Tips and Tricks: Creating Your Favorite Space

It's Thursday and we're due for a design post!
Today I'm going to unpack my top three tips for arriving at your favorite space.  Shall we?

One: Find your Inspiration Piece First

In order to achieve the room you love, my most important tip is starting with a piece you love.  Too often people will paint their walls and THEN start searching for the furniture, textiles, and accessories.  They run into problems when they realize their favorite couch doesn't match their wall color.  For this reason, choose a couch, pillow, bedding, or piece of art you want to be your "inspiration piece" and choose your wall colors and other decor to follow suit.

Sarah Richardson does this so well. Her inspiration often comes from an inspiring textile or material, such as this headboard fabric:

Or this kitchen backsplash that dictated the greens, blues and grays for the space:

Lastly, this striped chair made for a sure statement room when she decided to bring stripes up the walls, too! Love her boldness.

*all images via

Two: Space Plan

 A smartly arranged room makes all the difference.  Here are three things to consider:

1. Pushing your furniture against walls to make the space look larger is a total myth (: {unless that really is your only option.} Besides, it gives the room more personality if the furniture is angled or out in the room.

2. To create a sense of unity in the room, create conversation areas with groupings of chairs, the use of an area rug, or things of that nature.

3. Highlight the best features.  Turn the furniture to accentuate a fireplace, beautiful window, or your inspiration piece!

Here are some rooms with pleasing layouts:

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Three: Dress it Up with Things You Love

Less is more, friends! Filling your room just to fill your room is the fastest way to end with a cluttered mess.  Once you arrive at your style, only buy things that fit your style and that you are truly in love with.  Then start styling book cases, floating shelves, media cabinets, dressers, gallery walls and the like.

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Hopefully these tips will help you in designing your next space!
What things do you consider before starting to decorate or redesign a space? What are some of your recent design dilemmas?


I'm off to San Francisco with Cristin today to meet Holly, the talented blogger of Decor8 and the author of the new design book, Decorate. Can't wait!
Love,