Last week under Interior Design 101, I promised to walk you through all the basic design principles that make the design of a room(s) look good. These were the “secrets” that don’t usually get revealed by the design pro’s, and under Interior Design 101, I talked about why. That being said, let’s move to the first step of the design process, and probably the most important step (and the most obvious) when planning your design project. It’s as simple as this: FUNCTION! I said it three times in the title for emphasis, that’s how important this first step is. Just as location is important in real estate, function is equally as important when designing your kitchen, bath, den, bedroom, nursery, etc. If a room is functional, it is successful!
Let’s utilize a living room as an example. How are you planning on using this space? Will it be formal, or casual? Will you be entertaining guests regularly, or will it be a more intimate, family setting? Are there any readers in the family, or musicians? Is there a fireplace? Will you be writing bills and need to incorporate a small office workspace?
O.K…. so you won’t be paying any bills from your living room, because your living room will be about relaxing! But you certainly do entertain formally on occasion and love to read, the husband plays the piano, and you have that beautiful fireplace that you enjoy during those cool winter days and evenings. So, now you have determined function! As I said earlier, it seems obvious, but overlooking the obvious can be quite costly to your decorating budget! Determing function in advance of your design installation will save you money and stress later.
Having determined FUNCTION has also helped you to determine what types of furnishings you will need, but not MOOD, which we will get to very shortly on our blog site. But for now, you might want to take the time to do a furniture layout of your room. But before you can do this, you would first want to measure your room and do a rough draft of the space on paper, including the locations of the electrical outlets, windows and doors, cable outlets, light switches, fireplace(s), and any HVAC units. Make sure to measure your windows, including the space under them from the floor to the sill. To make this all easy for you, there are numerous free space planning and decorating programs that you can download from the internet, including The Ikea Home Planner, that allow you to easily drop and drag windows, doors, and furnishings. Another great program that has a very user friendly interface is 3D Home Architect, which allows you to also place your electrical, lighting, and cable locations on your plan. Although not free, it’s quite reasonably priced, and can be found at www.3dhaonline.com. Another important reason for taking accurate measurements and doing a furniture layout within your space is to help you to determine SCALE. That subject will be coming up soon as well.
We’ll be talking more about another important aspect related to function and room layout in our next Interior Design 101 blog…FURNITURE PLACEMENT, TRAFFIC PATTERNS, AND SCALE.
Wishing you happy decorating!
Constance & Remy