How to Design a Room in 10 Easy Steps | Erikka Fogleman | Skillshare
Search

Playback Speed


  • 0.5x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 2x

How to Design a Room in 10 Easy Steps

teacher avatar Erikka Fogleman, Interior Designer

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Welcome and Introduction

      3:30

    • 2.

      Overview of the 10 Steps

      1:05

    • 3.

      3 Easy Way to Make Any Room Look Better NOW!

      3:44

    • 4.

      Step 1 - Measure Your Room

      2:37

    • 5.

      Activity #1 - Measure Your Own Room

      1:48

    • 6.

      Step 2 - Decide on Key Activities

      1:16

    • 7.

      Activity #2 - Decide on Your Own Key Activities

      0:38

    • 8.

      Step 3 - Choose Your Style

      5:39

    • 9.

      Activity #3 - Choose Your Own Style

      0:55

    • 10.

      Step 4 - Choose Your Color Scheme

      8:19

    • 11.

      Activity #4 - Choose Your Own Color Scheme

      0:31

    • 12.

      Step 5 - Choose Your Rug

      6:11

    • 13.

      Activity #5 - Choose Your Own Rug

      0:33

    • 14.

      Step 6 - Choose Your Furniture

      9:27

    • 15.

      Activity #6 - Choose Your Own Furniture

      0:32

    • 16.

      Step 7 - Choose Your Wall Art / Wall Decor

      2:48

    • 17.

      Activity #7 - Choose Your Own Wall Art / Wall Decor

      0:31

    • 18.

      Step 8 - Choose Your Lighting

      5:57

    • 19.

      Activity #8 - Choose Your Own Lighting

      0:30

    • 20.

      Step 9 - Choose Your Window Coverings

      6:06

    • 21.

      Activity #9 - Choose Your Own Window Coverings

      0:30

    • 22.

      Step 10 - Choose Your Accessories and Greenery

      6:45

    • 23.

      Activity #10 - Choose Your Own Accessories and Greenery

      0:30

    • 24.

      Watch me Create a Room Design Using the 10 Step Method

      7:48

    • 25.

      Use Focal Points to Take Your Design to the Next Level

      4:04

    • 26.

      Open Floor Plans – Considerations and Challenges

      5:26

    • 27.

      How/When to Use Wallpaper in Your Design

      4:35

    • 28.

      Common Design Challenge: Room With No Windows

      1:40

    • 29.

      Common Design Challenge: Child and/or Pet Friendly Designs

      2:35

    • 30.

      Common Design Challenge: Techniques for Hot/Humid Areas

      2:56

    • 31.

      Common Design Challenge: Radiators and Window Treatments

      1:13

    • 32.

      Common Design Challenge: How to make a Large Room Feel Cozier

      3:45

    • 33.

      Common Design Challenge: Irregular Shaped Rooms

      2:07

    • 34.

      Conclusion

      1:21

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

4,474

Students

5

Projects

About This Class

Do you find yourself struggling to pull together a room in a way that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing?  

Do you think that interior design is all art and no science?  

If you answered yes to either or both of these questions, then this is the class for you!  In this course, you will learn that you can actually use an easy, systematic approach for creating beautiful and functional designs for the primary rooms in your home, primarily focusing on family and living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. 

Specifically, by the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Design/decorate nearly any room well using a systematic 10-step method.  Each step provides details instructions for that particular element (e.g., how to choose lighting and how to arrange furniture).  

  • Identify the best places to buy furnishings for a room.

  • Identify different interior design styles and select your own style for decorating.

  • Create different room layout options for family rooms, living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms.

  • Create a personalized color scheme that will look great.

  • Create a layered lighting scheme that is both functional and dramatic.

The ideal student for this course is a person who is interested in creating functional and aesthetically pleasing rooms in their home, but does not already have a lot of knowledge in interior design.

Also, please note that this class does not cover interior design for kitchens or bathrooms.

Important Note:  Please be aware that this course, or any of my courses, is not intended to provide all of the knowledge needed to become a professional interior designer.  As with any professional field, there is a significant amount of education and/or experience that is needed to achieve competency in this field.  My intention with these courses is to provide some solid foundational knowledge to assist either those individuals interested in "DIY" interior design to work on their own projects more effectively, or to provide supplemental education to both interior design students and professional

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Erikka Fogleman

Interior Designer

Teacher

While Interior design is my main career and passion, I also absolutely love to teach others, so I am thrilled to have found Skillshare so that I can share that passion and knowledge with others just like you.

Are you a design enthusiast yourself?

Do you wish you could design rooms in your own home that are both beautiful and functional?

Do you wonder how interior designers make it look so effortless?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are my ideal student!

Through my classes, I show you how many areas of interior design can be broken down into simple-to-use processes and formulas. In every class, I share some of my favorite processes and formulas so that you can be successful in creating beautiful and functional rooms all on you... See full profile

