To ask if you have a nicely decorated house...

[StarlightIntheNight]

How did you do it? Did you get an interior designer or did you sort it yourself? Im at loss on where to start for selecting sofa, art, rugs etc. We moved into a house a couple years ago and just brought our temporary ikea furniture (possibly considered permanent as we have had for 5 years! lol). The idea was to buy nicer furniture once we own a house and when kids are a bit older...well we own a house and kids are older...but I am at loss on how to pick things...so nothing gets done really and I am feeling frustrated. Interior designers seem very expensive...but I am afraid if we don't get one, our house will always be unfinished. I am looking for helpful tips here on where to start or if you have used an interior designer - Thank you!

Look at home accounts on Instagram you can get lots of inspiration there.

I used Pinterest and Instagram for inspiration and ideas, and then slowly introduced things into the house until it eventually all fell together. Sometimes I made mistakes and would try something that just didn’t suit our house so it is a bit of trial and error.

I have been looking on home accounts on instragram...but if anything it just makes me feel more stressed looking at the perfect homes...perfectly decorated and spotless...still not knowing where or how to start with my own. I have gotten some good ideas....but I just feel stuck, as not sure what colour would be best for couches, rugs etc.

Maerd, but what about for the big items like a sofa? That is where I get stuck, because you want to select the right colour, style, size etc...its a big purchase. Smaller items its okay to make a mistake and change later...

The trick is to not rush at it, live in your house for a while, spend time looking at different ideas on line, then work it till you find things
And l you love and go from there.

My big thing is don't buy something unless I absolutely love it. Spend time looking and go without until you find that perfect thing. Because what ever it is you're going to have it for a long time. And it should make you happy when ever you look at it, be it your wallpaper, paint colour, sofa, rugs or coffee table,

I've been decorating my house for years. I used hand me downs for years and once I've saved up enough I buy something I love. My favourite furniture is from the Galvin Brothers in Yorkshire and Tom Raffield in Cornwall.

Pinterest is good for ideas but you do kind of need to know what you fancy to get started.
We love bright colours so each room is a bold bright colour.

Start with one thing and work out from it. And don't worry about the perfect neat and tidy look because no one lives that way all the time.

Choose a colour you like and go to b&q and look at the shades of colours you like.
Then decide what furniture you need and look at the colours they come in based on wall colours you like.

Remember you have to live in it so it's not all about appearance. I once looked at a sofa online and fell in love but when we went to the show room it was hideous to sit on.

Start small and don't expect to plan a whole room in one sit in. Bit by bit build a room.

If your near an ikea I love walking through there for the showroom ideas

Interior decorators can actually save you money as they pass on trade rates or similar. You may be able to have a chat with one or two and see how they charge before you write them off.

Apartmenttherapy.com is really good for ideas.

Find something you love, then work around it.

I'd start with the sofa myself, because I love quite distinctive loud sofas. Then it's about picking out the colours in the sofa to decide on wall colours and curtains.

If you are going to have a fairly bland sofa, then you can go all out on a piece of art, or some wallpaper or fabric.

I find wallpaper easy to love, so I'd get a wonderful wallpaper then work around that.

First think about your style. What makes you feel all nice inside ?
I love lots of accessories and cosy blankets and mood lighting in my house.
Then go on Pinterest to see what colour scheme You like and look at a sofa that would be able to change with themes and colour changes if You wanted to have a change later on.
So look at the the sofa after deciding your colour scheme then work around that. Or if you have a particular furniture you really love. Work around that piece.

To be fair an interior decorator would also say start with the sofa! And get a palette of 3/4 colours to work with. Pinterest also helpful for that.

But it's YOUR home, not an interior designer's home. You have to go with your own personal style. What's the point of copying someone else's style, or paying huge sums for someone else to tell you their style?

Does it matter if it looks like it's straight out of a glossy magazine? Personally, I find most of those homes very soul-less and bland. No personality whatsoever.

Just start by bookmarking things you like. Pinterest is good for doing this. A blind, a cushion, a piece of artwork. Then build from there.

Very very few people design an entire room from scratch and buy every little piece at the same time. It just sort of evolves over time.

