to achieve your desired results. Your home's decorating project can be called successful.
About the Author
Home Decorating experts all agree that it is essential to use area rugs. And as discussed here one of the most popular ranges is the floral print rugs.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
Word Count: 690
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