Level: Beginner

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. Welcome and Introduction: Hello, I am Erika full Gilman, and I want to warmly welcome you to my course, how to design a room in ten easy steps. The reality is that for many people, interior design is a challenging task. Put together a room in a way that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing can be incredibly time-consuming and expensive. And you may not even end up with a room that you love. But pulling together a room does not have to be difficult. In fact, most designers follow a fairly systematic approach. And I am here today to help break down the approach for you in an easy to digest way. By the end of this course, you will have all the tools that you need to pull together just about any room. And it's only going to take you 10 distinct steps to do so. In fact, throughout the course, if you choose to participate in the activities, I will walk you through the main steps to designing a room in your own home. Now, that said, by the end of this course, you obviously won't be an expert in interior design because there is quite a bit of education and experience that goes into this particular field. But I am confident that you will be able to design a room that you are definitely happy with. During this course, you will learn and be able to quickly apply the key elements to creating a fantastic group design. Including, but not limited to identifying your preferred style. Choosing a great color scheme with a simple formula. Selecting the right size, run for a room, choosing the right furniture, creating a layered lighting scheme as the functional and dramatic. Selecting the right finishing touches, including your window coverings, greenery, and your accessories. And finally, you receive some great recommendations from me on where you can purchase your current machines at all. Price points. First though, let me go ahead and tell you a little bit about myself. I own my own residential interior design business called error codon interiors. I have a tremendous passion for designing rooms that create excitement and comfort for both myself as well as my clients. And I am so excited to be able to share some of my knowledge with you so that you can begin creating your own beautiful and your own functional rooms. 2. Overview of the 10 Steps: As I mentioned, designing a room well can be broken down into ten distinct steps. What are these ten steps? Well, without any further ado, here they are. Step one, measure your room. Step to decide on your key activities. Step three, twos your style. Step four, choose your color scheme. Step five, choose your rug. Step six, choose your furniture. Step seven, choose your wall art and wall decor. Step eight, choose your lighting. Step nine, 2s, your window coverings. And last but not least, step ten, choose your accessories and your greenery. During the course of this training, I will be breaking down each of these ten steps in detail so that you walk away with the knowledge that you need to replicate this ten step approach all on your own. Alright, with that said, let's go ahead and get started. 3. 3 Easy Way to Make Any Room Look Better NOW!: Now I realize that this is only a one hour course. And in that one hour you will learn a lot about how to pull together a well-designed room. But for those of you who are anxious and looking for a way to make a big impact in your space right now, in this lecture is definitely for you. I am going to show you how adding just three elements to a room will make it look instantly more polished, pulled together, and frankly, just downright better. I use these three elements all of the time in my work. Either in staging homes for sale or with clients who don't have a lot of money to spend and are just looking to refresh their space. Are you ready to hear what these three elements are? I know you are. So here they are. A rug, drapes and greenery. Let me now show you what a big impact these three elements have on a room. Take a look at this dining room I put together in room sketcher. It's not too bad, right? We have a farmhouse style dining table, a nice coordinating buffet, a console table opposite the buffet, a pretty iron chandelier. And we even have some artwork over the buffet, which is nicely proportioned. But watch what happens when we add each of these three elements one at a time. Watch how we will take this room from good to great. First, let's add a rug. I'm going to pull the blue out of the painting and choose blue gray rug. By adding this rug, we have just grounded that dining table and added texture and interest to the wood floors. In a later lecture, you will learn how to choose the perfect size rug for any room in your home. Now let's go ahead and add some drapes. We have a nice size window. But when those and rooms always look better with curtains or drapes, for many reasons, it softens the edges of the window. It adds texture to the walls. It allows you to repeat other colors that you have in the room, which is always a good thing to do with color. And it also allows you to adjust lighting and privacy in a room. So I'm going to go ahead and add in some light gray drapes which reflect the colors we see in the picture and in the undertones of the rug. Wow, what a difference that makes doesn't it? Instantly, we have softened the entire look of the room and we have added some depth to our walls. Later in the course, you will learn how to choose the right height drapes and also how to take inexpensive off-the-shelf drapes and make them look custom. Ok. The room is looking good, but I am not done yet. I always, I repeat. I always add greenery to a room, whether it's real or foe. Although I prefer real if possible, greenery simply always mix a room looked better. So because I also like formal symmetry, I am going to add some matching trees to each corner of the room and a vase of tulips to the buffet to the left of the picture. Look at how much interest in color these items add to our dining room. Did you notice that I chose yellow tulips to reflect the yellow that we see in the painting. Again, look for a way to repeat color throughout the room as this is very important. Now let's once again look at where we started. And now let's look at how much more beautiful this room looks by simply adding a rug, drapes, and some greenery. You too can do this with your own spaces. I challenge you. Take any room in your home apart from your kitchen and try this out in one of your rooms. I am sure that you will love the results. I hope you found this lecture helpful and easy to follow. 4. Step 1 - Measure Your Room: Step one, measure your room. Yes, just like architects and builders, we designers do spend time measuring. Actually we measure quite a bit. So why is this important? Well actually I think this is the number one area where people most often make mistakes in their home. I'm sure many of you have been there where you end up with a couch that is just too big for your space, or a table that looks way too small compared to other pieces in the room. Or the room just doesn't feel right when you look at it. Often this is due to simply not taken the time to measure the space. Now, as I mentioned, interior designers spend a significant amount of time at the beginning of any project, taking measurements of every aspect of the room. However, I'm going to make it much easier for you. All I want you to do is to take three measurements of your room, the length of the room, the width of the room. And if you don't know the height of your ceiling, then you will want to go ahead and measure the height of your ceiling as well. Now use a measuring tape like this that you can pick up at your local home improvement store. Dry, very simple floor plan like this. Making sure that you notate the measurements of each wall next to the respective wall. How do you capture the measurements on your paper? I want you to do it and half inch scale. How do you do that? Well, it's actually quite easy. Let's say that the length of your room is 12 feet. Then all you need to do is divide that in half, which would be six. And then using the regular ruler like this, go ahead and draw the two lines that are six inches in length like this. If the width of your room is eight feet, then draw those lines as four inches on your paper like this. Once you've done that, then you will want to measure the width and height of each of your windows for your window coverings. Here is how I notate the windows on the floor plan with the measurements. Label each window with an a, B, C, etc. And then no, take the measurements on the side of your paper. Don't be concerned with placing the Windows exactly where they should be on the floor plan. Just try to place them in approximately the right places like this. 5. Activity #1 - Measure Your Own Room: For your first activity, go ahead and print out the guide to designing your own room using the ten step method in the resources section. And then go ahead and grab a pencil. You will find your first activity on page one, which will be to measure your room and draw a simple floor plan. Now you can use a pen, but I always use a pencil as sometimes I have to erase some lines and start again. I really recommend using a pencil. If you have one, choose a room in your home that you are looking to design. Or if you don't have an actual room that you want to design right now, that's okay. Just go ahead and pick out any room in your house. Just to get the practice. For the first activity, your floor plan makes sure that you draw your lines in half-inch scale. Again, you do this simply by dividing the actual measurement of each wall by two and capturing that in inches on your paper. Now one note about measuring. If you do have something that extends from the wall like a fireplace, make a note on the floor plan as to how far that extends from the wall as this will impact your furniture selection. Also, if you have a curved wall, then measure the wall in a straight line from one end to the other, and then simply draw and using freehand, the shape of the curve. Don't be concerned with ensuring that the curve is exactly correct. But just try and make it as close as possible to the depth of the actual curve. Finally, be sure to draw an any windows that you have in the room as you learn to do in the previous lecture. 6. Step 2 - Decide on Key Activities: Step two, decide on your key activities. What I mean by this is you need to spend some time thinking about what key activities will be taking place in the room. For example, if it's a family room, will you be using, uh, to watch TV, entertain guests, play games, read a book, or spend time on hobbies. For a bedroom, you will be sleeping there, of course. But you may also want a place to pay your bills, relax, drink some wine, or just kicked back and read a great book. For a dining room, one of your key activities will likely include eating, but you may also want to place to display your books. Or perhaps this is a place where kids can do their homework. So here's a list of all major key activities. Once you've identified which key activities will be taking place in the room, you also need to think about how many people you are planning for. Obviously, if you have a large family of ten who gets together for dinner regularly, you're going to need a much bigger dining table then for a small family of say, three. 7. Activity #2 - Decide on Your Own Key Activities: For your next activity, I want you to capture your key activities on the second page of the same guide you use to draw your floor plan. To do that, just take a look at the screen in just a minute and then write down which key activities will be taking place in the room that you want to design. Again, if you don't have a specific room that you are looking to design right now. Then go ahead and stick with your practice room. Again, here are the list of major activities and of course, or maybe other activities as well that I haven't listed. 