Eight Steps to Designing a Thoughtful room

Do you enjoy looking at different room designs but need some motivation and guidance to get started? Are you planning to design a room but are unsure where to start? Designing is a very fun and creative process that is definitely rewarding once your project becomes reality. Here are eight steps to organizing your ideas and designing a thoughtful room.

8 Steps to Designing a Thoughtful Room:

Planning

1. The first step is to measure the size of your room, including doors, windows and ceiling height. This is important so you can plan the space appropriately and determine what will fit into the room. Make sure to have all your measurements in both feet and inches so that you can quickly reference when you are shopping for furniture.

2. Consider all the aspects that are going into the design. What is the function of the room? How many people will be using it. What are their ages? A room designed for a 5 year old is going to be different than a room designed for a 16 year old. Are there any items you would like to feature or design your room around? What other needs do you want this room to address? For example, if this is a bedroom, does it need to have space for a desk or reading nook? How much natural light do you have in the room?

3. A little of planning goes a long way. When designing a thoughtful room it is important to take some time to plan your space and layout and take all necessary steps. Do not skip this step. You want to first understand how you want to lay out your furniture, what makes the most sense in terms of functionality. Things to considers: Do you want your bed in front of the window? If not, where would it go? Would you have room for a dresser if you put your bed here instead of there? These are the things you want to iron out before you start purchasing furniture and finalizing design. There are many apps available that will allow you to do this digitally. We like to use Notability. However, you can simply use a graph piece of paper and pencil.

Determine your Budget

4. Once you have determined the layout, define your budget! How much do you want to spend on this project? This will help define how I design a room. Do you have budget for any work to be done?

Design

5. Now the fun part begins and let’s talk about style and color palette. The next step to designing a thoughtful room is to determine what your style is. If you are unsure, we recommend creating a board on Pinterest. Search the type of room you are creating and pin photos that you gravitate to (at least 10). Once you pinned everything, look for common elements. Are all your photos a similar color palette? Are they all modern mid-century..? This exercise will help you determine the style that you gravitate to. You can also search for different colors that have been pre-selected to go well with each other. This will help you create a cohesive room.

6. The next step is creating a moodboard. We like to use Canva or Milanote. Both of these apps allow you to save pictures online that you can place on a board to help you visualize the space. A picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing different items together will help you decide what you like and dislike and will make designing a thoughtful room so much easier. In Milanote, you can also add a shopping list which is helpful to keep your budget under control and make it easier to execute your design. A few tips: We like to add words/moods that will be reflected in the room e.g. whimsical, calming, bright…Here is an example we created for my daughter’s room.

Execution

7. It is time to execute: if there is any painting or carpentry work that needs to be done, do that first. When selecting paint colors, make sure you test multiple samples in various parts of the room and under different light conditions. Paint colors read differently in different spaces e.g. a white paint color in my house may read a little more yellow in yours because your window is south-facing and mine is north-facing.

8. Finally, purchase the items from your moodboard and put it together as planned in your layout. Try to be flexible, it is not always perfect from the beginning. You may have to tweak a few things here and there, move things around a few times before you love it. Enjoy the process.

I  hope that these tips will provide you with helpful guidance when you are designing a thoughtful room and many more spaces in the future too.

I would love to see your designs, feel free to share them and let me know what was the most challenging/fun part of the project. For more ideas on how to create thoughtful or multifunctional rooms, check out out this post where our guest bedroom functions as a nursery and small home office.