Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes of DIY Home Design

DIY design is more common than hiring professionals. There’s a lot of excitement associated with buying your first home. If you were previously living with your parents or renting, it’s still your home, but it’s technically not the same. In your parents home you’re limited to design in your personal space, your bedroom. Although an apartment offers you more freedom, there are certain changes you won’t be willing to make, it’s foolish to make any major changes in a rental.

When you buy your first home, it’s a whole new ball game. Every detail and final decision is up to you. It starts out with a build out before you move in, are you keeping the home the way it is? Are you upgrading floors, etc? Is it a new build where you customize every feature? The design aspect starts there; flooring, paint color, finishes and then extends to furniture and art when you finally move in.

It’s advisable to have a professional take care of it, with your input of course. However, most people don’t want to be told what to do when designing their first home. Part of the fun is turning it into a DIY project. As long as you follow these important tips, you’ll be designing like the pros:

1) Color Overload

This decision should be made when selecting what colors you are going to have your rooms painted. The last thing you want is color overload; it will make your house look messy and lack elegance. The colors you choose to paint a given room should reflect the furniture and anything else that will be put in that room.

2) Furniture Arrangements

The most common design mistake people make is pushing furniture against the wall. It creates disjointed areas in the centre and lacks balance. Pushing items such couches and chairs toward the centre of the room creates more serene and intimate environments.

3) Matching Furniture

When comes to selecting new furniture, most people end up buying matching sets. This is an effort to create harmony in the room. Unfortunately, it also makes one of the primary goals, being unique, difficult to achieve. For your room to be in harmony, the furniture just needs to match, it doesn’t have to be a set. Mixing and matching is a better strategy to let your creative wings soar and create something beautiful.

4) Curtains

One important key to DIY home design success is making spaces look bigger, this includes making your ceiling look taller. If you hang your curtains too low, it will have the reverse effect. In order to maximize the beauty of a given room, ensure that you hang the curtains as high as possible to give off the illusion of having higher ceilings.

5) Focal Point

A common DIY design flaw is creating more than one focal point in a room. Often times there are natural focal points, but other times it’s not so clear and you have to create one. It’s important that you ensure that there is only one focal point per room to maintain balance.

Original article found at: http://dreamcasa.org/living/avoid-these-5-common-mistakes-of-diy-home-design/