8. Step 3 - Choose Your Style: Step three, twos your style. Given that you are watching this training course, you may already have an interior design style going on in your home. But if you don't or if you want to change it, It's important to figure out the mood and style that you are going for before you begin picking up any furniture or accessories. As this will help you to greatly narrow down your choices and make your shopping much easier. There are so many wonderful and unique styles out there. Here are some of the main ones. Contemporary, which is characterized by straight, clean lines and the lack of patterns and accessories. Traditional, which has a lot of wood, formal symmetry, soft curves, and generally a more neutral color scheme. Transitional, which can be described as traditional with a contemporary twist, transitional incorporates warm neutrals for its color scheme, including neutral fluorine, lots of different textures. And the furniture has simple, clean silhouettes. Mid-century modern, which is a revival of the interior design style of the 1990's, characterized by simple lines, graphic patterns, and an indoor, outdoor vibe. Industrial, which is all about industrial metals, reclaimed wood, leather, and a cool color scheme. Urban modern, which combines different styles like contemporary and industrial to project the vibe that makes you feel like you're in a cool new York loft. This style uses large, low-profile furniture and graphic patterns in its accessories. Coastal Sheikh, which is known for having lots of light and uses a lot of white, cream and blues and its color scheme, along with natural fibers such as jute and seagrass. And of course, beach and ocean life decor. Scandinavian, which like contemporary, has clean lines, that is known for its light, bright color schemes and organic materials. Friends country, which is meant to replicate the laid back lifestyle of the French countryside, and often has roosters in its decor. Zen, which is a simple, clean, minimalist style, neutral color scheme, water features, and generally low profile furniture. Bohemian, which you can see as wild and messy unit's approach with a bold, bright color scheme and includes rich patterns. Farmhouse, which is somewhat like the French country style, and includes distressed woods, upholstered linen, and a lighter color scheme. Finally, Western, which is known for its leather furniture and specialty items like cow hide rugs, ATL or chandelier, and yes, even wagon wheel coffee tables. Now if you don't already know your style, which of the styles are you most drawn to? You can definitely mixed styles, but I have to admit that this generally takes a little forethought and time to do it. Well, my advice is to just pick one to make it easy on yourself. Now that being said, if you really love two of them, then what you should do is pick a primary style and then add in some elements of another style. For example, industrial actually mixes quite well with almost any style. I've seen it mixed with a traditional style like this, where you see very traditional case molding and an industrial pendant light with industrial total excited chairs. You can also mix industrial easily with a transitional style or a farmhouse style. In general, though, the style throughout your home, it should be fairly consistent. Otherwise your home will feel a bit disjointed rather than harmonious. However, one way around this is to choose a primary style and then use some styles if you will, in different rooms. For example, in one of my projects, the entire houses decorated in a transitional style. But one of the rooms has industrial elements mixed in, while another room has contemporary elements mixed in. And get it all flows together quite well. So how do you choose a style? As with many things in interior design, this really comes down to what type of mood you want for your home. Do you prefer a more laid back lifestyle? If so, then I would recommend you choose an industrial, coastal chic, French country, Bohemian or farmhouse style? Or do you prefer a more elegant feel to your home? If so, then go with a traditional or transitional style. Maybe you are a country girl or boy at heart. If so, then look to farmhouse for Western styles. But if you love big cities and urban lifestyles, then I would definitely recommend a contemporary or urban modern style. If you want your home to have a calm, relaxing feeling, the Zen er, Scandinavian styles will probably be right up your alley. 9. Activity #3 - Choose Your Own Style: For your third activity, I want you to capture the style that you will be using for your room on your guide. As a reminder, you can choose to have more than one style in a rumor home. But it's important to choose a primary style and then choose one or possibly more secondary styles. Here are the main styles, again, with a representative photo next to each of them. First, we have Contemporary than traditional, transitional, mid-century modern, industrial, urban, modern, coastal Sheikh, Scandinavian, French country, Zen, Bohemian, farmhouse and western. Now, go ahead and jot down the style or styles that most appeal to you or that most closely reflects a style that you already have going on in your home. If you want to stay with that style, of course. 10. Step 4 - Choose Your Color Scheme: Step four, choose your color scheme. The world of design, both interior designers and color specialists will work with you to choose the perfect pink color or to help you choose the right color scheme for your home. But personally, I think that this can be done pretty well on your own if you follow an easy, straightforward formula. Here it is. First, pick a neutral that you love as your base. Neutrals include today's very popular gray. Or it can be beige or brown or gray, which is what happened when Gray and beige had a baby or anything in the white or cream family. Black is also technically a neutral. However, most people don't want large amounts of furniture or most of their walls to be shades of black. Which I understand. Although black is a fantastic color to use, particularly in certain styles such as industrial, transitional, contemporary, urban modern and Zen. Pick your neutral. I personally have different shades of gray on my walls throughout my house as I love gray, but I have a house with primarily beige tile floor, grades walls allows me to easily integrate gray pieces of furniture with the base floor. Sometimes I'm asked, Can I have two main neutrals in a room? You can, but if you do, it looks best when you have one that's dark and one that's light. For example, dark gray and a lighter beige or chocolate brown and light gray. Dark gray and a light grays. Once you have your neutral or neutral selected. Now go ahead and choose 123 accent colors. The best way to choose your accent colors is to take a look at your closet and see what color clothes you have in your closet. People including myself, tend to buy clothes and colors that they love and no look flattering on them. So why not decorate a room in a color that you both love? And you know, we'll look flattering in when you are in it. For me, I love blue. So that is one of my main accent colors throughout my home. If you choose to have only one accent color like blue than a room looks really rich and layered. If you pick items that are different shades of that blue. Now by shade, I mean either a lighter or a darker version of that color. So for example, in the case of blue, maybe you love a bright blue like the Caribbean. Then be sure to incorporate some lighter and darker versions of that color into your room. Can you see how using different shades of a color in a room creates so much more interest than one shade. Now if you decide to have more than one accent color, then here is what you want to do to get it right every time. Either choose to have an analogous color scheme or a complimentary color scheme. So what does that mean? Analogous just means that these colors sit next to each other on the color wheel, or also on a rainbow. For example, a warm color scheme would be red, orange, and yellow because these are all warm colors. Cool analogous color scheme would be green, blue, and purple. As these are all cool colors. Analogous colors schemes are often found in nature and are generally quite pleasing to the eye. So you can't go wrong here. Conversely, a complimentary color scheme refers to colors that sit opposite each other on the color wheel. So orange and blue look great together and so do yellow and purple. The other piece of your color scheme that sometimes people forget about is what color you want the hard surfaces to be in your room, meaning the legs of your tables, legs of your soap as in chairs, basis of your lamps, etcetera. Colors for hard surfaces generally include Cromer, silver, brass or gold. Various shades of wood or black such as wrought iron. Crawl or silver looks best with contemporary, transitional, mid-century modern, industrial, Scandinavian and Zen styles. Brass or gold looks best with transitional mid-century modern and Bohemian styles, would, looks best with the following styles. Traditional, coastal Sheikh, Bohemian, friends, country, farmhouse, Western, mid-century modern, and urban modern. Black or iron goes best with an industrial style. Now I'm sure you're asking yourself, can you mix hard surface colors? Of course you can. But just like with the styles, I generally recommend choosing one main hard surface color and then using small amounts of another hard surface color throughout the room. Unless you have a really large space, in which case you can mix them at nearly 5050. But in general, thing, Two-thirds of one hard surface color like silver, and then 1 third of another hard surface color like brass. That in a nutshell, is an easy formulaic way to pick a great color scheme every time. So to recap, pick your neutral, pick 123 accent colors, and then pick the color of your hard surfaces. And there you go. Now a final note about color schemes. If you intend to paint the room, I strongly suggest that you wait until you've purchased all of your furniture and your accessories before picking your pink color, there are literally a million or more pink colors, but not nearly as many choices with your furnishings. So I will pick out all of the furniture and accessories first. Then I will choose my pink color. How do you then choose your pink color? Well, first you want to decide on the mood of the room. Do you want a light and airy or a warm, moody, or romantic feeling? If you're going for light and airy, then choose a light color. And it could be either a shade of your neutral or one of your accent colors. The darker the color, the moodier the room becomes. I personally loved dark pink colors, but I use them sparingly. For example, I chose a dark charcoal gray color for my powder room. And it looks very dramatic, paired with primarily gold and some silver accent colors. Also consider how much light the room gets. In general, northern facing rooms, which generally get less light, do best with a lighter pink color. Unless there are a ton of windows and or you live further south on the equator. And southern facing rooms which generally get more light, can definitely handle darker hues. Also, if you have a room that you are trying to make appear larger, I would recommend a lighter pink color. As a lighter color will help the walls to feel as if they are receiving. Conversely, if you have a really large room that you want to appear smaller and cozy. And I would recommend you use a darker color as dark colors tend to make walls appear as if they are advancing. But again, design rules can always be broken. And in nearly all cases, I think you should go with what type of mood you ultimately want for your room. Finally, remember that paint is the easiest thing to change out. Don't be afraid to experiment because you can always paint it again fairly easily. 11. Activity #4 - Choose Your Own Color Scheme: So now I want you to jot down some possible color schemes that you are interested in on your guide. Here are the main neutral colors. Again, which one or ones are you drawn to? Here is a color wheel again. What accent colors would you say reflect your personal style? Finally, choose your hard surface colours and finishes. Remember when thinking about metal finishes, consider selecting more than one as mixing metals. If done well, will look great. 12. Step 5 - Choose Your Rug: Step five, choose your rug. I am a firm believer that nearly every room, except maybe the kitchen, should have a rug. Regardless of the type of fluorine you have, even if you have wall to wall carpeting. Why do you think that is? It's because a rug always helps to pull a seating arrangement together and helps to define zones in a room. I also start with the rug because it's easier to match pillows, lampshades, et cetera, to a rug than the other way around. There are three factors to consider when buying a wrong size, color, and material. Let's start with size first. If you are going to go with just one rug in a room, than I recommend buying the biggest rug that your room will comfortably fit. By that, I mean, you do want at least 18 inches of space between the wall and the edge of your rug. That said, many family and living rooms can accommodate an eight by ten drug easily, and perhaps even a nine by 12 wrong. Also for family and living rooms. I think a rug looks best when either all of the legs of your main seating furniture are completely on the rug or you have the front legs of the furniture only on the rug like this. It generally doesn't look right if none of the feet of your seating furniture is sitting on the rug, as the rug then looks like it's just floating in your room rather than being anchored for bedrooms. I love placing rocks under beds for a bedroom, you want to extend the rug from the bottom two-thirds of the bed, about two feet around the three sides. For a dining room, ensure that your rug extends at least two feet out on all four sides of the table like this, so that when you pull back the chairs, you'll still have all four legs sitting on your rug. To figure out the perfect size rug for your dining room, simply measure the length and the width of your dining table and add two feet to each dimension. That should be the minimum size of your rug. Finally, a rug looks best when it matches the shape of the room. For example, use a rectangular rug and a rectangular room, or a square and a square room. You can use an oval rug in a rectangular room, or a round rug in a square room as well. You can also use two rugs to create different zones in a room. Particularly if it's a large open floor plan. But make sure that something ties the two rugs together, ideally color. Now let's talk about what type of rod you should get in terms of color and material. First for color, I think it's great when the rug is the color of or has the colors of your accent colors. If your accent color is blue, then find a rod that has a lot of blue in it. Now, whether to go with a solid colored rug or a pattern rug, don't be afraid to go with a boldly pattern rug, which can act like a great piece of artwork in your room. And we'll add amazing visual interest to your space like this. For a more toned down approach, something like this. If you do choose a pattern rug, then that would greatly limit any other patterns in the room so that the rug really stands out and shines. If you go with a solid drug such as a jute or a sizzle road, then definitely try to add some patterns on items like your throw pillows, your window coverings, etc. Although that being said, there are some styles like contemporary, Scandinavian and Zen now are often completely devoid of patterns. In terms of the material for your rug. There are so many materials out there, and Tuesday and material should be based on your style as well as functionality. First, let's talk style wool rug, generally considered the gold standard for quality. Works with just about every style out there. You can find wool rugs at different price points, from a couple of $100 to tens of thousands of dollars. Synthetic rugs like polypropylene, a much less expensive option, also look great, generally with every style. However, a dude or sessile rug, like the one shown here, doesn't look so great with an ultra traditional style. It's much better suited to transitional, industrial, coastal Sheikh, Scandinavian, Zen, bohemian, and farmhouse. Now that's not to say that you can't use a jute or sessile type rug. In other styles. It just may be a little more difficult to pull off. Well, real and folk how hydrides are incredibly popular right now. And they look great with obviously Western, but also many others, including industrial, contemporary, transitional, urban, modern, bohemian, and farmhouse styles for high traffic areas such as an entry way, choose a low pile or flat. We've run mainly so that your front door doesn't get stuck on the rug. Finally, it's generally best to keep high pile or shag rugs to less frequently used places like your bedroom. They'll best places to buy rugs include rugs usa.com, Wayfair.com, Overstock.com, and hey, needle.com. They have a huge selection at various price points. 14. Step 6 - Choose Your Furniture: Step six, twos your furniture. You are now a half of the way there to designing your own fantastic room. Let's move on to step six, choosing your furniture. There are many considerations to what type of furniture you will want to buy. The main considerations I will be discussing today include functionality and size. First, let's discuss functionality. And of course we need to break this down room by room for a family or living room. You'll need to reference the main activities that you wrote down earlier on your guide that will be taking place here. And ensure that you include furniture pieces that will meet all of the needs of your key activities for that particular room. For example, if you just want a place to talk and entertain, then ensure you have plenty of seating. This could include a couch and two chairs to couches or a sectional anti chair. You can also include Ottomans as extra sitting tucked away under a console table, or next to a coffee table. Other furniture for a family or living room could include side tables, console tables, coffee table, or a bar chart. By the way, you don't have to use a bar chart to hold alcohol. Especially if you have kids in the house, you can decorate it with glasses, vases, books, candles, or just about anything. Then when you want to entertain, it can be used for its originally intended purpose of holding alcohol and bar where now for a dining room, obviously you'll have a dining table, but you should also consider including buffet or server, a console table, or even a bookcase or two. For a bedroom, obviously, you'll need a bed, one or two night stands, and possibly a dresser, a side chair with a side table to side chairs or a desk. So let's go ahead and look at some sample furniture layouts for each type of room, because you really should choose what furniture layout you want before you begin shopping for furniture, for your family room or your living room. Here are some example furniture layouts for a tiny room. Here are some example furniture layouts for your bedroom. Here are some example furniture layouts. My advice is to pick a layout that you like and try to replicate that in your room. How do you pick one? By looking for a layout that meets the needs of what activities will be taking place there. Let's look again at the family and or living room layouts. I would go with option a if I want this room to be more about conversation and entertaining, but I would go with B if this is the primary TV room, C is a great option of how to zone a room so that you can have an area for conversation and an area for working on a hobby like crafting for bedrooms. Option a is if you just need your room for sleeping. Option B gives you a nice area to read them relaxed in. And options see carbs on an area for writing or taking care of bills or other administrative type work. Now that you have an idea of what you want to put in your room, and therefore what your floor layout should look like. Now, let's talk about the size of your pieces. Again, this is where I think most people get it wrong. They don't buy the right size of pieces for their space, and they end up with a room that looks too crowded or off balance. But now that you've measured your room, you're on your way to never ever making this mistake again. Here's how remember the floor plan you drew on page one of your guide. Go ahead and take a look at that as you'll need it for this part. Here's what you're going to do. Go ahead and draw in the pieces of furniture that you want. I recommend making them generally box shape to make it easy. For example, draw a sofa like this, a chair like this, and a table like this. Once you draw it in all of your pieces in the floor layout you want. Now here is the most important thing you're going to do. Measure the distance between each piece of furniture that you've drawn. Make sure that you have at least three feet for each main passageway into and throughout the room. How do you do this on paper? Remember, we're drawing in half-inch scale. So take the three feet and divide it by two, which is 1.5 or 1.5 inches. Here are some other key measurements. Make sure that you have about 1.5 feet between your coffee table and your sofa, which would be three-quarters of an inch on your paper. And make sure that you have about two feet or a little less between areas that people need to pass through, which would be one inch on your paper. Also makes sure that the furniture is a balanced and spread throughout the room, meaning no big empty spaces like this. In fact, I aim to have something in every corner of a room, even if it's just a large plant, that's a good way to ensure that the room will feel balanced. Finally, be sorted, draw on the rug that you plan on buying as well onto your floor plan like this. For our review of these measurements and other key measurements, checkout the Measurement Guide in the resources section of this training lecture. As a reminder for dining rooms, if you're going to place a rug under your table, then be sure the rug extends at least two feet around all edges of the dining table so that your chairs fit comfortably on the rug at all times. For bedrooms, if you're a place in the rug under your bed, which I highly recommend you do. Again, you want to extend the rug from the bottom two-thirds of the bed, about two feet around the three sides like this. So now that you know what pieces you want, now comes the fun part. Finding your furniture pieces. There are obviously lots of great places to shop for furniture, but I highly recommend doing as much as you can online. First, you can view a lot of pieces in a relatively short period of time since you don't have to drive from store to store. Also, some of the major online home decor retailers like Wayfair.com allow you to enter in the measurements of the pieces that you are looking for, which will greatly narrow down your choices. Places like Wayfair.com, Overstock.com or hanging needle.com are great because of the huge variety of styles and price points that they have for nearly any type of furniture pieces that you may be shopping for. Once you find a piece of furniture that you'd like, just make sure that the dimensions are similar to the dimensions that you've drawn in on your floor plan. The FBI didn't you love is a little bigger or a little smaller than simply adjust the size of the shape on your floor plan to match the item. But then you may be to adjust the size of the other items in your floor plan that you haven't yet picked out to maintain the required space for your walkways between furniture pieces, etc. Now, here's a designer tip for you. What I do and what many designers do. Once we find a piece of furniture that we intend on recommending to a client or buying for ourselves even, is we copy and paste that image into an application like PowerPoint to create a mood or a design board. We will copy and paste all of the images for that room into one PowerPoint slide so that we can see all of the images together and makes sure that all of the pieces are harmonious with each other. The final note about buying furniture. If you are someone who cannot imagine buying a sofa or a chair without sitting in it first, which I completely understand. Then definitely choose a store that has both an online presence as well as a brick and mortar store in your area. So you can try out the piece in-person. While shipping is often free to get to, it's almost never free to ship it back unless there's a defect. So you don't want to end up having to pay for shipping to return a sofa, for example. 16. Step 7 - Choose Your Wall Art / Wall Decor: Step seven, choose your wall art and wall decor. For any wall art or wall decor, know that you don't have to match the color or the piece to the color scheme of your room. But it often looks best if you have at least one piece of artwork in the room that has at least some of the colors of your rooms color scheme. Minute, when deciding on what type of wall art to use, you should certainly consider if you prefer photography, abstract art, or more traditional pieces. However, you should also consider the interior design style of your room. For example, abstract artwork works particularly well in styles like contemporary and transitional. Black and white photography is perfect for the industrial and urban modern styles. And reproductions of classic pieces are ideal for traditional and French country interior design. Once you notice style of Walmart, you would like, you then want to match the artwork to the shape of the space of the wall that you are hanging it on. For example, you shouldn't have any rectangular piece in a rectangular space in terms of how high you should hang your artwork. Another mistake that people often make is that they hang their artwork too high. The center of the picture in general should be hung between 6066 inches or 150 to 168 centimeters from the floor. Be aware that any large wall art that you hang over a couch shouldn't be hung about six to ten inches or 15 to 25 centimeters over the back of a couch. A great place to buy large canvas pictures of nearly any type of image is great. Big canvas.com. Their prices are fantastic as long as you wait until they are having a 40th 50% off sale, which happens often. If you're going to do a collage of pictures, always lay out all of the pieces on the floor first and aim for consistent space between each picture, whether it's a grid or an eclectic pattern. Take a picture of the collage and write down the measurements between each picture before you begin hanging the different pictures in the collage. Again, try to have the middle of the collage be about 60 to 66 inches or 150 to 168 centimeters from the floor. Besides pictures, other great ideas for wall decor include mirrors, long shelves, which allows you to easily change out artwork anytime you feel like it. A flock of ceramic birds or an, a collection of ceramic or metal items, decorative plates, candles, conses, wall sculptures and wall decals. They really have come a long way. One of my favorite places to find really unique wall decor items is Etsy.com. I also love that I'm supporting individual artists when I buy from Etsy. 18. Step 8 - Choose Your Lighting: Step eight, choose your lighting. Lighting hands down is my favorite design element. Lighting really makes all the difference in a room. Too often people just use one overhead light or a couple of table lamps to try to meet all of their lighting needs. And they are really missing out on an opportunity to add some serious drama to their space. The first rule of lighting is to always, always, always have different layers of lighting. Here is what I mean by layers. Every room should have three layers of lighting, if at all possible. Ambient lighting, task lighting and accent lighting. First, you should definitely have one or more fixtures that provide ambient lighting or all over general lighting for your room. Forms of ambient lighting include chandelier, flush mountain lights, semi flesh mountain lights, recess can lights whilst conses COVID lighting or a light kit from a ceiling fan. Next, you want to ensure that you have dedicated task lighting for each activity that will be taking place in your room, such as reading, writing, working, food preparation, eating, hobbies, or playing a musical instrument. Examples of common task lighting fixtures include table lamps, floor lamps, desk lamps, Track Lighting pendants, and under cabinet lighting. Speaking of pendens, one of my favorite ways to use them is in lieu of table lamps on either side of your bed. This is a really great look for almost any style since there are pendens in nearly any style. Finally, to really take your lighting scheme to the next level, add some accent lighting to areas of the room that you want to draw attention to or highlight. This could include a floor can applied for a large plant. Track Lighting or directional recess can lights to light up artwork while the court or sculptures, picture lights for artwork, wall or step recessed lights, or one of my favorites, LED strip lights, which can be used in many applications, including insider under cabinet tree, bookcases, open shelving, or on the toe kicks of your kitchen bass cabinets or bathroom vanities. Just to name a few. Going back to directional racist can lights for a minute. They not only can be used for lighting artwork, but they can also be used for highlighting architectural details as CAN recessed floor lighting. All in all, I always try to have three to five different light sources in a typical sized room. And I spread them out throughout the room so there aren't any dark corners, are areas having three to five different light sources may seem like a lot, but flexibility in lighting allows you to change the mood of a room and ensures that you will always have adequate light so you don't strain your eyes. Speaking of mood, I place as many of my fixtures on dimmers as possible. As dimmers are one of the easiest ways to control the mood of a room through lighting, as well as the lighting level. Of course. Here's an example of a room that has a layered lighting scheme. We have recess can lights as ambient lighting, waltzes, dances and table lamps for task lighting, LED strip lights in the built-in bookcases, and recessed lights installed to provide Walgreens into the wall treatment on the right side of the room. Great lighting also makes you look good. So don't skimp in this area. In terms of finishes, choose the lighting fixtures to match the color of the hard surfaces in your room. If you are going with Chrome or silver, focus on light fixtures that have this finish. Although I love mixing metal finishes. So an easy way to do this is to choose to have one statement lighting fixture be in a different finish than the other light fixtures, such as this brass chandelier that we see here. Here are some final tips on lighting in terms of how big a chandelier pendant, semi flush or flush mount light should be for the middle of your room. The standard professional formula is to add the width and length of the room to determine the diameter. For example, if your room is ten by 14 than the fixture should be around 24 inches. However, I often add on five inches to this measurement. As I like larger light fixtures. For a ten by 14 room, I would look for a fixture that has a diameter between 2429 inches in the metric system, just add the length and width of the room and meters, divide that number by 12 and then convert to centimeters. Again, I would personally add about 13 centimeters to this measurement. For a bit of a more oversized look. In terms of how high to hang chandeliers, independence for fixtures that are going to hang over a table or a desk hanging out roughly 3234 inches or 76 to 86 centimeters over the table or desk. For a chandelier that is going to hang in the middle of the room. The bottom of the fixture should hang no lower than seven feet or 2.1 meters from the finished floor for adequate walking clearance. For dependence over an island, hanging them 30th, 36 inches or 76 to 91 centimeters above the island, depending upon how tall the people are in your house, as you don't want the lights to impede their view. For waltzes dances, hang them so that the light sources roughly 66 to 72 inches or 168 to 183 centimeters from the finished floor. Again, depending upon how tall the people are in your home, as a light source in the sky should be roughly at eye level. For a review of these measurements and other important lighting measurements, checkout the Measurement Guide in the resources section. The best places to purchase lighting in a variety of styles and price points includes lamps Plus shades of light, Wayfair.com and Overstock.com. For some studying higher and fixtures checkout, why lighting.com and circle lighting.com. 20. Step 9 - Choose Your Window Coverings: Step nine, 2s your window coverings. To me, a room doesn't really look finished without window coverings. Window coverings are essential for both aesthetic and functional reasons. As window coverings can provide warmth in the winter by helping to hold the heat inside. Keeping a space cooler in the summer by blocking or filtering the sunlight. Most common types of window coverings include curtains or drapes, blinds, vertical blinds, shades, and shutters. With all these choices, what type of window covering should you choose? I personally like having a combination of shades and drapes in a room like this to further help you narrow down your choices, also consider what style you have chosen for your room or home. For a contemporary, mid-century modern, industrial or urban modern look. Great window covering choices would include flat Roman shades. Roller blinds would lines, or very simple and clean drapes. For a traditional style formal and heavy curtains or drapes are a must, but hobbled Roman shades are also a great choice for a transitional style. Any window covering will generally work. For a coastal Sheikh look, consider light and airy curtains are drapes, simple Roman shades and shutters, or light filtering roller shades in a natural material. For a Scandinavian or Zen style go was simple light-colored curtains or light filtering roller shades. For French country, consider curtains or drapes. Roman shades, or shutters. For a bohemian style, consider richly colored or pattern curtains or drapes. It blinds and Roman shades. For farmhouse in Western, you can use simple curtains. Drapes, would blinds, and for just farmhouse gutters are also a great choice. Remember that they do come in different colors other than white. They look great in a dark espresso color and come into other shades, such as natural wood colors and even gray and black. Now in terms of color, you can either choose to have it be a shade of the neutral you've chosen for your room. For example, if you're neutral is grey, go for light or dark gray drapes or shades, or choose to have it be a shade of one of your accent colors. You can make the window coverings the same color as the wall. But I like to provide some contrast for visual interest. Unless you have a small room, in which case, I would match the window coverings to the pink color as unity of a color, particularly a light color helps a small room to feel larger. Another point about small rooms is if you are going to have a pattern on your window coverings, 2s, a small pattern. Larger patterns are best used in larger rooms. Also, unless you have a really high ceiling, hang the curtains as high and as wide as you can, about four to five inches from the ceiling, and then have the curtain rod extended about 12 inches or more on each side of the window. This makes your windows look much larger than they really are. This means for the standard eight foot ceiling, you want to purchase, curtains are drapes that are 96 inches. Now, I know you're thinking that is eight feet, which is the same height. But here's a designer trick for you. Take them to a seamstress and have them hemmed about five inches up from the bottom. So now you have curtains or grapes that are 91 inches in length and they'll look custom. You can do this with any drape from any price point. For a knife with ceiling, go with a 108 inch curtain panels and again have them hand 56 inches from the bottom. Now another important point, I generally will get my drapes altered before I hang them up on the drapery rod. Once my drapes or altered all either slide them onto the drapery rod or a hang them from the rod on curtain rings. Either way is fine. And then they'll have someone hold up the drapery rod with the drapes on them. I can make sure that the drapes hit the floor at exactly the right point before I install my drapery rod. This will tell my installer exactly where the curtain rods should be hung. Here are some additional tips when choosing window coverings for curtains and drapes. Always ensure that they always hit the ground. Otherwise, they look like someone who is wearing pants that are simply too short for them, not good. Or your drapes can even pull on the ground by a couple of inches. If you'd like a more formal or a romantic look. Window coverings throughout the house and do not have to match, but they should be complimentary. For example, the same type of covering, Roman shades or just similar colors. The smaller the home, the more important it is to have your window coverings be cohesive. Finally, for shades and rapes, consider whether you need a room darkening liner, which is a must, in my opinion, for bedrooms, but also a good choice for all of the rooms in your home. My go-to retail location for custom window shades and blinds is blinds.com. But my go-to place for curtains and drapes at various price points is Wayfair.com and Overstock.com. 22. Step 10 - Choose Your Accessories and Greenery: Here we are at the final step, step ten, choose your accessories and greenery. In terms of accessories, think of them like jewelry for a room. They really elevate any space and give a room great character. Accessories can come from items you've accumulated over the years. For example, from your travels. Or they can all be purchased at a place like home goods or Crate and Barrel. Examples of accessories include but are not limited to, pillows, blankets, framed pictures, bases, bowls, bar where trays, sculptures, books, coasters, candles and candle holders, lanterns, collections, clocks, nature items, flowers and plants. Just a quick note about collections. Do try and limit one main collection to a room. Otherwise it starts to look cluttered and loses its ability to be a focal point. I mentioned at the beginning of that accessories add character to a room, but they do so much more than that. One of their most important functions is to help reinforce the style of the room. Let me explain. While some furniture pieces clearly belong to a certain style, such as the obvious mid-century modern furniture we see here. Other furniture pieces can be used in multiple styles, such as clean lines sofa. If you have a room in which the style is not immediately apparent from the furniture, you can easily reinforce the style through accessories. Just take a look at these groups of accessories. Clearly, these accessories belong in the Zen er Japanese style. These belong in the Art Deco style, and these belong in the industrial or steampunk styles. Additionally, accessories allow you to layer in additional texture, which is critical to great room design. Whether it's a variety of different colored pillows on the sofa or carefully styled bookcases. There's no question that accessories adds great visual interest and texture to a room. Finally, accessories can tell a story about who you are and those who live in your home. Most people don't want to live in a house that feels like a stage tome. Rather, we use personal mementos like frame photos, concert posters, or items from our travels to make our home feel uniquely personal. It's these items that bring a different level of happiness to a space. That said, I have seven rules that I have successfully used repeatedly when accessorizing any particular space. Whether that's a bookcase, a coffee table, a console table, a dining table, a fireplace mantle, etcetera. First look to decorate items and groups that share some sort of similarity. For example, a color palette, a theme or that share our purpose such as vases or candles. Second, I typically, although not always, use odd numbers and the grouping, odd numbers always looks great though, and be sure to keep the tallest item in the back. Third, I vary the height and scale of my accessories forth. I tried to include books as they allow you to easily add color and height to my vignettes. Fifth, I tried to ensure that some of the accessories in the room reflect one or more of my rooms accent colors, as repetition of color is important to creating harmony. Another important design element. Sixth, I usually include some beam from nature such as flowers, plants, driftwood, etc. As these items naturally add a feeling of warmth to the display. Seventh and finally, when in doubt, formal symmetry always works, meaning using the same item on each side of the vignette. Formal symmetry always makes a vignette, as well as a room, feel incredibly polished and pulled together. Now let's take a look at these rules in action. Here we have a styled bookcase and you'll see that I've used every rule in this design. First, you can see that I've grouped items together based on both color and a coastal theme. You can see I've used odd numbers here and here. I varied the heightened scale most noticeably here. I've obviously included books. Given that the large amount of blue in this design, it's safe to say that blue is one of the accent colors of the room. I've included two items from nature, and I've used formal symmetry here. As a result, the entire bookcase feels cohesive and pulled together. Do I style every plot surface in a room? Unless I'm trying to create some negative space in the room designed in the contemporary or minimalist styles, then yes, I do. Whether that's a single striking accessory on a coffee table or a more carefully layered console table. I again accessories a flat surfaces to reinforce style, add texture, and tell a story about the people who live there. Now for a special word on plants, always, always include greenery in a room. It's one of the main elements that people forget, but can make a big difference whether it's real or a great photo version. If you've ever visited a model home, you will always see at least a couple of plants in each room. This is because greenery adds instant warmth to a room and has the added benefit of providing oxygen if the plant is real. While one plant is great, I think too is often better. This could be a tall plant which is a great way to fill a corner and a small plant on your coffee table. Or it could be too large plants or trees flanking the size of a fireplace or placed in opposite corners of your focal point wall for formal symmetry. While many varieties of plants work in many styles, there are some classic are well-suited choices for certain styles. Specifically palm trees are a great choice for coastal and Art Deco styles. Yucca or Madagascar dragon trees are ideal in contemporary spaces for the leaf figs look so good in transitional style rooms. Cactuses are a favorite for mid-century modern, industrial, urban, modern and Western styles. And there are some great looking for cactuses on the market today. So no need to be scared. Ferns are lovely in traditional and French country homes. Box woods and wreaths are common in farmhouse. Bonds eyes of course, are a natural for the Zen style. And any type of plant seems to work well in Scandinavian and Bohemian style homes. Trying to find great silk plants can often be hit or miss. But some of my favorite places I've had good luck on generally include nearly natural.com, West Elm and Wayfair.com. 24. Watch me Create a Room Design Using the 10 Step Method: I am so excited about this lecture because this is lecture where I get to show you the ten steps in action. Specifically, I am going to use my ten step method along with the guide to create a room design from start to finish. So let's get to it. Here is the room that I'll be creating a design for. As you can see, it's a living room and it's also empty, which means that I won't be incorporating any current furniture pieces or other furnishings like I often do for clients. And you may be doing as well. That said, as you know, step one is measure your room. I've gone ahead and created the floor plan. I could have certainly drawn it by hand, but I chose to use a software program instead. You can see I've included the windows here and there's a large cased opening here to the room, which is just another way of saying a doorway with trim but no door. Step two is decide on key activities. As this is a living room, this is going to be a place for entertaining and relaxing. I loved to read, so I'll choose that activities specifically. Step three is choose your style. With this beautiful wood fluorine as inspiration. I've decided that I'm going to go with mid-century modern as my primary style and contemporary as my secondary style. Moving on to step four, choose your color scheme. I'm going to draw from the existing architecture and we'll be using white and beige as my neutrals. And blue and green will be my accent colors. I'll be using walnut for my wood finish because nothing says mid-century modern like walnut does for my metal finishes, I'll be using a combination of brass and Chrome. Choosing our rug is the next step. As you can see, this is a large room and can easily accommodate a nine by 12 or 274 by 366 centimeter rug. That is what I'll be looking for. Based on my color scheme, I'm going to select a rug that incorporates the accent colors from my color scheme. For the material, I've decided that I'd like a wool rug. I've just completed my online searching and I've found this rug because my secondary style is contemporary. I decided to go with a contemporary abstract drug. And I think it's going to work really well in my design. Moving on to step six, choose your furniture. I've decided on the following pieces based on the key activities for this room. A sofa to accent chairs, coffee table, and end table, to bookcases to store all of my books. A backlit bench, and a console table. Now that I've drawn in my pieces, I made sure to confirm that I have appropriate clearance for all of these items. Specifically, that I have a minimum of 36 inches or 91 centimeters for the main passageways through the room. 22 inches or 56 centimeters for space between furniture pieces. One can pass comfortably between 1418 inches or 3646 centimeters between my seating and coffee table. I also made sure that the coffee table is roughly two-thirds the length of my sofa. Now that I've drawn in my furniture, I'm also going to check to ensure that I have the right size rug. And I do because all of the pieces of my seating arrangement sit perfectly on the rug and is not interfering with the bookcases or the console table. Again, because I'm starting from scratch, I'm going to need to source all of these pieces. I've spent some time doing that. Let me show you what I've found from my secondary style contemporary. I've chosen the following pieces. This gorgeous leather sofa and this streamline console table. All of my other furniture pieces, specifically the accident chairs, coffee table and table, bookcases and bench. Or in the style of mid-century modern, which of course is the primary style of my room. Now let me go ahead and put all of these pieces into the mood board so we can see what it looks like together. This is looking great. You can see that the accident chairs and bench pick up the colors that are in my rug. And I've repeated both circular and straight clean lines to create harmony in my design. I've also made sure to store all of the links to these pieces. I can go back to purchase them when I'm ready to do so. Unimportant note, make sure to double-check the sizes of the pieces that you selected. I double-check the sizes and ended up making a few minor adjustments to the links of the sofa, coffee table and the console table. Fortunately, this didn't create any issues with spacing between pieces. Moving on to step seven, choose Wall Art and wall decor. Looking at my floor plan, I definitely want some artwork for the north wall. And they'd like something over the console table on the west wall. I don't need wall art or decor for the remaining two walls, as the east wall is nearly all windows and the south wall has a large cased opening. And my plan is to place large indoor trees in those corners, which I'll get to in step nine. But I'm already thinking ahead. For in-between the two bookcases, I've selected the striking contemporary abstract artwork piece. It was important to me that I find a piece of artwork that had the same green that we see in the bench, given the close proximity of these two pieces. This piece is perfect. For over the console table. I've chosen this beautiful round brass mirror. Now let's go ahead and put them in the mood board. This is really coming together. But next is my favorite part of the design. Step eight, choose your lighting. For ambient lighting, I want to use a large flush or semi flush mount light. For task lighting. I'm going to use table lamps on the console table. And for accent lighting, I'm going to use LED strip lights in the bookcases. Picture light for the artwork. And I'll use some floor can apply for the indoor trees I mentioned. I've gone contemporary all the way from my lighting and chosen the statement, flush mount light. These beautiful table lamps and the sleep picture light. You might have noticed that they all RNA Chrome finish and that is a great contrast with the brass in the room. Let's go ahead and put them in the mood board. Yes, perfect. I like that from this perspective, the light fixture does not obstruct the view at all of the eye-catching artwork. On the step nine window coverings. Obviously, I only need to worry about window treatments for the east wall. Since these are my only Windows. Because my primary style is mid-century modern, I could leave these large windows bear, and that would be completely style appropriate. But as I mentioned in the step nine lecture, I always like a way to control the natural light and my privacy. I'll be using simple white drapery panels. Finally, we've arrived at Step ten. Choose your accessories and greenery. First, let's start with the console table. I'm going to add a trio of mid mod candle holders and a small contemporary sculpture. Now I will go ahead and add books and a mixture of stylish accessories from both the mid-century modern and contemporary styles to the bookcases. But I'll leave the beautiful coffee table bear. In a nod to the contemporary style. As I previously mentioned, I will be adding two tall indoor plants to these corners of the room. Here is the plant I'll be using. And I'll also add some matching succulent arrangements to the bookcases in the back. There it is a beautiful room design using my ten step method. I hope you found this lecture helpful. But more importantly, I hope it makes you feel confident to try this method in your own home. Happy decorating. 25. Use Focal Points to Take Your Design to the Next Level: Now that you've learned how to design a room using the ten step method, and you've seen me use it in this section, I want to move on to some additional techniques and more advanced topics that you may find helpful with your own interior designs. Let's start by talking about focal points. There is no question that focal points are an important design element. And chances are you've already included one in your room during the ten step process, whether you were aware of it or not. But first, what is a focal point? Put simply, it's a standout piece or element that draws your attention upon entering the room. It's the star of the show, if you will. In a bedroom, the bed is often the focal point. In a dining room. The dining room table or light fixture over the table is typically the focal point. In the living room. A fireplace usually plays that role. However, there are definitely other elements that can play this role as well, including a beautiful wall or ceiling treatment. Even if it's just a vibrant pink color, a gorgeous light fixture, a striking piece of artwork, a large mirror, a standout rug, or a unique coffee table. A view outside a large window can also make an excellent focal point. Why our focal points important? They actually can serve multiple practical purposes. First, let's say your focal point is artwork or a large rug. That item could serve as the inspiration for the rooms color scheme. If the focal point is your fireplace or a case could items such as a coffee table or a beautiful view. This can help you to determine how to best arrange your furniture, namely around the focal point. If your focal point is a ceiling treatment or a ceiling light fixture, such as a chandelier. It will draw your eye upwards, emphasizing the vertical space. This is an excellent focal point choice for a small room, as it will be especially effective and distracting from the smaller size of the room. If your style is minimalist, a striking focal point is absolutely essential to keep your room from feeling plane and uninteresting. Finally, whatever style your room focal points help you to create a wow moment for your room, which will always elevate the overall interior design. So does every room need to have a focal point? Well, I and I'm sure the majority of designers would say yes. But sometimes you may have a nicely designed room in which nothing in particular stands out. While there's nothing wrong with that, if you want to elevate your design, then absolutely incorporate a focal point. So how would you apply this using the ten step method? Go back to your room design. Let's look at mine as an example. Is there an element in this design that draws your attention? Yes, in my case, It's that back wall with the beautiful bookcases and artwork, which is reinforced by the accent lighting in both the bookcases and on the artwork. But let's say there was nothing in particular that stood out, but rather, everything is simply works well together. What can we do? I would look to replace one of the items in my room with something more striking. That could be something like artwork, the ceiling light fixture or coffee table. Or I could add in a beautiful wall or ceiling treatment. You can also start a room design with a focal point. If you already have an item or element selected, such as a unique piece of furniture or a specific wallpaper. In that case, you would insert the focal point selection somewhere between steps 23. Your focal point piece will then likely helped to inform your selections. In the remaining steps, including your style, color scheme, etcetera. Final important note in step eight, choose your lighting unless your focal point is a light fixture, I would consider using some form of accent lighting to highlight your focal point. If it makes sense to do so, such as a picture late for artwork, directional racist can lights the highlight wall decor, or LED strip lights for a beautiful bookcase. 26. Open Floor Plans – Considerations and Challenges: Most people would agree that they loved the look and feel of an open floor plan. In the context of a ten step method you just learned, you may experience challenges around measuring ideal placement for your furnishings to create zones, and proper lighting techniques. Let's talk first about measuring. Often the simplest approach to creating room designs with an open floor plans is to create separate floor plans for each functional area or zone. So for example, let's say we have a living room, dining room, combo area, like we see here. You have to decide where the dividing line is between these two spaces. So you can create a floor plan for each area, the living room and the dining room. Sometimes you may have natural architectural bricks in the room that can help you to easily find a natural dividing line, such as a door frame, window, pillar, or cabinet tree. You can think of the dividing line as an imaginary wall. Once you've done that, then if needed, you can place something on the ground such as a piece of masking tape. So you can use that as the border for each of your spaces, which will allow you to more easily measure your space. It doesn't matter how many functional zones share an open area. The approach is the same. Find the dividing lines, mark them, measure each area, and draw your floor plan. Now let's discuss how to most effectively use your furnishings to delineate your zones. By far, one of the most effective items is a rug. Now only do rugs feel great underfoot and are an easy way to add color and pattern to a room. But they are also one of the easiest ways to define a space within an open floor plan. You can either choose to use the same rug or choose coordinating rugs, preferably in a coordinating color and style. So how do you choose whether to go with the same rug or coordinating rocks? If you're rugs are going to be within two feet or 61 centimetres of each other. I would lean towards using the same rug. If there is at least three feet or 91 centimeters between rugs, either the same rug or coordinating rugs will work. It's important to ensure that the main furniture pieces are either sitting partially on the rug or completely on the rug within each zone. You can also use furniture to help separate zones within an open floor plan. Specifically, bagless benches, console tables, buffets and open back bookcases are all stylish and effective room dividers. And the last three options have the added benefit of providing extra storage. One often forgotten element for defining open floor plans is a strategic use of colors and or metal finishes. Clearly, when you have an open floor plan, you need to have a cohesive color scheme for the entire space. Ideally, your color scheme will include one to two neutrals, m1 to 3x and colors. However, you can use colors strategically to help to find the separate areas, like we see here with the red accents in the dining area. You can also use wallpaper or paint to help delineate an area by papering or painting the focal point while of that area in a different color. Finally, you can use metal finishes to help define zones. I love mixing metals. And while you might decide to go with the same one or two finishes throughout the entire open floor plan. You could choose to use different finishes to define a space like we see here. In the foreground, we see the living room has used black for the chandelier, the wall decor and the side table. But they've used a Chrome or nickel finished for the two pendants, that table lamp and the wall mere. Now let's discuss lighting in the context of open floor plans. First, just like rugs, you can use lighting to help delineate functional zones. In fact, after rugs, light fixtures, in particular, chandelier and attendance are probably the second best way to help to find individual spaces within an open floor plan. Ceiling fans also work. You want to hang your fixture in the middle of the space. Additionally, how high you hang the fixture also matters. More specifically for larger areas. You hang your fixture at a higher distance. Your eye will automatically make the connection that this is a larger space. Contrast the height of this fixture with the chandelier hanging over the dining area hanging at lower, helps you to quickly determine that this is a smaller space in terms of how much lighting to use in an open floor plan? Well, you want at least one lighting source for every functional area. But depending on the location and function of the zone, I would aim for three to five light sources if possible. Remember, this includes your accent lighting. It's always better to overlay to space than under light it. And remember to put as many of your light sources on dimmers as you can. You can control the lighting level and the mood. To final techniques that you can use to define zones in a room include, first ensuring each area has its own focal point. As I mentioned in an earlier lecture, common focal points for rooms include but are not limited to, fireplaces, artwork, ceiling light fixtures, unique ceiling treatments, or a unique furniture piece such as a beautiful coffee table. Second, use formal symmetry. Formal cemetery is one of my favorite techniques, And I particularly love it in an open floor plan, because symmetry automatically brings order to a space which is critical to a well-defined open floor plan. 27. How/When to Use Wallpaper in Your Design: I absolutely love wallpaper. There are so many choices when it comes to wallpaper, regardless of your style and at all price points. So it's definitely an element to consider incorporating as you design your room. To that point in this lecture, I want to talk about when you should consider using wallpaper, how to best utilize it in a room design, and how to incorporate it into the ten step process. First, I want to state that I consider wallpaper different and unique from paint. Paint is what I always select last, partly because there are literally thousands of pink color choices. So it's pretty easy to find one that works well with all of the colors in the room. Wallpaper is different and often it can be the inspiration for a room design, just like a rug or fabric can. Where does wallpaper fit in? Then, first let's talk about when you should consider using wallpaper in your design. Wallpaper works in most interior design styles. There are very few styles, if any, that I would completely avoid wallpaper, even in a style like industrial that is so pared down and neutral and it's color palette. There are some excellent fot, concrete papers that would look great in this style. Now let's talk about which rooms to use wallpaper in. I especially love using wallpaper in dining rooms, bedrooms, and powder rooms, but they can also look great in nearly any other room of the home. You have to be careful, of course, with using wallpaper in areas with high humidity and bathrooms with tubs and or showers. It's definitely possible to install it in these types of situations. But you need to have the right paper, the right paper hanger, meaning the right installer, and have the proper prep work done. Now let's talk about how to use it in a room design. Wallpaper is commonly used in two ways. It's either used on a focal point wall or it's used in the entire room. For a long time. It seemed as if accent walls were more popular. But I think that has to do more with the size and style of the room. For smaller rooms like a powder room, hanging the wallpaper on all of the walls is pretty common. For a larger room, you might see wallpaper installed on one wall, just on the ceiling, or on all four walls above a chair rail. You can also use a style of the room to help guide you. Specifically in more contemporary, modern and or casual spaces, it's more common to keep the paper to one focal point wall. Whereas in more formal and, or traditional rooms, papering all four walls would not be uncommon in terms of what type of wallpaper to use. Obviously, you want it to work with the style of the room. And you want to decide if you want it to be a subtle accent to the room, or if you want it to be the focal point. These are two very different approaches and you should decide how you want to use the paper before you begin looking at options, as there are many, many options available and it's easy to get overwhelmed. For example, if you want something more subtle and you just want to add texture to a room than I would consider a grass clop, a photograph's clop, or a solid colored paper with a subtle pattern. You should also consider the general color or colors you want in your wallpaper. Again, to help you narrow down your choices. If you are just using the paper on an accent wall. Wallpaper looks best when it coordinates with a pink color. For example, you could go with a dark gray faux grass cloth that will sit next to a mid tone gray paint on the adjacent wall or walls. Even when going with a bolder wallpaper, I would ensure that at least one of the colors in the paper is comparable to the pink color on the adjacent wall or walls. Now if you are papering all four walls, then you only have to worry about coordinating the colors in the wallpaper with the other furnishings in your room. Now let's talk about how you incorporate the selection of wallpaper within the ten step process. The answer to this depends on what type of wallpaper you envision for the space. If it's going to be a more subtle paper, then I'll usually select it after I've selected the furniture. However, if I plan on having the wallpaper became more prominent design element with a strong pattern and color in the room. Then I will likely select it after I've selected my style as the wallpaper will help to determine or dictate this color scheme for the room, for some great choices and wallpaper, again for many different styles and at all price points, I would recommend checking out Burke decor.com, wallpaper direct.com, and Brewster wall covering.com. 28. Common Design Challenge: Room With No Windows: Where I live, this is a common problem in basements, but obviously occurs with other interior rooms in a home. There are some great strategies that one can use to really brighten up this type of space and even fully in the eye into thinking that there are windows. So let's get to it. First. I would definitely use a light pink color, particularly warm white or cream, but also light beige or gray would work. Just make sure that paint being used is not any flat finish. And I would absolutely use at least one large mirror somewhere in the room to help reflect light and provide the illusion of a window. I would be sure to incorporate a strong layered lighting scheme, meaning light fixtures to provide ambient lighting, task lighting and accent lighting in the room, as well as to further brighten the space and make sure that all of your lighting needs will be met. I would also incorporate a large piece of artwork to serve three functions. First, it will help break up the wall space, which is what Windows typically do. Second, it will help to distract from the fact that there aren't any windows. And third, it may be able to be used as your rooms focal 0.1. Other technique I've used is to hang Florida ceiling drapes on a wall where a pair of windows might naturally