5 Things to Get Right Before You Start Decorating

As you may or may not know, over the last year and a half my husband and I have been working steadily on updating our little Cape Cod style cottage. Then the pandemic hit and finding contractors and landscapers available in our small town has been nearly impossible. The home improvement business is booming right now and everyone’s working on their home, it seems, and that’s a wonderful thing. Home is sacred. 

While some of our projects have been stalled, we’ve taken on some of the work ourselves and made considerable progress. Waiting for contractors to show up I’ve also had time to think about a few mistakes we’ve made along the way and things I’ve learned over the years about good decorating and the preparation it takes to get the best results. As a homeowner, whether you are planning to redecorate on your own or with the help of a designer, there are a few decisions you need to make early on in the process, preferably before making a single purchase. Preparation is key and it will ensure the best results your money can buy. 

Before you start fantasizing about color schemes, and looking at fabric samples, imagining comfy new upholstery, there are a few questions that I think will be helpful to ask yourself. 

1. YOUR TIMELINE

What is your timeline for (re) decorating? Is there a pressing deadline, an upcoming family event you’d like your house to ready for, or perhaps you’re thinking of selling your house in the near future? Or on the contrary, decorating for you is a relaxed, open-ended process? Either way, this aspect will be crucial because it dictates your pace, and le budget. 

I’ll give myself as an example. I fell in love with our 1960s cottage sight unseen, simply by looking at the real estate photos. Somehow I could see past the dark interiors and the overgrown vegetation, and I knew there was potential. But I also knew that to do things right, we needed to pace ourselves. Not just because of the mighty budget, which is king, but also because I wanted to educate myself and make the best decisions for this little house.  And for me  that kind of understanding of a home takes time. Some people can do it fast, but I need time to think and dream about the possibilities. 

So because of the magnitude of the work and the amount of effort and money it takes to redo an entire house, our efforts decorating our home are open-ended and paced over time. And this brings us to the next topic: 

2. YOUR BUDGET

How much money are you willing to spend on decorating? Be as honest as you can with yourself because once you start filling up a room, the costs will quickly add up and will possibly give you (or your husband 🙂 ) sticker shock. The amount of money you’re willing to spend on a home coupled with a clear understanding of your timeline will set the quality level for the things you want and need. 

Again, using myself as an example: I knew that instead of easy fixes, I wanted quality purchases that were investments over time rather than impulsive splurges so I worked hard on my patience. Really hard. I can’t say that I’m good 100% of the time but having that clear picture of the end result in mind is a powerful motivation to wait for the better things. 

Now onto the more fun stuff:

3. YOUR DECORATING STYLE

“Know thyself.” This is one of THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole decorating process. Understanding yourself in the context of your home, your daily routine and your decorating needs, is THE ONLY WAY you can ensure you’ll love the end result, regardless of whether you’re doing the work yourself or are using a designer.

So take the necessary time to figure out what it is that you like in terms of color, pattern, mood, furniture and art. It is not as difficult as it sounds. Study tear sheets of homes you like, or print out images from your Pinterest boards and look carefully. Before you know it, a pattern will emerge.

Decorating for others comes naturally to me because I can be entirely objective and I have the homeowner as a filter and collaborator for my ideas. But decorating for myself has been a challenge because I know that there are so many wonderful ways to go about a given room, and my husband likes what I like (a blessing and a challenge at times 🙂 ), so there’s no real filter other than my own. So I took my own advice and I created a scrapbook of all my tear sheets and printouts of my Pinterest images that best reflected my vision for our little house. 

I still go back to it when I feel confusion setting in, and it’s been a lifesaver. I am not suggesting that you start scrapbooking in order to understand your decorating style, but having hardcopies of images you think express the look, mood and feel you’re after for your home can be a powerful aid in the decorating process. Go through these images often and notice the little things. Soon enough, you’ll see patterns forming. 

In my case, it was light and airy yet cozy rooms, blues and greens, and beautiful antiques, pretty fabrics, no polish or glamour, just simple beauty and comfort. But the most striking thing all my scrapbook rooms had in common was great architectural bones – paneling, shiplap, V-groove, wainscoting, bead board paneling, simple moldings and clean lines – of which sadly our house had none. So that’s where I started, with the interior architecture. 

4. THE LIST OF THINGS YOU’D LIKE TO KEEP

This one can be tricky. The hardest thing in these situations, I find, is to have heirlooms you feel attached to, for sentimental reasons, but that have outlived their welcome stay in your home. 

William Morris said (and I’m paraphrasing right now) that we ought to keep only things we find beautiful, or useful. Karen Kingston, whose book Clear Your Life with Feng Shui I read religiously a couple of times a year and is on my nightstand as I write this, has an interesting point of view on the matter. According to Kingston, we are energetically linked to everything we own, so as we grow and evolve over the years the items we choose to surround ourselves with should reflect who we are, and who we want to become. Makes sense, right? 

Also according to Kingston, when we give someone a gift, we should give it from a place of love, with a willingness to set it free and let the receiver do whatever they pleased with it. Keep it, enjoy it, toss it, or regift it. It’s about the process of giving and caring, anyway, not the object itself. This in turn will set us free to do the same with the things we receive.  Keep them if we love them, or set them free to make someone else’s life/home beautiful.

I know many of you may disagree with this, but I think keeping things we don’t love just out of obligation will bring up a negative feeling each time we see them. And moving them out of sight doesn’t help either. According to Kingston, storing them in the basement (which is a representation of our subconscious), is not a good idea either. So why not keep them moving (to the curb, through Facebook Marketplace, or the nice folks at Goodwill), and set them free? (Sorry to get all New Age on you like that 🙂 )

But seriously, try looking at your things with an open mind and an objective eye. Taking photos of different pieces and then looking at the photos instead of the piece in front of you creates a distance between you, the viewer, and the thing you’re looking at. Does it have sentimental value? Great lines? Can you paint it? Slipcover it? I won’t tell you to toss it, but maybe a fresh coat of paint might help? (Or not.) Something to think about for sure.  

And finally: 

5. YOUR “WHY”

Why are you redecorating? What is it about your current space that you don’t like? The color scheme? The lack of architectural detail? Or perhaps it’s the current furniture layout? If it’s the latter, don’t  be afraid to move things around and try out a new arrangement. If a piece is missing, try shopping your house for things you already have that you can use in new and unexpected ways. You may be pleasantly surprised. 

For example, in our family room, we needed a third chair to create a truly cozy space for the three of us to play board games or watch a movie (instead of crowding like ducklings, aligned on the sofa) so, I remembered that Isabella had a cute armchair in her room that she never sat on and one day we moved it downstairs and lo! I’m sitting on it right now and it’s our new favorite chair in the house. The chair is now loved and used and, I’m sure of it, very happy 🙂

Finding out what it is that you don’t like about your home right now is just as important, if not more important, as knowing what it is you do want. For one thing, it will save you money in the long run because this knowledge will keep you from making the same “mistakes”…

Anyway, there’s so much more to talk about on these points but I’m afraid this post has gotten longer than I intended it to be, and your patience might be running out. Hope you enjoyed some of these ideas, though. Let me know what you think. Take care!