Decorating inspiration

[thewinehasgonetomyhead]

We have recently purchased our new home, and it needs fully redecorating and furnishing. We have lived in military accommodation for 15 years and finally this is our OWN home. No more magnolia for us. And we can finally choose furniture to match and our own carpets... the list goes on.

BUT because we've never had to think about this kind of thing, I'm rubbish at matching colours, carpets, I mean- where do you even begin with a blank canvas?

We can't afford an interior designer so I need you lot to point me in the right direction

Have a look at houses for sale on Rightmove. See what other people do and what you think looks good. This will give you a broad range of trends, themes and tastes across the price spectrum, as opposed to magazines, Pinterest or Instagram where you’ll see homes perfectly dressed purely for show which can can look overwhelmingly “put together” and when you try to recreate it yourself realise it costs an absolute bomb.

Also, don’t forget to just think about what you like. You don’t live in a magazine, your decor doesn’t have to match or have a theme or be fashionable. It’s your home, you can paint the walls green if you like green and buy all your furniture individually from quirky shops and car boots just because you think it looks cool.

@ComtesseDeSpair that's such good advice thank you so much! I like the idea of looking at houses on rightmove! I do find Pinterest quite overwhelming!

I find Instagram easier to scroll than Pinterest. When you find a style/colour you like you can narrow your search.

My advice would be to look for good quality neutral pieces like sofas. You can then add colour and style around them and change it in a few years if you want to without changing expensive items of furniture.

I could change up my living room with some paint and some fabric for cushion covers.

Look at Pinterest and save 5-10 pictures you like, then look for the common themes in each of them and you’ll have a better idea of what type of interiors you want. Use mood boards to plan each room. As the person said above, things like neutral sofas are great. I went with a dark navy sofa and regret it because I can’t have the walls colours I really like.

I’d agree to focus on Instagram. Follow a few houses you like and lots more will be recommended.

Thanks everyone! Good point about the neutral sofa!

I've decorated 3 properties top to bottom. I've just stood in front of a lot of displays of paint and picked a lot of samples of colours I like. Never tried to match anything or looked at anyone else's house for inspiration.

You must know what kind of colours you generally like. Order a few sample pots of those and you'll be fine!

Congratulations! Definitely second Pinterest, though be careful not just to copy trends as they will date horribly, make sure you genuinely like stuff.

I also love reading HomeStyle and Style At Home magazines which are full of inspiration from normal people.

You can pick a paint colour on the Dulux website and it will show colours that go, or use a colour wheel.

I'd recommend the podcast The Great Indoors with Sophie Robinson and Kate Watson-Smyth, it's really entertaining as they have different views but have lots of great advice. Instagram and Pinterest are things I like to look at too. I love midcentury modern style so also get a bunch of ideas from homes on The Modern House website.

Firstly congratulations @thewinehasgonetomyhead, it's such an exciting time getting your first proper home.

As well as Pinterest/Instagram you could also try the Houzz app. A lot of the photos are quite aspirational from interior designers and kitchen companies etc. but the reason I suggest it is that they do have a lot of useful filters on their photos.

So for example you can have a look at living rooms and then filter by style so (for example) Scandi, then traditional, then mid century etc. to first find out what kind of broad style you like. You can also filter by colour to narrow in on the type of colours you like and if you see a colour in a picture you like there is a feature where you can see the nearest dulux paint colour to it.

Then when you search on Pinterest or other platforms you have some more key words to look for to narrow your search.

I also second mood boards. I do mine on PowerPoint (as it's something I'm used to using at work rather than it being a brilliant tool) so I can layer images together to get a sense of what the finished product would be like. Sometimes find it a bit hard on Pinterest to see how it would all work together when it's separate pictures.

Good luck, so exciting!

My top tip would be to start with the furniture, including things like curtains and blinds - paint comes in an endless number of colours, furniture doesn’t so it’s a lot easier to find a paint colour that works with your furniture, than it is to do things the other way round!

Also, remember that there is need to try and finish everything within a few months of moving in (unless you want to of course). It can be really helpful to give yourself time to live in the house first, so that you can work out how much light different rooms get etc.