How to Design a Room like a Pro- A Step-by-Step Guide

Does overwhelm and paralysis set in at the thought of how to even start decorating your space? A living room, bedroom, let alone your entire home? It can be (almost) enough to make you dive back under the covers and just say “forget it - I’ll live with it the way it is!”

I feel you and I’m here to share my methodical, step by step process that will break down how to design your room into doable parts.

Even though it’s my design process that I use with clients, the whole point is to make it adaptable so it serves YOU, your home, and your loved ones. If you follow these guidelines, you will create a room that is comfortable, cohesive, functional for you and yours, and reflects your own personal style.

It also doesn’t need to cost a fortune. I firmly believe that design constraints, whether budgetary or otherwise, often result in a more interesting project, and not the other way around.

With some clever ingenuity and a little extra legwork, you can save money and your end result will be a richer and more compelling reflection of your personal style. I really do believe this.

Ready? Let’s get to it!

Ready? Here goes:

1. Make A Budget
2. Create A Mood board
3. Gather Inspiration
4. Make A Furniture Layout Plan
5. Choose Foundation Furniture pieces
6. Pick Paint Colors
7. Scale
8. Don’t Over-Source Any Single Source
9. Inject Your Own Style And Individuality

Step 1: Budget for your design project

A budget is a must if you want to keep your remodel/redesign under control. Decide up front what you can spend on your project. Prioritize your expenditures into “must haves,” “nice to haves,” and “not a priority.” Then pencil out approximately how much those items will cost. (More on this in my Interior Designer Starter Kit.)

I start off by creating a spreadsheet where I input line items for each and every element of a project. Any fixed costs go in along with cost estimates that are replaced by hard numbers once I have them.

 If you’re planning on sourcing any of the materials yourself, you’ll need to calculate square footages to estimate your materials costs.

Keep your spreadsheet updated so you know where you are budget and cash-flow wise.

• Always add in an additional 10% for cost overruns. Some would say 20% is more appropriate. For a landscape overhaul, 10% should be sufficient. For a gut kitchen remodel in an old house - better to go with 20%.

  • The point is, you don’t want to be on such a tight shoe-string budget that when your contractor opens up a wall and you find dry rot or corroded plumbing, (surprise!) you don’t have a cushion.

• Once you’ve set your budget, stick to it. Don’t be tempted to deviate from your budget mid-project with “It sure would be nice if…” (insert expensive upgrade). This is how budgets get blown. Unless you can really and truly afford it, don’t do it.

Pro Tip: Get 3 bids for any work that needs to be done. You’d be surprised at the variation in cost sometimes, but of course, this also needs to be closely compared to your assessment of the contractor’s quality of the work being done and project management skills.

If your contractor is only going to show up every 3 days or so to work while squeezing you in between other jobs, that’s going to delay your overall project timeline which may have cost or scheduling consequences elsewhere. Be sure to discuss project management expectations up front.

Download my FREE Guide WORKING WITH A GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

Step 2: Gather Inspiration

My favorite quick and dirty way to create a mood board is to make a Pinterest board. Start pinning rooms, color schemes, furniture and accessories that you like. Try to avoid having too many preconceived ideas and just start pinning what appeals to you. You should start seeing common design elements amongst the images you are pinning.

Be sure to include all the elements of your space that will be staying. It can be easy to forget the more boring but important pieces like window treatments or flooring. Pinterest makes it easy-peasy to go back in and add/subtract to your board until your heart’s content.

You can select an object, artwork or decor piece that you use to help organize and propel the direction of your design project.

A painting or a rug for example, might inform the color scheme you work with. Or if you fall in love with a quirky thrift store find or antique, it could set the tone, style, or mood for your entire room if you want.

As always though, do a gut check. Just because you have a cool vintage painting with some purple in it doesn’t mean you need to dogmatically take up that color and incorporate it elsewhere if it doesn’t feel good or “right” to you to do so.

Want to see what I’m pinning. Follow me over at https://www.pinterest.ca/msefcik

Step 3: Create a Mood Board

Before you spend any of your hard-earned money, the first step in the design process is to create a mood board, and then take a step back to see what the common threads are.

Having a plan ahead of time before you jump in is always smart. A mood board and subsequent plan of attack can help you avoid ending up with a piecemeal look and making costly mistakes.

Some questions to ponder:

• What’s the purpose of the space you’re working on? Does it need to be practical for families and groups or is it more of a private space where you want to relax?

• What do you want the overall feel or mood of the room to be about? Come up with a few descriptor words if that helps.

• What styles, themes, colors are you drawn to? It’s worth noting that sometimes we think we know what we like, but then we find out otherwise. More on that shortly.

  Be sure to check out the blog post where I show you how to create a mood board.

Step 4: Create a scaled plan (ie - make sure your furniture fits)

This is where many people really start to go wrong in their project. It’s so important to created a scaled floor plan to ensure the pieces you are considering will be to scale with the room. You don’t want to end up with a sofa that overwhelms the space.

