Laura Ashley Interior Design Service?

[EastwickWitch]

I've got a whole house to decide on and am feeling a bit overawed with the decisions.
If I had the budget I'd have an Interior Designer to do the whole lot, but sadly the budget will be tiny.
I think it costs £200 for all the rooms.
Realistically I won't be having much LA, more making do with what we've got but I wondered about colour schemes & ideas.
Have any of you done it?

Hi EastwickWitch.

I was in the same situation as you (still am really but we have colours on walls and curtains now) and considering using LA or JL interior design service. Then I saw a local home stager (think the House Doctor) who uses what you have and can recommend cheap, or not so cheap, additions. I think I might call her as she obviously has an eye for things but won't be trying to sell me things.

May be worth trying to find someone like that local to you?

Try looking at the photos on Houzz and get inspiration that way. You can post dilemmas in the chat section there too - you get a mix of professionals and other home owners offering advice and help. Could be just what you need .
As a rule , keep things light and airy, try and have something continuos ( eg all skirting and windows brilliant white ) and in rooms that link to each other don't go too diverse ! Neutrals like white and cream are timeless - fashionable neutrals like taupe and grey are in now ( so will be out sometime !) it's often cheaper to refresh a room style with a selection of seasonal accessories - to keep it looking interesting

• and if you have all the same style furniture you can move things from one room to the next to also keep things feeling new and different for no extra outlay ! Hope that helps a bit ! :-)

I am not very good with interior design, so tried to use a local small company who was recommended. We managed to get 2 rooms done before she was "unavailable" due to ill-health. We had wanted to use as much of our existing furniture and carpets as possible and I don't think she liked it. Time moves on, ex-husband moves out and I still needed to get the redecoration done. I used Laura Ashley design Services on a sale offer. So £50 for 2 rooms as part of a home visit. I explained to the lady that I was on a budget, so needed to keep as much as possible. She was brilliant at taking my ideas, and existing stuff and making recommendations. I bought everything in the sale, using a purposely opened laura Ashley card and bought in several batches. You get an order listing and can go into the store and just tick off what you want. I did buy wallpaper, paint, lighting, blinds, curtains. the design lady was fabulous - stayed 3 hours, did 3 rooms all for £50. She called me back to make changes (eg made to measure curtains vs shop bought - big price difference). I so recommend the service. It helped me enormously.

That's really interesting veryconfused. I've always fancied this and I like Laura Ashley but gave been concerned that they will pressure me into paying full price rather than waiting for their frequent sales.

No they don't pressure you at all, it's a great service.

We used the LA and it worked well for us. We needed sofas, an armchair and curtains for our sitting room. LA had what we wanted on sale, plus an extra 10%, and an extra 10% again if we took their credit card. Thy suggested that, with a toddler, it may be much easier to have someone come to our house with all the fabric samples. Because we booked it when the sale was on, they honoured all the sale prices.

We weren't interested in buying anything else, and although we did end up with some cushions, an lamp and a lampshade as well, we didn't feel any pressure to buy.

I wasn't sure about using a designer, as I have a pretty strong sense of what I like, but I feel we ended up choosing something very similar to what we may have gone with anyway, but with less stress, more confidence and fewer arguments (she ended up getting the deciding vote between the husband and I a couple of times! ).

Oh, and as we didn't get a mood board thing, the £50 was put towards our purchase.

I'm considering doing this but was abit apprehensive so thanks for the positive review.