Deciding to redecorate or update your home can feel overwhelming if you aren’t sure what to do. You may know different things you like, but making them a reality can be difficult. Multiple design professionals work on the home pictures seen in magazines to look absolutely perfect. Despite not being an interior design expert, you can make your dream home a reality, and you can do it within your budget. Here are a few ideas to get you started on decorating your dream home.
1. Collect Inspiration
If you are entirely sure what you want to do, the best approach is to create an inspiring collection. To do this, you start looking through home magazines and ripping out all the pictures you genuinely like. If you don’t have many home magazines or don’t want the paper clutter, you can also do this with a platform like Pinterest. The key in this practice is not to spend any time analyzing the pictures or trying to design what you like about them.
All you do is save any pictures that stick out to you for any reason. Collecting pictures without analyzing what you like about them will allow your brain to explore ideas you may not have realized you liked. If it helps you stay organized, you can separate photos you collect by room, so you have a file of living pictures, kitchen pictures, etc. If you are thinking about tile for the floors, bathroom, or kitchen, create a folder just for pictures of floor tiles you like.
2. Narrow down what speaks to you.
Once you are done collecting photos, please spend some time going through them to identify what speaks to you in each photo. Once you look at your collection altogether, you will see themes in the photos you collected. The themes may be common colors or design elements that you clearly really like because you collected multiple pictures with the same or similar design elements. For example, your favorite color may be blue, but after picking out several pictures of kitchens, you notice that every kitchen you like has green walls.
Likewise, even if you’ve never given thought to a fireplace before, you may look through your pictures and notice that every living room picture you saved has a fireplace in it. Make a list of all the things you decided you like based on looking through your photos. From that list, you can decide what changes you want to make to your home.
3. Get Estimates
Once you know what you want to do to your home, you need to start collecting estimates, so you can get a realistic idea of cost and create a budget you can work with. If you don’t know any contractors to contact, you can start with an internet search in your area.
For example, you can search Grand Rapids replacement windows to find a company like All Weather Seal that will come out to your house and get you an estimate on energy star replacement windows, patio doors, new doors, or a sunroom depending on what you are looking to do. You want to choose a company that will do an amazing job with high-quality products and excellent customer service, and years of experience. The salespeople will tell you all about the home consultation, professional install, window innovations, and their rating with the better business bureau.
Once you have all of your estimates, you can prioritize the things you want to get done based on what you can afford and in what order the work needs to go in. For example, if you are planning to paint and replace the floor, paint first. That way, you don’t have to worry about ruining the new floor.
If you plan to do renovations yourself, instead of getting estimates, you’ll need to go to the store to get material costs. You can find everything you need at a big box home improvement store, and looking at raw material costs may influence what you choose. For example, you may be on the fence between ceramic tile, stone tile, vinyl tile, kitchen wall tiles, travertine tile, or mosaics. Each of these options has very different price points that may dictate your decision-making.
4. Get Started
Finally, you can get started. If there are renovations, you plan to do, Talk to your contractors first, so you can work around their schedule and get the renovations done as quickly as possible, so you can enjoy your new home.
