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Clutter Control

You should keep the clutter minimum in your house to create a neat look and spare more space for the room itself. If you have too much stuff, it will spoil the look of a room, confuse the eye and generally get in the way. Also take into consideration that clutter influences how you feel: it is far easier to be relaxed and comfortable if your surroundings are calm and organized.

Our homes are under constant attack from clutter. There is the stuff that accumulates daily almost like dust, for example, newspapers, magazines, bills, laundry; and there are things things that you acquire gradually over the years, like books, clothes, photographs and furniture. The first group simply needs to be dealt with regularly to keep it under control. The second is more of a problem because it invades the house slowly and imperceptibly, so that you do not realize how much of it you have until your space actually becomes less usable because of it. There are three key elements to clutter control:

1. You need to be selective about your possessions.

2. You need to display or store them astutely, and

3. You also need to discipline yourself into clear-thinking, anti-clutter habits.

Furniture Tips

After the lighting planning, go for furniture set-up. Furniture should never be chosen in isolation from the surroundings it is going to occupy, and this is especially important where space is in limited supply. However accurately you think you can envisage what it will look like, dimensions are always deceptive.

Never go shopping for furniture without a full set of measurements recording the available space and a tape-measure to check the size of any piece you are planning to buy-not just so that you can be sure it will fit into the space, but also to check that it suits the proportions of the rooms. Small rooms need smaller-scale furniture to keep the whole effect balanced, so be particularly careful with large pieces like sofas and dining tables. Scaled-down furniture will make the room bigger.

Think about the shape too, and look for neat, compact designs such as square cut boxy shapes that follow the angles of the room. Streamlined curves also work well, as they take up less room than outward-splaying scroll arms or old-fashioned wing chairs. Tapering designs, such as upright chairs with back that narrows towards the top, will also create an illusion of more space.

Planning Your Lighting

Lighting needs to fulfill three key functions. Firstly, it needs to provide enough background light for general use, in effect recreating natural daylight. This is known as ambient lighting. Secondly, it needs to supply focused light for specific areas such as desks, bathroom mirrors and kitchen worktops. This is known as task lighting. Lastly, it needs to create areas of interest and variety, highlighting or softening the the architecture of the room and adding atmosphere with shadows and contrasts-this is called accent lighting.

Different rooms will need you to shift the emphasis from one type of lighting to another. For example, studies need good task lighting whereas accent lighting is key to designing a restful bedroom. Usually a combination of all these three types of lighting mentioned above will establish the right levels of mood and practicality.

Therefore, it becomes essential for you to plan your lighting before you start with the actual work. It will save time later on and can also save the possible change in lighting if it doesn’t fit well in a particular room.

Classic Shutters

If the windows have original shutters, make the most of them. This is a classic style that has a perfect contemporary relevance when it comes to windows. They provide an architectural definition to the windows without adding any decoration to them at the same time. Shutters prove that the  most elegant windows do not need dressing at all.

Using the classic shutters also puts you at a freedom from spending on the window decorations or on blinds, panels or curtains. If you want to add new shutters, wooden replicas of traditional shutters can be made to fit your window, and these are made up of modern wood that is created specially for such types of shutters using the raw wood. The advantage with these wooden replicas is, they do not imbibe water in rainy season preventing problems associated with their closure. However, they might be somewhat expensive than the traditional wood.

You can also opt for a sleeker alternative such as plain lengths of MDF (which is medium density fireboard) hinged together, or go ultra-modern with panels of white perspex.

Curtains

Continuing with our previous discussion on natural light options with blinds and panels, let us discuss about use of curtains for windows.

First of all, do not feel that you have to eschew curtains altogether-just to avoid using much bulky fabric and too many overblown gathers which take up valuable space. Opt for long-line curtains in heavy linen or cord which contribute a sense of height and elegance, or use sheer voiles, muslins or organzas which screen the glass with a filmy layer for a touch of modern romance.

Keep headings simple by using tab-tops which are made up of fabric or leather. Use metal eyelet holes or clip-on rings that will slide on to a slim pole.

Loured shutters outline the elegant architecture of your tall windows if there are any in your house. They also act to filter the light to prevent the room color from feeling too bright or too strong depending upon if its painted with whites or strong colors.

