We’re always looking for ways to improve our homes, work spaces, businesses, etc. And part of that improvement is the design, style and functionality. But, we’re not always working directly with a designer on a day to day for these improvements. Yet, we all will inevitably run into the same and most common Design Dilemmas. And without a designer by our side everyday, we may not always know the best or most Creative Solutions to these roadblocks. Bella Home Interiors is coming to the rescue! We’ll discuss the most typical design problems today and offer our most effective and innovative resolution for you to put into practice!
Where to start? Where to begin? If you’re getting ready to either completely furnish and style a room from scratch or you’re doing a refresh, how do you get started? The biggest dilemma here is knowing what to do first in a room. The flooring, or the rug! Before you do anything, the flooring needs to be determined. Whether you’re refinishing existing flooring, putting down a new one, installing a rug, or choosing an area rug, this step must come first. Your flooring/rug option will begin to determine the overall look of the room, it will be the basis for colors, types of furniture used and any other finishes being included. Not to mention, if you wait to decide on flooring/rug options, it’ll be much more difficult to install later down the line. A foundation builds a home, think of your flooring as the foundation of a room!
When you find yourself looking at a room or a space and feeling bored by it, it makes it hard to enjoy spending time there. What about the room is making it boring? Most times it one of the following things that can bring the feel of room to feeling just meh:
Dilemma - How matchy-matchy is everything in the room? If most of the room is playing the matching game, it removes any variety and hence, removes excitement and any type of energy.
Solution - Bring color variation in, artwork, pillows, window treatments, accessories. Change up the hardware finishes and add variety to them as well.
Dilemma - Is the scale and the height of everything in the room the same? This takes away from any movement in the room and doesn’t allow your line of sight to have any activity.
Solution - Play with heights and sizes. Mix up the types of furniture, try to avoid using all big bulky or all minimalist style pieces. Use different sizes from large to small for wall art and pillows. Scale is a crucial element in design and can make all the difference in the feel of a room.
Dilemma - Your space has had the same look for quite awhile, but you’re not ready for a full on makeover or renovation.
Solution - Something as simple as a fresh coat of paint or a new area rug can really breathe life back into a space. You don’t always need to go all out to improve a room, it can be as effortless as adding a single but effective update.
Speaking of a fresh coat of paint, it’s easy to get overwhelmed choosing a color. And then it can be intimidating to make a final decision and hope that you’ll love it on the walls as much as on the paint chip you’re choosing from. Here’s four fail safe steps to ensure that you can choose the right color and love the finished product!
Decide if you’re going neutral or colorful, then decide which color family you want to pick from. An example is, if you want to go neutral and you love tans, look through the tan families, using Pinterest for this could help you in getting an idea of what various tans you would like. Same for colorful paint, do you want to go in the green family? Bright greens or rich greens? Then only review those colorways. This process will be less overwhelming and less time consuming
Once you’ve narrowed your options down, be sure that when looking at paint swatches, always view them in the room you will be painting. And look at the swatches upright vs looking down at them - the lighting can drastically change how the color looks when it’s not parallel with the wall.
Painting a sample swatch on the wall before making a final decision is always a wise idea. Be sure to look at the swatch during the day and at night. Natural and artificial light will affect the color and it’s best to see it both ways and know you love it before investing your time and money into painting the whole area.
If you fall in love with a color but it feels too dark, consider ordering the paint at a lower strength percentage. Decreasing the percentage will make the color value lighter without changing the undertones. This is different than simply picking a lighter beige color swatch. This is a win win, you get the color you love without sacrificing the integrity of it!
Let’s address a problem we all encounter that can be quite disruptive in how we function in a room. Sun Glare! The sun is a wonderful thing and natural light is crucial to our well-being, but it can certainly interfere with working on the computer, watching tv or where we place furniture. However, there’s a handful of awesome options that we can use as solutions and design opportunities. Take your pick!
Painting your walls a bright color, Having bright coloured walls reduces the contrast between the solar glare and the wall. This tricks your eyes into being less affected by the glare and making it less noticeable.
Adding protective tinted film is one of the best options because it gives you the best of both worlds. You reduce solar glare by up to 90% while still allowing natural light into your office.
Here’s another big one…How do you create or define spaces without building or removing walls??? Or, if you want an open space plan but want designated areas throughout it, how do you accomplish this??? This often seems to be one of the tougher design dilemmas but yet one of the easiest, and most fun to remedy! We’ll list off our favorite creative solutions for accomplishing this:
Paint! You’d be surprised in the many ways that painting can create a little reading nook or study space in a room. Or a floor to ceiling accent section on a wall with some shelving, desk and chair can become the office area in a room. A strong linear accent band across a wall can become a gallery for displaying artwork or family photos. The book, Segreto Impressions by Leslie Sinclair offers many beautiful and exciting ideas for Defining Spaces with Paint.
Area Rugs, always a quick option to define a space. Decide on how much of an area you want to create and use an area rug that fits those dimensions. Choosing an aesthetically pleasing rug will subconsciously construct the designated area for anyone using the space.
Furniture Layout. The days of pushing all of our furniture up against the wall are over! Want to separate a living and dining area? Position the back of a sofa towards the dining space and place a lovely console table behind the sofa. Voila! You’ve just created two individual areas that are clearly established for different uses. There’s so many ways to use your furniture layout as part of the construction of an area.
Design Dilemmas solved! But these certainly aren’t the only ones that exist and that you may encounter. And it’s always a relief to have the expertise of a designer who’s familiar with these problems and how to resolve them. Bella Home Interiors offers Designer By Your Side services to Guide You Through Your Design Journey. Visit our Design Services page to schedule your consultation appointment!