This is a bit of a chicken or egg scenario and can be done either before or after the next section on picking foundation furniture. Which ever order, you MUST take measurements and make a simple drawing of your space and layout your proposed furniture and any other room elements before purchasing.

To get to the point where you’re motivated to make a plan, you probably have your eye on a few furniture pieces you’re excited about. To know if they realistically fit or not, you need to lay them out on paper (virtual or not) and see.

You can get out the graph paper, pencil, and eraser and lay out your scaled plan if you like, using 1 square = 1 foot and interior design furniture cut-outs (this can be a lot of fun and works fine - don’t get me wrong!).

Or you can use a free floor plan. A great free floor planner that I have used is by West Elm. You can find it here.

Here’s how to draw a rough sketch of space so you can create a properly scaled floor plan. This is what I ask all my virtual clients to do in order to produce a floor plan.

After making a plan view, another important step is to take some blue painter’s tape (or lay out a few intersecting tape measures in a pinch) on the floor (or wall) and see how different objects fit in real life. Again, laying it out on paper is important, but so is a second check of how it might feel in your actual space.

• Research interior design dimension standards on how much space is needed between dining room chairs and walls for comfortable passage or a sofa and coffee table for example.

  • After all, laying out your furniture possibilities is important, but if you unknowingly only leave 12” to walk between your virtual sofa and a wall, you’ll find it’s a tight squeeze IRL!

• Take this time to consider outlet locations and wall elements like mounting a TV, wall sconces, and ceiling lights with associated wiring needs.

Seeing your ideas laid out to scale provides an important reality check to the ideas and inspiration of the mood board. The last thing you want is spend a lot of money on something that doesn’t fit well in your space, no matter how much you like it.

Step 5: Start with foundation furniture

Again, which comes first, picking some furniture possibilities and measuring them in your space, or measuring your space to determine rough sizes for furniture. Realistically, I know which I would do and what I tend to do for clients - I create the floor plan so I have an idea on sizes that will work before spending time sourcing items that may or may not work in the space. There’s no point becoming emotionally invested in that sofa if it’s not going to work.

Either way, we can now move onto the furnishing basics. If we’re talking about a living room, this might be a sofa and coffee table for starters, or a sofa and a couple armchairs.

To get going here, I’d recommend selecting a neutral couch and a simple cocktail table, or the neutral couch and a couple of leather armchairs - whether midcentury, club chairs, or whatever, so long as they’re streamlined and classic overall. The point is to choose foundation pieces that are versatile and can work with a variety of styles, color schemes, and accessories.

7 years from now, you may be over modern farmhouse, or at least over it in the way you love to style it now.

Before you get out the torches and pitchforks for that comment though, let me just say I’m speaking from personal experience here. You don’t want to jump on the latest design trend to only turn around and have to redo your space in 2-3 years. It’s much more important that you go with your own personal style and what you love. Doing that will help you make sure you love your design for years to come.

That’s all. Just sayin’. I talk more about designing around trends in this blog post.

So I would encourage you to consider giving yourself the gift of future flexibility. If you have simple foundation pieces that can go with a variety of decor styles, these big ticket items can continue to work for you if your style changes over time. This allows you to go nuts and have lots of fun expressing your style preferences of today with the smaller things like occasional tables, lamps, accessories etc, without breaking the bank.

When purchasing upholstered pieces, it is important to keep in mind that season of life that you are and that not all fabrics are created equal. Check out my FREE download on Performance Fabrics 101.

Step 6: Picking a paint palette

So after you’ve settled on the overall mood and style and thought about colors based on your mood board, and chosen any inspiration objects, it’s time for wall paint. This step, alone can be overwhelming. I encourage you to check out my post all about picking a paint palette.

Paint is important and an expensive process and needs to be chosen carefully to avoid costly mistakes. Here’s the abbreviated version:

Going back to that Pinterest board, decide on what generally works for you; neutral or color.

If it’s neutral shades you’re drawn to, what kind? White? Gray? Taupe? Greige? (greige is a warm gray-beige combo) Then, consider the undertones: do you want a cool white/gray/taupe vrs warm white/gray/taupe, etc.

Some tips to guide your paint selection process

• Do some research on paint color palettes - once again, Pinterest is your friend. Check out my posts on My Favorite Whites and My Favorite Greys. Then go down the paint store and choose some chips.

• Bring them home and stare hard at them during different times of the day and determine which ones might be contenders. Then go back to paint store and buy samples of ones you like plus some white primer.

• I always just paint directly on the wall, but you could also go to a craft store and buy some poster board. Either way, paint the white primer so it creates a border around your sample and then paint large samples and observe in different light at different times of the day.

