IF YOU have ever wondered how the likes of professionals Cath Kidson and John Rocha manage to create beautiful home interiors, then help is at hand.
Aspiring interior decorators can learn something of their skills in the House Beautiful Home Book, extracts of which appear in the November issue of House Beautiful.
Editor Julia Goodwin said: “Planning makes perfect, especially when it comes to transforming an area of your home.
“Knowing you’ve done the groundwork will avoid costly mistakes and give you the confidence to unleash the interior decorator in you.
“It will also help you produce stunning results that will still look great next year.”
The seven golden rules of decorating are:
Whether using warm, cool, dark, light, gently varied or highly contrasting hues, the colour palette you choose will have a huge impact on the look and feel of a room.
Sunny colours create a joyful mood, while smoky taupes and lavenders are calming, and other colours have associations, too – perhaps blue, ochre and terracotta remind you of the charms of the south of France, for instance.
Start with a colour that will work well on the large areas of your room and then move on to add accents to create focal points.
Making your living space comfortable may be challenging as even the most gorgeous furnishings will not make up for an awkward lay-out.
Take time to identify the principal paths through your home and the routes they provide from one area to another.
If you walk directly into a living room, your furniture must be arranged in a way that allows you to pass to the adjacent rooms easily.
Successful interior design has character as it sets a mood and says something about the occupants of the home. Colours, textures, light, patterns and the shapes of the furniture all combine to create a specific look.
When we describe a room we love, we often use words that evoke emotion and that indicate the way we feel about it.
What describes the emotions you would like your home to express? Serene and relaxed? Formal and glamorous? Simple, but intimate? Warm and welcoming?
As you answer, think also about the way you use your home, the people who live there and your lifestyle.
While ready-made window treatments are easy to come by, most styles can be custom-made to give you the look you want.
To make the ceiling seem higher, place the top of the curtains at the top of the wall. To make a window seem taller, place the top of a pelmet some distance above the window.
To widen, use a longer rod and hang the curtains so that they extend on to the wall alongside.
What’s more, you can match colours to your palette and use fabric that co-ordinates exactly as you like.
Assess your lighting needs by asking what you want to do and see in each space, and how you want the space to feel at different times of day and night. Once you have an idea of this, you can consider the light fittings you would like. Think of them as adding the finishing touches to your room.
Flooring can be divided into hard surfaces, such as wood, stone and ceramic tile, and soft, including carpets and rugs. There’s an enticing array of colours, patterns, textures and sheens for each, so finding the right one for every room can be a lot of fun.
If pattern is your dream, you can introduce it easily with wallpaper.
For extra dimension and texture, you could add wood mouldings and panelling to plain walls and ceilings. Adding colour with paint is easy, fast and fairly inexpensive. It’s also not a problem to change when you tire of it.