Monday, December 8, 2008

Interior Design For Non-Designers

By Claudio Carbeni

Do you love wild and crazy wall colors while your spouse is more of a neutral and beige kind of person? Have you been butting heads about re-decorating and you just can't seem to come to an agreement about what you want to do in your house? With do-it-yourself decorating and design you get the satisfaction of doing it yourself. Perhaps interior design school is just what the doctor ordered for you.

Risk Free Paint

You can check out local stores, houses, or restaurants for real-life ideas to do your best interior design. With a computer program you can upload a picture of the room you want to work on and test out different paint colors and moldings as well as oriental design methods. Your living room can go from beige to chartreuse to puce to yellow in a matter of minutes without dragging out the painter's tape, brushes, drop cloths, and waiting in line at the paint counter for them to mix the wrong color paint

Moldings Without Endings

Putting crown molding up is a project that most homeowners feel pretty confident about in the planning stages but when it comes down to it there is a very complex formula for measuring the angle where the corners meet and it's likely that unless you're a professional or have someone to help you who has done lots of crown molding cutting that you will have spent a lot of time, effort, and money on a bunch of scrap wood by the time you're done. Not to mention the fact that you might get the molding up and hate it.

Remodeling

Being a veteran of the remodeling highs and lows is not a prerequisite for actually jumping in and giving do-it-yourself projects a try! Pick up that hammer and if you miss the nail and break the window then you know to be a little more careful the next time around. Try something new - you might be surprised to find that grouting tile is the most fun you have ever had in your life. Perhaps you will have found yourself a new career choice?

Using a 3-d model to picture the ways that your home "could" look can be really useful. If you see a picture in a magazine of a room that you like take that idea and interpret it your own way by using the colors that are shown in the magazine photo in the room with your accessories. Try some throw pillows, they are very inexpensive and can work wonders in changing the look of any room. Except the bathroom. Most people don't have throw pillows in their bathrooms. But then again you might be able to start a fashion trend. I have seen a toilet with a phone attached to the wall next to it at someone's house

Move your furniture around. Get everything away from the wall and try a new arrangement. Listen when someone suggests putting the armchair where you would think it looks hideous. Usually this ends up being the placement you love!

There are so many different ways to remodel your home - from doing it virtually online first to actually going to the store to purchase the materials to getting elbow deep in drywall dust and joint compound, home remodeling can be quite a lot of fun!

About the Author:

No comments: