While hiring an interior designer or decorator can help ensure a well designed room you will love for years, you may be more of a DIY-er and want to tackle the job yourself. If so, here are the basic steps to decorating virtually any room in your home.

Start With the End in Mind

If you don’t pick up any other advice from this post, please please please remember this. You have to start with the end in mind. You are essentially guaranteed to end up with a hot mess of a space if you buy a bunch of random furniture and accessories and hope they all work together in the end.

The first step of any interior design project is coming up with a plan. This involves various details that pull a room together. I delve into the guts of this plan further below, but one of my key tools to visualize the end goal is building a mood board in Olioboard, a free interior design inspiration platform.

I created this colorful room rendering for an e-design client. With e-design, I don’t always get to see the finished space, but it is a fun and super affordable way for me to help people who may not live near me pull together a room they’ll love. This particular client loved jewel tones (girl after my own heart!) and glam finishes such as brass, fur, and animal prints.

I also use Canva to do higher level mood boards. This inspiration board is for a current e-design/interior styling client I am working with locally. You can very easily create the same type of mood board for your project.

My main point is that you need a visual representation of the room or space you are trying to achieve. All purchases should lead you closer to that goal. If they don’t, no matter how great the deal is or how much you love the piece, it doesn’t belong in that particular room.

If you prefer to pull your visual together with a live inspiration board where you gather textile samples, paint swatches, and magazine clippings, that works too. Sometimes a cohesive Pinterest board is all you need. The crucial point is that you visualize the end goal you are working toward.

Consider Function 

One of the first steps to decorating a room is determining the function of that space. Is it a private space such as a bedroom, or public where you will be frequently entertaining guests, as in a dining room or living room? Who primarily uses the space? Is it an adult gathering area or do you need kid friendly furniture and accessories? How much storage do you need and what type? These needs vary depending on the ages and life stages of the people utilizing the room. The design needs for a kid’s bedroom are extremely different than a man cave primarily used by adults.

Make sure you acknowledge all of the uses for a particular space. For example, let’s say your home office doubles as a guest room. You need to consider your day to day functionality as well as the comfort of guests when designing such a space. Perhaps a daybed or Murphy bed is a good solution in this situation, since it can be tucked out of the way and allow plenty of room for your daily workspace. When rooms service multiple purposes, you may need to get creative to meet the needs of all of those uses.

Consider Feeling

Another less obvious consideration in the steps to decorating a room is determining a feeling you want the space to exude. I like to brainstorm feeling or descriptive words and settle on a couple that encapsulate the feeling I want to acheive. In my recent living room refresh, I wanted a fresh and cheerful space that also felt comfortable and inviting. Other combinations might be upscale and chic, beachy and sophisticated, or casual and cozy. The options are really limitless, but what matters is the feeling you want.

Get Inspired

In this day of technology, there is no shortage of design inspiration. Some of my favorite tools to gather inspiration include Pinterest, Houzz, and Instagram. These virtual platforms make it super simple to compile a collection of images that jump start the ideas for your design. This is my current favorite Instagram collection of images (did you know you can save pictures to collections on this app?!). It’s a very different look than what I’ve previously gravitated to, as you can see, and I’m calling it “New Traditional.”

You may prefer a more “old school” inspiration method, such as perusing interior design magazines, gathering textile samples, or creating a live mood board. Or your inspiration might come from one specific piece. For example, I’ve built entire room designs around a pillow I fell in love with, or a rug that sparked inspiration. The design process is intensely personal, and there are no right or wrong answers to what might inspire you.

Stick to Your Budget

Another of the less enjoyable yet extremely crucial steps to decorating your space is sticking to your budget. We’d all love a million dollars to decorate the home of our dreams, but that just isn’t reality. You might be tempted to splurge on a sofa you can’t afford, but even the most gorgeously designed room is NOT worth sacrificing your peace of mind over. Two years later when you are still paying off that stunning sofa, you’ll regret the impulsive decision to spend above your means! The room you envisioned as a peaceful haven will morph into a stressful reminder of payments you wish you’d never taken on.

You might be blessed with a healthy budget of $10,000 to redesign your living room, or maybe that budget is more like $1,000. Whatever it is, determine the budget before you start shopping and stick to it. Your pocket book, and your mental state, will thank you in the long run. And your spouse. 😉

If sticking to a budget means you need to decorate your space in phases, so be it. It’s NOT a race. Sometimes slowly designed rooms end up with the most authentic and collected feel anyway. Most of my rooms have come together this way!

Choose Timeless (To You) Pieces for Major Items

Major pieces, like a sofa or bed, are investments you don’t want to have to replace in a short time, which is why many people stick with neutral pieces. However, if you’ve loved jewel tones for twenty years, a deep teal or navy sofa may feel timeless in your book, which is why I say invest in “timeless to you” pieces. What is a massive style risk for one person may seem like a clear and logical choice for another. But if you have any doubt about the long term potential of a piece, it is safest to go neutral. You can always bring in a trendier or more colorful vibe with art and accessories.

In addition to neutral colors, larger pieces that mesh with a variety of styles are your best bet. For example, a chesterfield sofa works with various looks and has been around for centuries, so it will never feel trendy or out of vogue. Another classic piece that works with an array of decorating styles is an English roll arm sofa, which is what I currently have my eye on for my living room. 

Add Contrast and Texture (Don’t Get Too Matchy Matchy)

Nobody wants a room that looks exactly like their neighbor’s. Well, I guess unless your neighbor is a super talented interior designer, and then maybe you are lusting after her living room. 😉 My point is that you don’t want your home to look like every other home on the block, or like it came right off the showroom floor of a particular big box home store. The key to achieving a well designed look is mixing things up. Mixing styles, mixing textures, mixing mixing mixing…

This was one of the hardest things for me to learn when I began studying interior design. As a perfectionist, I was naturally drawn to matching furniture sets, consistent color schemes, and completely symmetrical arrangements. But when I started analyzing the designs of the rooms I fell in love with, I realized that they rarely, if ever, contained all furniture and picture frames in the same wood tone or matchy matchy furniture sets. My bedroom gained a lot of visual interest when I ditched my all black bedroom set for a mix of colors and finishes I brought in during my One Room Challenge.

One of the last steps to decorating a room is pulling in the throw blankets, pillows, artwork, and decorative accessories. There are no hard and fast rules here, but there are basic styling guidelines, which is a blog post for another day. But this is one area where you can really mix it up, bringing in a variety of textures, color tones, and finishes. Take the time to slowly add layer after layer of your home, keeping in mind how things work together, but also knowing that a layered and collected look will result in a more visually interesting space.

Make It Yours

The best compliment you can pay an interior designer is to tell them that a space they designed in your home feels like “you.” No one wants a gorgeously decorated room that they can’t come home to and relax in because it feels like someone else’s space.

What feels homey and relaxing for you could cause stress to someone else. Take me and my sister. She loves rustic farmhouse style almost completely devoid of color. I run in the completely opposite direction with glam interiors featuring vibrant, bold color. It would irritate her to live in my home, and I would feel energy-less (sure, it’s a word) with a complete lack of color.

You need to figure out what works for YOU, not what’s trending on Pinterest or what your neighbor (or friend, or mother-in-law) thinks is cool. Your home needs to be a comfortable haven for you and the other people who live there. You do you, baby!

This may mean incorporating family photos into your decorating, or family heirlooms that have been passed down for generations. My living room contains an antique table I inherited from my grandma that has been in my family since the 1880’s. Talk about bringing meaning and history to our home…

I hope these steps to decorating have given you some fresh ideas for approaching interior design in your home. If you’ve got a second, I’d love to hear about your favorite tip in the comments below!