You want your home to look beautiful and stylish, but you don’t have the money to hire an interior decorator.  In many cases, doing it yourself is best anyway, because your natural style preferences and personality come out.  This article deals with some of the things you should keep in mind when decorating your own home; you might consider this information the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of decorating.

Good Bets for Success

To make the most of your home, consider the architectural design and location.  Your goal should be to maximize the architectural assets of your home while incorporating your own unique style and personality.  This helps you achieve the perfect balance, and lessens the need to redecorate on a frequent basis.

Use a signature piece to decorate every room.  Whether modern, abstract or elegant, this piece can serve as the basis for decorating the room.  Once you have chosen a signature piece of wall art, for example, you can begin to incorporate colors, textures and design for the rest of the furnishings to complete the look.

Combine Various Design Elements

You want your home to be unique and appealing, right?  In order to accomplish a look that is totally yours you want to blend various design elements.  Wood pieces, bold patterns, stripes, plaids and florals can all be used together to add interest and depth to the room.  A wood floor is dazzling on its own; throw a couple of boldly hued geometric patterned rugs down and the floor comes to life!  Same thing for solid colored sofas and other furnishings – add boldly colored throw pillows and throws with varied patterns.

Pay particular attention to the scale of a room.  Furnishings should be of similar size and shape.  The repeated use of shapes, fabrics and colors helps bring the design of the room together, making it look as though it was professionally decorated.

A Few Things to Avoid

When you decide to decorate your own home, there are a few things you should not do.  For one, don’t let a friend or relative tell you how to decorate!  Of course you are willing to listen to their suggestions, but it is your home and the goal is for you and your family to feel comfortable and pleased with the décor and design.

Many people make the mistake of placing furniture against the walls leaving it spread out in order to give the room a more spacious appearance.  This is a mistake!  Furniture should be arranged in an intimate grouping, away from the walls.  Group your chairs, tables and sofa around a large area rug to give the room a more personal and welcoming look and feel.

Don’t Try to Display Everything You Own

You may have many collectibles you have picked up over the years.  Many people have an attic, basement or closet packed with their favorite accents and accessories.  When you decorate a room, don’t try to use them all.  This can give the room a messy and cluttered look.  Instead, save some of them for later!  You can refresh the room later on by switching out the old collectibles and decorating items for the ones you have stored.  Using less also helps add to the importance of each piece you have carefully selected to display.

Remember these tips the next time you feel a need to refresh and update your home.  You can have a professional look and feel – even when you do it yourself!

You can quickly and easily add style to any room in your home by using any of several painting techniques on your walls. These techniques make any DIY paint job look like a professional one.

There are certain things you need to do before you can start any type of painting on your walls. All your supplies need to be ready. In addition, the walls need to be prepped by filling in any cracks or holes and taping off the trim and windows with blue painter’s tape. Depending on what technique you decide to use, you will also need to be sure you have some special tools as well.

Rag Painting Technique
When you paint with the rag painting technique, no paint brushes or rollers are used. Instead, you use a simple rag (such as an old t-shirt or any type of cotton rag) to apply the paint. The result is a marbled effect on your walls.

To paint with rags:

• First dip your rag into the paint, shaking off the excess.
• Dab the rag onto the wall, taking care to apply the paint in whatever pattern you’ve chosen. But be sure not to spread out the pattern too much.
• For a creative twist to this technique, try applying a darker base color first and then rag on the lighter paint color.

Sponge Painting Technique

This particular technique is used to give a wall depth and interest. Before you can begin sponging, you will first need to apply a base color to the wall.

To apply this sponge painting technique:

• Taking a regular or sea sponge, dip it carefully into the paint or glaze of your choice.
• Starting from the edge of the wall and working your way in, dab the sponge in a random pattern.
• You can either choose to only do one wall in the room or complete all the walls in the room using this sponging technique.

Color Washing Technique

This painting technique adds a subtle finish to your walls that gives the appearance of floating color. This is a good technique for those walls with flaws that you want to cover up. This technique is a little more time consuming, however. Layers must be built up in order to get the full effect of the color wash.

To color wash:

• First, paint the wall the color you’ve selected as your base color. You’ll then need to wait for it to completely dry.
• Then, with a slightly different color or a complementary color, come back and paint another layer.
• When painting this next layer, only use a paint brush. Apply the paint in all different directions, going over your strokes. In this way, the base color will show through in random areas.
• If you want an additional color to show on the wall, you can do another layer of painting this way.

Whether you’re looking to redecorate your kitchen or bedroom, these painting techniques can be used in any room in your home. By instantly adding style to your walls, they will perk up the décor of any room.