This is what I did:

Start with colour and light. I’d love to have a Farrow and Ball colour consultant come and tell us what colour to paint things, but the advisers in the shops also give good advice if you can describe the rooms to them.

Then make sure all the rooms have at least four light sources, ideally dimmable.

Then hang bigger pictures than you think you should, lower on your walls than you think you should (centre them at eye height). I prefer prints of pictures I love rather than generic ‘wall art’ in a colour theme. If you already have pictures you love you can choose paints to complement them - not the other way round. (We have a huge navy wall in the kitchen chosen to complement a big painting there.)

Then pick furniture after that because it’ll be much easier to make sure it doesn’t clash.

No to interior designers, who make everything look the same in that kind of ghastly women's magazine good taste/show home on a new development way.

What kind of house do you have? How old? What aspect do the main rooms have and how big are they? What kind of furniture do you like? What is your priority? Do you plan to stay in this house indefinitely, or are you decorating somewhat neutrally with an eye to selling?

I think you've done one thing right already, and that's to live in the house for some time before making any decisions.

Oooh going to follow this because I am the least creative person in this world

I used to follow home interior pages on Instagram and I found it made me feel like I lived an inadequate life really (which wasn't helpful because we actually have a nice home) so I un-followed some of them.

One tip that's always worked for us is buying neutral colour furniture and that way, if you ever change colour schemes in and around the home, the furniture doesn't have to change too much.

For example we have a grey sofa but if we ever change the colour of the living room, we buy the same colour scatter cushions for the sofa. Recently changed from navy to yellow/mustard.

Pinterest but I absolutely know what look I want. Perhaps its about finding your style. I love arts and crafts william morris looks just made more contemporary.

Dd has a flair for interior design so I let her choose with the colours I like. It looks great and everyone always comments on how nice it is. Her own house is beautiful too she has a great eye.

This sort of look

We were given a voucher for an interior design consultation after we built our house and it was just amazing. There's no way I could have pulled together each room design like they did. They advised on colour schemes and gave us a list of wallpaper, curtains, furniture etc. We were then able to pick and choose what we wanted, and buy pieces as we could afford them. I found the prices reasonable enough - there were some crazy expensive items that we didn't buy but I was able to source cheaper alternatives.

Making my home nice is important to me. But I've just been a home owner for a year. So you can do it regardless of circumstances. I love www.apartmenttherapy.com

I think it's about how you use the space and how you live in it. Eg are you tidy, busy, have a huge dog?! I'd also recommend identifying your style or things you like and create a pinterest board or similar.

Perhaps tackle one room at a time too. You don't have to do a complete overhaul you can just change one bit of a room at a time. If you do it this way its important to have style in mind so you feel things go.

Watching as I’m in the same situation- right down to ikea dining table that I hate, but was perfect for the baby years. Ive looked up some local interior designers, they will come for a free consult and share ideas, but also spotted that John Lewis have a similar service, pay for and redeem against a purchase. I like pinning ideas on Pinterest but just sort of get stuck doing that/not actually buying anything...

I love Pinterest but I'll usually have a starting point for each room eg for the bathroom, I might decide I want copper accessories so then I pull together pins that show bathrooms with copper accessories, etc.
For the sitting rooms, we had a different theme/feel for each room. So, one was bright, colourful, family room. The other was grown-up, pale, neutrals. We have an old house so decided we'd opt for decor that suited the age of the house so although the rooms have different styles there's a continuity across them because the main pieces suit the era of the house.

I like to choose a theme I know I love and work around it. So at the moment I’m entirely obsessed with proper Harris tweed and tartan fabrics, and sage and copper colours with a real countryside feel. Our house is in the country in a small market town and the house ‘feels’ really ‘of the town’, so I was keen to bring in some local references too. I managed to find an image of the market square on market day back in 1890, so I took that image from google image search and 20 minutes on my phone on a photo editing app got me an image that looks painted that I’ve had blown up onto canvas. It’s 2m long and 1m high and really striking, I love it. It looks like I commissioned it so no one needs to know the editing app cost £1.99 and it only cost me £40 to print onto canvas .

Together with some check cushions, sage walls and copper organic looking bowls/ ornaments (shop at local markets for this stuff, craftspeople with stalls often have wonderful things that are usually unique), it comes together really well.