• Visit model homes. Even if you aren’t in the market for a new home, model homes are great places to get ideas for your home décor.  Model homes are typically designed in the most up to date and elegant manner so they are great places to get new ideas. Don’t feel like driving around all day? You don’t have to. We offer online model home virtual tours so you can get ideas for your home without leaving your couch.
• Think color. Choosing your color palette is one of the most important decisions you will make in your home design. Grab hundreds of swatches, they are free so don’t cut yourself short. Try lots of colors, you may be surprised what you end up liking the most. Once you pick a swatch get a sample of the paint and paint a square of the color on the wall you are going to paint. Let it sit for a week or so and see if you still like it, if you do, you’ve found your color! Once you have your color scheme worked out- the rest will come easier.
• Look at magazines online. If you want, you can always buy them but it’s much cheaper to look at them online. Spend some time looking through all of your options. Look at classic and modern designs and get a feel for what suits you and your home the best.
• Talk about it. Don’t try to figure everything out by yourself. Talk to you friends and family about your ideas and get their feedback. You don’t have to take their advice but you might find their experiences and opinions are helpful in your design choices.
• Take your time. If you don’t have a reason to rush, don’t. You will be much happier with the results. Break your home design into pieces. Do one room first and then another. This keeps it from seeming like an impossible task and will keep you focused on each room to it’s completion.

Decorating your home should be enjoyable. Take your time and enjoy letting your creativity extend into your home design. At the end of the day, you will be very happy you did.

• Choose a flexible theme. Your rooms may need to be used for more than one purpose so make sure your theme can meet all the needs of that room.  For example, if you are designing an exercise room that also needs to pull duty as a guest room don’t fill it with difficult to move equipment or paint it a color that wouldn’t be pleasing to the eyes for long periods of time.
• Color choice is everything. Certain colors evoke certain emotions in people, blue is calming, red is aggressive, green is relaxing, yellow causes anxiety; the list goes on and on. A simple internet search will give you a good idea of what types of emotions certain colors bring out in people. Make sure you choose a color that fits into the theme of the room.
• Don’t mix themes. Trying to multi-theme rarely works.  Your room can’t be both a romantic get-away and a relaxing yoga haven. Pick a theme and carry it through.
• Use scent. Smell is one of the most powerful senses and it can be used to great effect in your room. For romance, sandalwood is a must. For relaxation, eucalyptus or lavender. For motivation, citrus scents are best. Make sure the smell you choose matches your theme.
• Don’t go overboard. There can be a tendency when trying to carry out a theme to over-decorate. Try to resist it. You don’t want to spend a lot of time and money on a room just to have redecorate in a short amount of time. Add elements to the room slowly and get used to them before adding more. You may find that simple works best.

Rooms with atmosphere can be great additions to your home and might make you the envy of all your guests. Just keep the above rules in mind so your room doesn’t get attention for all the wrong reasons.

• Choose neutral  (but not boring) wall colors. There are plenty of neutral colors for your walls that aren’t boring eggshell white.  Taupe, light gray, gray-blue, light gold, peach, brown, tan, sand, and hundreds more. All of these colors make great neutral backgrounds and aren’t so trendy that they will go out of style anytime soon.
• Choose trendy pillows. Pillows are easy and low-cost to replace so they are a great way of incorporating trendy touches that can be changed more frequently.
• Incorporate artwork. It can take quite some time to find a piece or art that you love, but once you do, hang it somewhere prominent in your home. Art will last quite a bit longer than typical wall hangings and can be a very good investment.
• Choose classic furniture. Leather couches/chairs, neutral colors, and classic lined wooden tables. You can always add trendy touches but the fundamentals of your room should be classic and timeless.
• Avoid cheap materials. It can be very tempting to choose whatever is cheapest when decorating a room but you will actually save more money in the long run if you choose more expensive but longer lasting pieces.

Basically, the trick is to keep it simple. Over-designed rooms will always go out of style eventually and then you will have to start over. That’s fine if you have the love and resources for frequent home design but if you want something longer lasting then keeping it simple and classy is the way to go when designing your home.