How To Find Your Design Style When Renovating
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Now, this is a real important one because when you are doing this you need to plan from the start. This is the key variable when you are renovating to get it right in scheduling your timing and cost, but also to deliver the type of design that you want at the end of the day.
Identify the rooms you are renovating
What are they? Bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, or the whole house? Obviously what type of design are you going to go with? What will the house look like? Are you going to build ... because this is where you build value into your renovation and you want to get this piece right.
If you start going off on tangents, you might find you think it looks good while you're going along but you may ultimately devalue your home because it only looks good in your eyes.
Are you going for the modern look? Are you going with a period home? If you're extending, are you going to blend it in with the existing extension or are you going to have a modern addition to it and make that almost a feature of an old home with a new modern addition to it?
These questions will impact what you select inside the home when you're doing the renovations with the finishes et cetera. Things like your walls, your floors, your windows, doors. They should all reflect your style. When you're doing a renovation or you're planning one, don't picture one room at a time. A lot of people they renovate and they look at the bedroom and look at the bathroom, look at the kitchen and they go with all these different looks and designs and then they actually find that it's fragmented the final look. It doesn't have that feel of what your room style is you want.
Picture the total renovation
Don't look at it from one room in the door entry. Try and almost look at it from a helicopter view where you're getting on top and you can see what it's looking like in 360 view all the way around. You get a much more better feel and that will have the image in your head and you'll be able to portray that to who you're working with. Consistency with your look is so important and these are some key points to remember.
When you decide on a style, continue that through with things like your tub ware, the paint colours you're going with, floors, skirting, door frames, window frames, windows. Don't get distracted with other designs especially when you go shopping. Like many people you have an idea in your mind. You've got this thought process and you go into a store, you start looking for designs or even online and you find all the sudden you get distracted by something else that looks really good and catches your eye. Don't sway from your style design. Stick with that.
There are many, many looks and views there that you might think great they could be for a future renovation or another home later one, but stick with that style design that you set out from the start.
Once you've planned that piece, you stay with it. That becomes the foundation. The pyramid of your design style and you then make sure everything tags onto that.
Be the expert of the style you choose
These days, you can't substitute an expert interior designer with the knowledge they have, but you can be an expert in the styles you choose. You can get there through things like Pinterest. Some incredible designs and platforms with ideas and images that you can get and you learn from others.
Also, things like the home magazines and home styling magazines, interior design magazines. There's so many great things in those magazines and they would help you create a scrap book. In cutting these images out, or you could do the expensive way and you can print pictures online and cut it out but having a scrap book is an important one to keep you on track.
So, by developing a scrap book that becomes your compass. So, when you are cutting out over the planning period of all the things you want you see the different types of images of the style design you've selected. Stay with that piece, create your scrap book for all the different rooms. So you've got maybe one if you're doing a full reno, your bathroom. What the style design looks for your bathroom with that style design; the kitchen, the bedrooms, et cetera. Even the outdoors if that's how you're going.
Then stay with that and so when you go shopping and you go into looking for things to buy or to choose, whether it be furnishings. Even if you're talking to a builder or trader have that scrap book with you. Share that vision. Share that design because a lot of people that work in these fields are trained. They'll understand then what it is you're trying to picture because sometimes talking about it you won't get the same message out, but by really giving them a clearcut design it's going to be clear that whether you're going to go with a coastal look it looks a lot different than something that could be heritage or an art deco or a period home.
So, be very, very careful on that piece and get that part right because that is where you'll find your scrap book will help portray the message and you actually might get some input from others on how you could take things on and make them look great with that. That's your reference point for you and for others. So, we underplay that. Sometimes people will go in with a magazine and they'll have things doggy-eared, but what it is you're flicking from page to page. You're going to go oh yeah, I like this one and then you pick this design out. If you got to scrap book that is just designed around your renovation, your style guide you've selected, there's no mixing up photos with images. You've got it there. You can write points down.
There are some great blogs there you can read from others that have been through that on how you do the design, but if you've got that scrap book piece. It's such an easy, cheap way to create a guide on what you want for your style guide. You then have something to follow through with. You share that through the whole journey and at the end of it you get what you want, which is what you want your dollars spent on the right advice. And getting that right piece so you delivered the product, the final look, the style that you want for your reno.
For more information on finding your design style, have a chat with one of our Interior Designers, Andrea Farrell. With 20 years in the industry, Andrea knows a thing or two about how to create your ideal living and working space.
For a free consultation, give the Crew a call on 1800 666 782.