When building your dream custom home, it can often be tempting to throw caution into the wind and simply “go all out” on your interior design plans. After all, this is the dream home you’ve been chasing your entire working life, so surely it should “have it all” right? Well, obviously it’s not that simple – and to explain it all, I’ve laid out a few cardinal rules for eager homebuyers to follow when approaching their interior design plans. From deciding on your style early-on to setting rock-solid budgets, the following article is a relatively holistic overview of what to consider.
Settle on a Style
Whether it will be modern, contemporary, craftsman, traditional, or even western, it’s important to settle on a style to begin crafting a unified theme around your house early in the process. You can be bold but stay within the limits of your chosen style or theme; there’s nothing worse than a house that lacks identity because it tries to be too many different things at the same time. In this case, restrictions are good: they allow you to focus clearly on the few options available for decorative elements, freeing you from analysis paralysis and the always pervasive overthinking that comes with having too many options at the fingertips! Another benefit of settling on a uniform style is the additional convenience this will create for your builder, who won’t have to constantly re-adapt his project based on vastly disparate interior design selections.
Find your Colours
Similarly as with style (the two go together), you will want to find a few key colours with which to begin conceptualizing your home. Ideally, it is recommended to select a unified colour palette that abides by one of the original four schemes (monochromatic – one colour but with variations in shade using black and white; analogous – colors that appear next to one another on a colour wheel; contrast – bold disparate colours are; and finally, complementary – when two opposite colours are blended together). Use these general guidelines (and many other which you can find online) to set a solid colour theme for your home. This step is critical, as the interior colors of your home will be the base step for every other design alteration you might chose to make. Don’t hesitate to test your colours first! Paint is relatively inexpensive, and it’s always good to get a feel for your chosen colours on a small sample rather than on your walls first, even if paint is never permanent!
Adapt to your Furniture
When designing your interior spaces, it is essential to strongly consider your furniture situation before making any decisions. Furniture affects your overall interior design in myriads of ways, from its size, colour, and even shape! When planning your ideal room assortments, you must consider the various available placements and spots, your current furniture inventory, and what you will be required to purchase. By doing this process in every room of your new house, you can prevent nasty surprises from occurring during assembly by having carefully planned out your interior furnishing from one room after the other.
Know your Budget and stick with it
This cannot be overstated. Undefined or loose budgets can cause much anguish for prospective customers, especially the ones who tend to “go all out” as aforementioned. Loosing track of your budget can rapidly get out of hand, and the consequence of this development are undesirable. Usually, customers are brought back down to earth in a rather unpleasant fashion when they realize that their dream home design is far from within their means. Such situations are why it’s simple wisdom to assess your wants from an interior design perspective and determine a realistic budget that is at least within a ballpark of allowing such wants to be fulfilled. This is a process that is vastly different for everyone, so be sure to sit down with your builder and take some time to figure it all out!
Communicate clearly with your Builder
Last but not least, it’s critical to maintain strong avenues of two-way communication with your builder. While they are rarely interior designers themselves, they tend to be quite knowledgeable of current trends and possess large networks of designers whom they can recommend to their clients. Furthermore, their budgeting advice will be invaluable to customers who are hesitant on where to spend their hard-earned money, especially when considering the reality that most interior upgrades and customization expenses are not covered as part of the original mortgage allowance.
Please do keep in mind that the above recommendations are far from mutually exclusive and can vary widely depending on the customer. However, it should give you a solid idea of what to expect when analyzing interior design prospects for your new custom home. Following this article, you should be well on your way to a successful home interior design project!