Blinds and Panels

Natural light opens up a space and gives it character. Therefore, it is very essential to use appropriate window shutters that allow natural light when needed and can block it when it is not required. Let us discuss about the various window cover options.

Blinds and Panels:

Roman and roller blinds will both allow you to soften the outline slightly with fabric panels, while restricting color and pattern to a narrow strip at the top when blinds are pulled up. Make them from translucent white muslin or stretched voile, and you can leave them down so they provide privacy yet filter plenty of light into the room(perfect for bright, sunny windows). Slatted Venetian-style blinds, available in plastic, steel or wood, can switch from light-admitting to light-obscuring with just a change in their angle, and suit the functional, industrial style of some modern furnishings.

Neat fabric panels, creating a cross between curtain and blind, are even simpler. Stretched on to hinged metal portière rods, they can swing open and shit like shutters. Made from sheer voile and slotted on to a fixed pole or wire across the top of the window, they act as a contemporary(and much more attractive) version of the old-fashioned net curtain, screening the window without obscuring the light.

Adding Pattern

If single colors make spaces look bigger, it follows that anything that breaks up a run of one color has the opposite effect.

Dominant patterns are best avoided in small rooms unless you want to make a feature of the cosy, intimate feel, as they can create a frantic, over-busy impression that can be distinctly uncomfortable to live with.

If you are tired of flat painted walls, try a color-washed effect that softens the surface with a textured look without adding any obvious sense of pattern. You could also try small, discreet patterns, such as tiny floral springs, or checks or dots, which have a neat, contained look that can work well in bedrooms and children’s rooms. The other type of pattern that is worth considering is a subtle stripe, which can enhance the height or width of the room if you use it judiciously.

Adding patterns makes the room look more lively and you can create dramatic effects with various types of patterns available in the market.

Strong Colors

Continuing with our discussion on colors, your selection for other colors depends on how important it is to you that the space looks as large as possible. The stronger the color, the more it seem to advance, making the walls close in and the rooms look smaller, so color needs to be carefully handled. You may decide that some areas(bedrooms and dining rooms, for example) do not need to feel so spacious and might actually benefit from feeling warmer and more enclosed.

Warm colors, like reds, yellows, oranges will increase the warmth even more, while cooler shades, like blues, greens and lilacs will help the walls to appear recede. So, in principle, pale, cool colors are the best space-makers, and deep, warm colors the least effective. However, do not automatically exclude these stronger colors when decorating small spaces. By using flashes of colors, on single walls or in alcoves, or for individual pieces of furniture rather than as a background shape dominating the entire room, you can harness the energy and vitality they add, and use them to bring a neutral room to life.

Choosing Colors

Color is the crucial factor that brings rooms of all sizes to life, making an instant impact in establishing their mood and defining their shape. Therefore, the first principal to take on board is the fact that light colors make rooms look bigger.

In a small living room, whites and creams are the most obvious choices for wall colors. They are simple and elegant, providing a neutral background against which to arrange furniture, pictures and artefacts. The brightest whites establish a stark, cool environment, good for functional warehouses-style apartments and for creating a studio-like setting if you have pieces of art you want to display.

Bright white may be too cool, though, if the room doesn’t benefit from much sunlight. You could be better off choosing a creamy, parchment white or one of the many alternatives whites now available from paint companies. It is actually quite hard to find a pure white paint unless you opt for basic ‘trade white’, but there are hundreds of ‘designer’ whites that let you choose just the right level of cool or warmth and the exact depth of tone you want to suit the setting.

Working order

Projects can get put off indefinitely if you cannot decide where to start. The kitchen cabins need replacing, but you really want to change the whole layout because the sink is in the wrong place, and you cannot do that until you have moved a window, and so on…

The unappealing fact is that structural work has to come first, which includes moving windows and treating any damaged timbers. The next stage is too tackle any plumbing and electrical work, so this is the time to think about where you want light fittings and, if you are planning to rearrange your kitchen or bathroom, decide on the layout.

You can then get on with stripping back old paintwork and wallpaper, and do any necessary re-plastering(you will need to allow plenty of time in your schedule for it to dry before painting or papering). If you are planning to strip floors, do it now: it creates masses of dust, so do not wait until you have painted the room. New flooring can be laid at this stage, but needs to be covered with dustsheets while you decorate.

Therefore, in a nutshell, you should work out a practical timetable and a working order for everything.