DESIGN IDEAS
The 5 Ds of Bringing Your Design Dreams to Reality
Remodeling your home can feel like a long trip that requires lots of planning. Let us help you prepare for the trip with our in-house interior design team. They’ll guide you through the process of planning your next remodel with virtual design software, drafting services, and endless samples and sources of visual and tactile inspiration.
Below are just a few tips to help jumpstart the creative process and have you well on your way to giving you the home of your dreams.
1. Decide
- Commit to your project by making some clear decisions about what room(s) you’d like to remodel and a budget.
- Discuss the project with your significant other and make certain that you’re on the same page. Many a home improvement project has gone awry by crossed signals between spouses.
- Sit down and write down your ideas, even if it’s on a napkin over lunch. Don’t let friction stifle the creative process. Focus on what you agree on and worry about the points of contention later.
2. Discover
- Start looking at sources of inspiration in the form of magazines, design books, home shows and the web.
- Clip your favorite photos and start an idea folder, and let it evolve over time into a binder as it grows.
- Narrow it down to the ones with which you have the strongest visceral reaction. You are reinventing your space for a good reason so give yourself the freedom to follow your impulses.
3. Draw
- Start sketching your dream layouts.
- Mainly, just try to get a sense of the space you’re re-doing and how different ideas fit into the ‘big picture’.
* – Draw your room in different perspectives; this will allow you to strike the balance between reality and fantasy and help you make better decisions.
Even if you don’t think your project requires involved designs, it’s nice to get as firm a grasp on the visuals as you can, particularly if your job requires lot of decision-making. Design My Room software helps you visualize your remodeling project more accurately and experiment with different options.
4. Design
- Schedule a free consultation with one of our in-house designers to get you started with Design My Room software, which enables you to see actual pictures of rooms and change the colors and product options to help you to make the best decisions about flooring, paint colors, cabinets, wall coverings, furniture, and counter tops.
5. Drill Down
- Sharpen your plan with increasing levels of details.
- Collect estimates from contractors if you’re outsourcing the work and record product pricing if you’re doing any of it yourself.
- Flesh out your entire budget before you pay a dime so there will be fewer surprises down the line. This will ease the stress that expenses will balloon out of proportion.
- Try not to decide based on price alone; consider quality, workmanship, and reliability, too.
- Above all, trust your hunches. If something or someone doesn’t feel like a good fit, it/he/she probably isn’t.
Let us know what we can do to lighten your load– from answering design questions and helping you work through tough decisions to providing you with creative inspiration to keep you motivated and engaged. Call 503-255-6775 to schedule a free design consultation.