Tips to Make Decorating Your House Easier

Decorating your house is an exciting time, it lets you personalise and design your home to match your tastes, routine and lifestyle. However, without proper planning, the process of renovating your house can become lengthy, expensive and stressful. In this article, we’re going to go over some tips which will help make decorating your house much easier and enjoyable.

Create a Plan For Decorating Your House

The first step to making decorating your house easier is to get a good plan in place. You’ve probably heard of the expression: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”, which is definitely the case when renovating your home. Not having a good plan in place can make the decorating process confusing, stressful, and more expensive.

Find Inspiration

Before starting anything else, find inspiration and examples of other people’s houses and room designs. This will help you determine what you like, don’t like, and what general direction you want to go with your decorating. Look at examples online from sites such as Pinterest, go to showrooms, or visit home and hardware stores that have example rooms on display, such as Ikea or B&Q.

Make sure to take photos, save links, and write down which elements you like for different rooms, so you don’t forget what design elements you liked.

Take Measurements

The next step in your planning process should be to measure the width, length, and height of the rooms and spaces that you want to decorate, being sure to write your measurements down. This will help you determine how much space you have to work with, and will let you know if big pieces of furniture, such as beds, cupboards, and drawers will fit.

This can save a lot of stress of trying to figure out how to get a combination of items to fit in one room, and stops needless shifting and shuffling of furniture. In the worst-case scenario, not measuring your space can result in wasted money if something can’t fit.

Create a Floor Plan

Now that you’ve measured the rooms you intend to decorate, and have the measurement of existing/new furniture, you can now create a floor plan, which will help you to visualise the layout of a room. This will give you a rough idea of how a room will look and how various pieces of furniture will fit together, highlighting any issues such as wasted space or over cramped areas.

Creating a floor plan can be as simple as drawing the sides of a room, from a top-down perspective, and writing the measurements along each side. Or you can use free software online to create digital floor plans that you can edit and play around with easily.

Tape Out Your Floor Plan

Once you’ve created a floor plan, you can then use masking tape to “draw” the outlines of furniture and objects you plan to place in a room. Use the measurements you made to ensure the shape and size of an object is accurate, and then place it in the spot you’ve designed on your floor plan. This will help to give you a “real life” perspective on how a room’s layout might look.

Because masking tape is made to be taken off surfaces without causing damage, you can move your furniture outlines around the room to see how different layouts look and feel.

How Do You Want to Live?

An important step when creating a plan to decorate your house is to consider your lifestyle and how you like to use certain rooms. If you’re the type of person that likes to host friends and family for dinner, then creating a space focused on dining/entertaining should be the direction you aim for. However, if you rarely eat at home or have large groups over for dinner, investing a lot into a dining room makes less sense.

Remember, this is your home, so you should decorate it to suit your lifestyle and preferences.

Create a Realistic Budget

An important part of your house renovating plan is your budget. There is no use finding a perfect piece of furniture or art, for example, if it is going to eat 90% of your budget, leaving not much for the rest of your room. Decide on a realistic budget and how many/what items you’re going to need for a given room.

Part of this should include the function of each room, for example, in a bedroom a bed is the main element, which should be reflected in the percentage of the budget it takes up. However, if you also need to buy a wardrobe and bedside tables, you need to make sure your budget covers all that, meaning you might have to choose a less expensive bed option. It’s worth noting for each room what is more important to you, as that will determine what elements you can and can’t compromise on.

Make The House Renovating Process Easier

Now that you have a solid plan in place for any rooms you want to decorate in your house, it’s time to get started. There are a few tips that you should consider which make the process of renovating homes much easier.

Double Check You Have Everything

This is as simple as it sounds. No one likes getting started with decorating a room, only to find that they’re either missing something or don’t have enough of something. Avoid unwanted trips to the hardware store by double-checking you have everything you need, and the right amounts of it, before you start decorating.

This could include things like paint, plastic sheets, tools, various screws, or materials needed such as wood, to name a few.

Empty Your Rooms

One of the best tips that makes decorating any room significantly easier is to empty the room as much as you can. If there are any pieces of furniture, decorations or other items you can move to somewhere else, it’s worth doing so. Having an empty room makes decorating much easier, especially if you’re doing work such as painting, sanding or any other messy work.

Not only does this give you more space to place tools and work in, but also means the chances of your belongings being damaged or dirtied are much lower.

