How Do I Plan My House For Decorating
- Posted by:
- Admin
- Tags:
- Colour, Spaces, Feel, Spending, Furniture
- Posted date:
- 13-02-2023

Have you been asking how to plan a house for decorating? W. Martin provide painter and decorator services throughout Edinburgh and the surrounding areas. We look at what to consider before you start interior decoration and share decorating planning tips.
Before you start Interior Decoration
Moving into a new property is one of the great joys of moving forward in your life. Of course,,, it can also come with a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. This is especially true when thinking about decorating. It can sometimes be very difficult to know where to start.
How on earth do you make the most of the space that you have while still having your home reflect your personal tastes and style? A well-decorated home is one that is happy and comfortable.
A place you're excited to come home to at the end of the day. A poorly decorated home is full of clashing paint colours, patterns, fabrics, and furniture that don't quite mix properly.
With some forward-thinking planning recommended by some of the world's top designers, you are going to have a much larger chance at success. Take a look at some of the hints and tricks below.
Take Time For Measurements

One of the most important elements of interior design is matching the size and scale of any furnishings to the scale of the room.
A huge sectional sofa can very quickly overpower the feeling of an entire room, and the use of chairs that are too small can make them feel lost in an ocean of space.
Before you actually get to the design phase, it is recommended that you measure the length and width of every room that you are thinking of redecorating.
You should also measure any other parts of the room that could get in the way, such as radiators or stairs. Don't forget to measure the ceiling height too! This will come in very handy. One more tip on this topic is to measure the size of window openings, as well as the wall space that surrounds them.
Assemble a Floorplan

Now you have all the measurements for the spaces you are intending to decorate; you can now put them to use by creating a floor plan. This will give you a perfect bird's eye view of the room or even the entire property if you are willing to put the effort in.
It is really important to have a floor plan before you get started with any proper design, as this will allow you to have a full understanding of the space you are about to work on. There are plenty of smartphone apps and computer programs that can help you with this kind of work.
Once you have a full outline of the space that you are going to be redecorating, you can begin experimenting with how you want the furniture to be arranged within the room. While you are doing this, ensure that the location of each piece of furniture is noted down and placed on the floor plan. Everything must be to scale.
Think About How You Want To Live
Now, this is one of the trickiest parts of redecorating. There are no correct or incorrect answers here. You just have to think about your own personal wants and needs.
There are so many different styles of rooms that you can go for. You just need to go through them and select the ones that appeal to you. Do you want the space to feel more traditional or more modern? Should it be a formal space or somewhere you can chill out at the end of a long week?
Visually, do you prefer to spend time in spaces that are cool or warm? Essentially, you just have to narrow down exactly what it is that you enjoy about the spaces that you spend your time within. What are you going to be doing in the room? How many people is the room for? Will children be spending time in the space? These are all important questions that you need to be asking yourself.
A person who is holding dinner parties for their friends constantly is going to have a very different set of wants and needs than someone who never has people over and eats most of their meals out at restaurants. Think about your own life in detail and how you want to use the space.
Put Together A Budget

Unfortunately, at some point in the process, you're going to have to do some hard mathematics. Unless you have a never-ending supply of money, you can't just go spending wildly on expensive furnishings like a singular chair or a particularly patterned wallpaper.
This will mean that you have less money available to be spending on the rest of your redecoration. You need to plan carefully and be quite strategic about how you are spending your money.
Make yourself a budget, the amount you are willing to spend on the total redecoration, and divide this budget between all the different spaces you are redecorating, as well as splitting it into different purchase types. You don't need to follow the budget exactly to the letter, but if you impulse purchase something expensive that's a little out of your price range, then you need to figure out where you can cut back on other purchases you were planning to make.
Decorating Planning Tips
Looking For Inspiration
Inspiration for design can be found absolutely everywhere. Look in magazines, furniture shops, on apps like Instagram and Pinterest, or even the homes of your friends and family. We recommend putting together files for each of your separate decoration projects. This can be either physically in a scrapbook or just on your computer. When the time comes to start shopping around for decorating materials, then these pieces of inspiration research will be absolutely invaluable.
Design a Mood Board
Once you have all your initial ideas put together in some kind of file or folder, it is now time to develop them through the use of a mood board. This is a fantastic tool for helping to visualise all your ideas and how they will work alongside each other.
One tip that is often passed around for starting a mood board is to think up three descriptive words that you think would describe your ideal finished room. Some people might say cosy, modern, simple, vibrant, bright, warm. Any of those, it is entirely up to you how you want your finished space to feel.
Once you have these words, try to find some images that fit the description of what you are imagining. Put them on your mood board, as well as your room's floor plan and any other extra pieces of information you have: wallpaper samples, paint swatches, furniture ideas, and more.
There is really no correct or incorrect way for you to design a mood board. At the end of the day, it is for you and you only. Take a look online, where there are plenty of completely free mood board applications which will help you to put together images if you don't feel like creating a mood board physically.
Consider Your Colours
Every room's colour scheme needs to start somewhere. It could be a certain fabric that has a particularly nice shade to it or a signature painting that you are wanting to hang on the wall. Identifying colours that you enjoy from the room's design elements will help to create a palette that you can use for painting the room, as well as decorating with accents and upholstery. Generally, the rule for picking out colours is to limit your palette to a neutral shade and definitely don't use more than three colours.
With these three colours picked out, you should split them from sixty to thirty to ten. The most dominant colour needs to be used for sixty percent of the room, like the walls and the flooring. This colour doesn't necessarily have to be neutral; in fact, quite the opposite will often look beautiful. The colour that you are assigning to thirty percent can be used for upholstery, and the final ten percent is what is called an accent shade. This is the colour that will just make the whole design pop. Imagine a spot of red in a cooler-shaded room.
Do you require interior painting and decorating services in Edinburgh?
Then W. Martin can help. No matter the scale of the project, our professional team are on hand to help. If you need our services, do not hesitate to get in touch and contact our team today.