• Pro tip: Paint color will look more color-saturated on an entire wall than on the chip. Much more saturated. In other words, if you desire a hint of lavender to warm up your mostly gray paint choice, your paint chip that looks like a nice subtle French lavender gray might look a lot more like a purple Barney nightmare when covering an entire wall. ALWAYS paint a large sized sample including intersecting corners where color undertones reflect on each other. Trust me.

• Pro tip: The color of your existing walls can really, really affect how the potential new color looks. (Really!!)

• Pro tip: Interior designer or paint-expert vetted paint palettes exist for a reason! The shades we recommend generally work for most spaces, or at the very least, stand a greater chance of working than a random shade that looks pretty on a chip and then produces a hideous undertone once you get it on the walls.

Step 7: Scale Up

Scale is the number one mistake that almost everyone makes when it comes to interior design. ... While others put too many large, bulky items in one room, making it look stuffed and small. The secret to proper scale is a mixture of different shapes, heights and sizes.

Bigger is (usually) better when it comes to accessories and accent furniture pieces.

Get major design brownie points by choosing larger pieces for your home. Large pieces fill the space and make a dramatic statement. It can be scary to leave those small, safe pieces at the store, but know that including a big piece of art, a grand chandelier, or even a group of tall vases will make a big impact. The takeaway here…go BIG or go home with your purchases.

The last thing you want to do is decide carte blanche to “go big or go home” and purchase a ginormous reclining sectional complete with drink holders only to have to shoehorn it into your space. If this is your temptation, please re-read the Scaled Plan section above. I also encourage you to download my Top 10 Design Mistakes to avoid making some of the same mistakes in your space.

Step 8: Avoid over-using any single source or style

This is a pretty simple concept. What I’m getting at here is you don’t want your house to look like a Pottery Barn catalog for example. Using some items from Pottery Barn is great, but if the entire space is overly sourced from any one style or brand, it can create a flat, homogeneous look. The same thing should be said when going into a big box furniture store and buying a 7 piece living room set….don’t do it. The same for bedrooms. Do NOT buy an entire bedroom set. Your space will feel too matchy-matchy.

The same can be said for any particular style. I’m going to pick on modern farmhouse for a minute. Stay with me here.

Mix it up: If Modern Farmhouse is your style through and though, that’s great, but within that, there are still style subsets you may want to play with and bring together.

If you love the shabby chic, chippy furniture pieces that look rescued from the back of a barn, create a more layered look by incorporating more streamlined elements of French, Scandinavian, or coastal farmhouse style. I would still encourage you to consider bringing in a few pieces from a different style or period altogether that compliments your design for a richer look.

So how in the heck do I “mix it up” you say? Go back to your Pinterest mood boards and look for unifying features like color, texture, and form like we talked about in the beginning. Then find pieces from a complimentary yet different style which at first pass may seem too different, but actually add harmony and depth to your overall design.

For example, say you have a mid-century room but you found this industrial side table you love with a black wrought-iron base. Use the black color in the base to tie the two styles together by incorporating midcentury pieces that have a bit of black in them as well. You’ve instantly created more depth and interest in the look of your space over a “one liner” type of design scheme.

Your rooms will love you for it, and you will love them back.

Pro-tip: Speaking of black, a common interior designer truism is that every room needs a touch of black. I know there are spaces that look amazing without any black, but 85% of the time, I agree. I think it adds drama while providing a grounding effect.

I would modify this by saying a brush stroke of charcoal, deep navy, or blackish-green will do just as well.

Step 9: Inspect your own personal style and individuality

Now we get to the really fun part! You’ve done the heavy lifting of choosing foundation furniture and paint. With the smaller and usually less expensive pieces like accessories, accent tables, lamps, pillows, plants etc, you have all the freedom to express yourself about what ever makes your heart sing or speaks to your soul. This is your reward for suffering through the trials of paint selection!

Quirky, thrifted, found, natural, metallic, rustic, old, new.

This is your chance to experiment! Do it without fear, have fun with it, and I guarantee you’ll learn something in the process.

Try mixing old with new, high end with low end, rustic with streamlined, large with small, and just see what happens.

This is what will make your space uniquely you. Try to refrain buying the same rug, pillows, floor plant that everyone else is buying. I know it can be hard as you are inundated with the same images of products in spaces over and over again on social media that we begin to feel that we want that stuff too. But trust me, that is social media marketing and going down that rabbit hole when it comes to designing YOUR space will not result in you creating a space you love. The only thing that will happen is you buying pieces for the sake of buying them, not buying what you truly love and buyer’s remorse.

So that’s my “quick and dirty” on how to design a space. I hope you got some helpful tips that you’ll be encouraged to try out in your own home. I’m going to let you in on a little secret…..this blog post is the road map for something BIG that I’m working on. You won’t want to miss it. It’s a lot of work to design a space but it’s also a lot of fun, and the end result is worth it.

There’s nothing better than coming home to a place you love.

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