Get The Messy House Decorating Done First

Grouping up and getting all the messy decorating tasks done first will save you a lot of time and effort in the long-run. If you followed the previous tip, it means you don’t need to move furniture multiple times and also means it doesn’t if you make a bit of a mess, as other tasks will also add to it. Then you can do one big clean up at the end, rather than multiple cleaning sessions after each job. The caveat to this is you should clean up any mess that could be a safety hazard.

Messy decorating jobs can include:

• Plaster boarding 
• Painting
• Woodwork
• Poly filler/Repairing surfaces
• Putting up wallpaper

Additional House Decorating Tips

Paint The Walls With Light and Neutral Colours

Painting your walls with light and neutral colours can help to make rooms feel bigger and brighter, which generally feels more inviting and appealing. This especially applies to smaller rooms, as it can make them feel less claustrophobic. Lighter paint makes use of natural light by reflecting it more than a darker colour would, which helps rooms to be brighter and feel less gloomy.

An additional benefit of using a consistent palette of lighter colours is that it can make going from room to room feel less jarring, and makes the look of your house more cohesive. Typically, when choosing colours, pick your “base” colour which will cover areas such as landings and hallways. Then you can go a shade or two towards a different colour, which will add some variety and personality to your rooms, while still adding to the cohesive feel.

Consider Conversational Placement For Sofas and Chairs

When deciding on the layout of your sofas and chairs, it’s worth keeping in mind the intent of the room. If you’re designing a living room that is made for guests to sit in when they visit, then placing chairs and sofas in a “conversational” arrangement will help to make chatting and looking at each other easier.

An easy way to think about how to do this is to look at examples such as hotel lobbies or sitting areas. Sofas and chairs often face each other so that everyone sitting in the room can see and chat with each other easily.

Of course, if you’re decorating your room to be more of an entertainment room, with the focus being on watching TV, films or playing video games, then conversational placement is less important.

Sometimes Less is More

When decorating a house, it can be easy to get excited and keep adding new things to a room. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and checking if the space feels too crowded or full. Sometimes the effective use of a few elements can be much more appealing than filling a room. Don’t be afraid of some empty space because when used well, it can make a room feel bigger and more spacious.

It can be a fine line between “less is more” and a room feeling empty. So, experiment by adding/removing items until you get a look that you’re happy with.

Utilise Mirrors

Adding a good-sized mirror to a room when decorating is a great way to make a room feel bigger and brighter. The mirror will not only reflect light, making the space feel less gloomy, but will also “reflect the room”, which is a decorating trick which makes a room feel much bigger than it actually is. This can be especially effective with smaller spaces, making them feel less cramped.

It’s worth noting the position of the mirror in relation to direct sunlight, it can be annoying if direct sunlight is reflected into your eyes while sitting down or on TV screens, creating glare.

Create More Work Space With a Personal Storage Unit

We’ve already mentioned the benefits that emptying a room can give when it comes to renovating your house. However, if you have a lot of furniture and belongings, it can be difficult to find space to keep them all while you decorate.

In situations like this, choosing to use a service that offers Personal Storage Units, can be a great way to temporarily free up your home when decorating, giving you the space you need without cluttering up the rest of your house. Additionally, keeping your belongings in a self-storage unit will make sure they remain safe, clean, and in good condition while you decorate.

At ANVSJ, we offer a range of affordable, different sized units for self-storage, starting from just £17.30 a week. And with multiple locations across the country that you can access at any time, there is sure to be a personal storage unit which suits your needs.

For more information on our self-storage units, visit our website today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I start when decorating my house?

Before doing any decorating, getting a solid plan in place will help to make the process much easier, less stressful and possibly cheaper. Plan decorating your rooms around the large statement pieces of furniture first, such as beds, sofas and large tables. This will let you know how much room and budget you will have left to work with. You can then start adding additional elements to compliment the main piece. Try not to take up too much of your budget with one item because it may leave no room for other decorations you want.

What order do you decorate your house?

Start decorating by getting the messy tasks out the way. This can include painting, plaster boarding, and any woodwork. When painting, start with the ceiling, as this will avoid any splashes of paint on freshly painted walls or other surfaces. Then proceed to do the skirting boards, windows/door frames and the doors. After painting, you can then start placing furniture in the layout you want. Remember to try and make the room’s design and colour palette feel cohesive.