Home design

Thinking Like an Interior Designer: How to Make the Most Useful Living Space

Have you ever thought about why your house never looks like the ones in Architectural Digest, even though you know what’s in style and think you have good taste? Well, there’s a lot more to interior design than just following the rules and following the latest styles. When designing a room, you need to think like a designer if you want to make it both useful and look good. You can learn how to think like an interior designer in this article. With their help, you can make your living area work better. 

Know what your goals and top concerns are

Before they plan the layout of a room and think about how to decorate it, interior designer first look at what their clients want, need, and value. It doesn’t matter that you are building your own home; you should still ask yourself and everyone else in your family what they want from a home. Some people would rather focus on comfort, while others would rather put peace and privacy first.

First, think about what’s important

Interior design is an art in its own right, which makes it a lot of fun and a great way to be creative. Because of this, it’s simple to get taken away by artistic items like clay pots and wall lamps. This will only take your attention away from the main goal, which is to make the room useful. When organizing, you should first decide on the big things, like the size of the bed in the bedroom, the cabinets in the kitchen, whether the space will be open or closed off, and so on. 

Form comes after function

When creating a certain area, you need to include furniture and other design elements that help it do what it’s supposed to do. This is especially important if you are working with a small area. Divide your space into areas for different activities, like cooking, eating, reading, watching TV, and other things. This will be easy to do. Also, smaller rooms will need furniture that can do more than one thing, like a sofa that pulls out into a bed or a chair with secret storage.

Besides being useful, everything should also look good

If you focus on the function, that doesn’t mean you should ignore the form. Even the simplest pieces will say something about your decor, so they need to go with the rest of it. If you want a simple look, you shouldn’t have a big TV that takes up the whole wall. Because everything in the kitchen is meant to work, you should pick units that are well-designed.

90% of design comes from ideas

Lastly, your motivation has a big impact on how well your interior design turns out. Even though your main goal should be to make a place that serves a purpose, you should also try to make your living area look nice. But where do you get your ideas? It can be found in the strangest places. The colors and patterns of your favorite bag can give you ideas. You can start with something you find at a junk market or look for hints while thinking about your dream vacation spot (how about a Japanese-style bathroom?). Still, don’t let having too many sources of motivation get the best of you. Make a motivation board to keep track of your thoughts from the start. 

Finally, your home should be useful and show who you are and your wants, along with following some basic rules of interior designer like size and the rule of thirds. If you were able to do all of that, we have nothing else to say but “bravo!”

You may also like...