be. This has two advantages. It provides the impression that there are windows behind the drapes and it softens a space visually. Finally, I would include some higher quality SOC plants to the space to help liven up and soften a space. At the same time. 29. Common Design Challenge: Child and/or Pet Friendly Designs: When I'm working with clients who need their home to be child and or pet-friendly. There are some go-to materials that I will frequently specify for fluorine, tile or vinyl are usually my top choices. Even if you wanted, would florine. There are many porcelain tiles on the market now that looks so much like wood without the upkeep and luxury vinyl plank or MVP, which is designed to look like wood or stone, is becoming an increasingly popular choice in homes with pets and children. For fabrics and rugs, the selection of indoor, outdoor choices is excellent. Not only do they work well, but they look great. Cinderella fabric is a particularly good choice for seeding. Otherwise, I would be sure to apply fabric protection to all of my seating. There are many competitors to the original Scotch guard that are excellent and companies that will be happy to apply them for you. Slip cover furniture and washable curtains are also a smart choice for that. These covers can be easily washed as needed. Along the same lines, one trick all uses to purchase fabrics such as curtains, sofas, rugs, et cetera, that are similar in color to the pets for so that when they do shed the hair on the fabric is not so obvious. Going back to rugs, if you prefer the feel of something softer underfoot, I would look at dark pattern polypropylene rugs, which are generally great hygiene stains. And because they aren't terribly expensive, it's something you can change out every year or two if needed. As far as accessories, I would look to incorporate non unbreakable lightweight materials such as wood and plastic. If the pets are inclined to eat plants, I would incorporate higher end silk plants instead and either go with taller indoors so trees or placed smaller real plans on higher surfaces out of the reach of small children and pets. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the importance of providing a scratching post for any cats and regularly trimming, buffing a dog's nails as well to cut down damage to the soft fabrics in the home. For those pet who are not easily deterred, there are enzymes, sprays that can be purchased or homemade and sprayed on fabrics that are meant to deter pet him scratching and biting your home furnishings. I really believe that you don't have to sacrifice style with small children or pets. You just need to think a little differently. 30. Common Design Challenge: Techniques for Hot/Humid Areas: If you live in an area that is hot and humid year round, you may either know or suspect that certain materials and colors schemes are preferable and you would be correct. First and foremost, I highly recommend using a light color scheme and include colours like white, beige, gray, light gray and other cool colors, such as blue, green, and lavender for the main colors in your room. So why do I say that? In a study by a company with a website called color matters, they found that test subjects who entered a room with a cool color palette stated that the temperature of the room was six to ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rooms based temperature. And those who entered a room with a warmer color palette, conversely, stated that the temperature of the room was six to ten degrees warmer than the room actually was. That is pretty phenomenal and worth considering as you make your color palette choices. Okay? But what if you love warm colors? Does this mean you can't use them? No, of course you can. I would personally stick to using them in the accessories of the room, such as your artwork, wall decor, throw pillows, floor pillows, proofs, throw blankets, and possibly your rug. Also, I would use fabrics that don't absorb much heat, like cotton, linen and polyester and avoid fabrics, leather, vinyl, and wool. Other materials that generally work well in humid climates include steel, stone, and glass. So these can be great choices for furniture pieces and tabletops. Having good window treatments are important for keeping the hot sun out. I like to combine a shade specifically meant to keep heat out, such as solar shades, insulated cellular shades, faux wood blinds as real wood can warp and humidity. And appropriately line Roman shades with linen or cotton curtains. In the cooler evenings, the shades can be opened and the lightweight curtains can be drawn to allow the cool breeze to come in through an open window while maintaining privacy. In addition to using ceiling fans, installing window film to block sunlight and heat can also help drive down that air conditioning bill. For fluorine, stone or tile is a great choice for hot, humid climates. Additionally, I would choose synthetic rugs, such as polypropylene, as these can usually stand up to more humid climates. Sadly, wool rugs are not a great choice because they can absorb quite a bit of water. And while jute, another favorite of mine is great for hot climates, it doesn't work well for humid climates as it can attract mold and mildew. Finally, I recommend investing in a portable or whole house dehumidifier, which can help greatly with reducing the humidity level in your home. 31. Common Design Challenge: Radiators and Window Treatments: In many parts of the world, it's not uncommon to have a radiator directly beneath the window, which can create a bit of a design challenge when it comes to window treatments. So let's talk about some viable solutions. If the radiator is directly below your window and does not extend past the window edges than one great option is to hang stationary curtain or drapery panels that don't move on the sides of the window to frame your window. And then layer that with a simple window covering like a roller shade, Roman shade, woven shade, or stylish blinds for privacy. Alternatively, you could forgo the curtains are drapes altogether and just use a roller shade, Roman shade, et cetera, for that window. If your radiator does extend beyond the edge of the window, then your best solution is to hang inside or outside mount shades or blinds over these windows. If you have other windows in the room that don't have an obstruction, then I would hang the same shades or blinds on the other windows. But consider pairing them with curtains are drapes that coordinate with the shades to add texture and softness to your room. 32. Common Design Challenge: How to make a Large Room Feel Cozier: First, let's just clarify that this is a single large room, for example, a large living room, and not an open floor plan situation. The best way to make a large room feels smaller and cozy or is primarily through strategic color and lighting selections. Let's first talk color. Darker colors in general, make a room feel cosines and in a big room, more manageable. In particular your walls, whether that's your paint, wallpaper or some other wall treatment. Darker paint or wall treatments will help the walls to feel as if they are advancing and a smaller room feels cozy. Or this is also true if you have a high ceiling. In general painting your ceiling need dark color or even a few shades darker than your walls, will help to visually lower the ceiling. Going back to your walls, you can either use the same darker pink color on all four walls or you can absolutely choose to have an accent wall. Accent walls will break up your space visually and help it to feel a bit smaller and cozy. Additionally, choose any dark primary Hugh, such as navy blue, charcoal gray, deep red, or dark green as your primary color in your color scheme is always a good choice in this type of situation. However, to avoid a cave-like feeling, be sure to use mirrors, glass, or polished metal case good items, a variety of textures, light fluorine or light or bright rugs, as well as some lighter or brighter furniture pieces. Additionally, using chair rail or wanes coding in the room. And in the case of chair rail, using two different colors or treatments above and below the rail will also help to break up the vastness of the room and help your room to feel a bit cozy. But if you're not a fan of wanes coding or chair rail, then as an alternative, I would recommend painting your base and crown molding a different color from your walls along the same lines, I would be sure to use window treatments that contrasts with the wall, contrast on walls, whether that's through wall treatments or window treatments help a room to feel a bit smaller and as a result, cosines as well. The design cousin, the color is patterns, and using a variety of patterns in the room will create a number of visual breaks and help the room to feel smaller and cozy year. Same with texture. Be sure to use a variety of different textures in a large room from maximizing that cozy feeling. Now let's talk lighting. If I were trying to make a large room feel cozy or I would use a number of table lamps and floor lamps with opaque shades positioned away from the walls throughout the room. And I would pair these with a low light chandelier or a chandelier on a dimmer placed in the center of the room. Apart from color and lighting, be sure that you are using furniture that is appropriately scaled for the room, of course, meaning large or even oversize pieces. For example, any large bedroom, I would be sure to use a large or even oversized headboard which helps to fill up some of the empty wall space. Additionally, be sure that you have the typical distances between your furniture items as you would in a regular sized room, such as 14 to 18 inches or 36 to 46 centimeters between your sofa and coffee table. And no more than ten feet or three meters between individuals in a seating arrangement. If you can't find a coffee table large enough for your space, consider using two identical coffee tables instead. Finally, be sure that there aren't any empty corners or large empty areas in your room, which just emphasizes the large space. Instead, consider large floor plants, console tables, or create an extra seating area in these empty spaces. 33. Common Design Challenge: Irregular Shaped Rooms: Irregular shaped rooms can include many different design challenges, including walls that are too long or too short, columns or other architectural features that break up the room and small nukes that seem unusable. Of course, each room is unique, but there are some general strategies that will work in most irregular shaped rooms. First, I would use a light color on the walls, ceiling, and all architectural features in the room. This will help soften all of the lines and make the room feel more balanced and cohesive. Second, it's important to create separate zones in the room, which will make furniture placement much easier as you can measure and think about each zone separately, just like I spoke about in the lecture on open floor plans. For example, if you have a small looker area, this may be the perfect place for a small writing desk and chair, or it can be turned into a small reading nuc. Not having to consider how this area fits into the bigger space, frees up your mind to consider how the area can best be utilized based on its unique shape and size. This approach also goes perfectly with step to decide on key activities. Once you've decided on your key activities, you can then decide which zones will be used for each activity. Now if you have separate zones, it's important that you still use a single color scheme in the room and repeat colors, patterns, and elements throughout the space so that the rooms designs still feels cohesive. Another excellent approach is to have custom furniture, such as bookshelves, built specifically for that space. Anytime you have the ability to add extra storage, is nearly always at plus for any home. Now if you haven't awkwardly placed window, install Florida ceiling drapes along the length of the entire wall, which will give the impression of symmetrical windows and provide balance to your room. Finally, having a great focal point is especially important in an irregular shape room. Because just like with a small room, a focal plane will also help distract from the shape of the room. 34. Conclusion: Great job, and that's it. You now know how to design scheme much any room in ten easy steps. As a quick review, here are the steps again. Step one, measure your room. Step 2b, decide on the key activities. Step three, twos your style. Step floor, choose your color scheme. Step five, 2's your rug. Step six, choose your furniture. Step seven, choose your Walmarts and wall decor. Step eight, 2's your lightened. Step nine, a window coverings. And step ten, choose your accessories and the greenery. Hopefully, you are now feeling confidence to tackle your own design project and create a beautiful and practical space in your own home. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to send me an email. I am more than happy to help answer your follow-up questions. Thank you so much and happy decorating.