Essentially EmmaMarie

We recently redid our floors in our home. Then I decided to paint another room. Then I decided to get serious about furnishing another room . . . which led to wanting to “tweak” (redo) the decor in my guest room/office. And then our bedroom needed some attention. Over the course of all this I realized that—alas!—I still have a lot to learn about furnishing my home! But, I also realized that I have learned a lot already about how to start decorating a room.

The first thing I learned was that I have done it all wrong.

Oh yes, I have read the books, listened to the podcasts and know all about the “right way” of tackling something of this nature but then . . . I got a little ahead of myself and ended up with four rooms 90% of the way finished and wondered what in the world was I thinking when I bought those curtains—do I even have a room they would work in???

The experts say when redoing a room or tackling a house to try to work on finishing one room first, then you know you have one room that looks the way you want it before moving on to tackling another project. If you are moving into a home that you plan on doing some major remodeling (in our home we redid the kitchen cabinets and flooring), you may have to get a little out of order before you can then start with the fun decorating—rugs, lamps, wall decor, etc. If you are needing a couch, a table, end tables, and everything in between, I would suggest you furnish the necessities first and then start with the smaller, more fun decorating pieces room by room. BUT, before you buy the first cute couch you see: stop, make a plan, and then proceed.

What if you aren’t starting from scratch?

In our bedroom, for example, I recycled the curtains from our former house. They are working. And I moved a rug from a different room into our bedroom, and while I did purchase a duvet for our bed, I’m thinking it will be moving into another bedroom which means I will have to buy a new one for our room. So, I am now at a crossroads in our bedroom decorating and there are some questions I need to ask myself:

· What do I want the feel of our bedroom to be?

· Do I love the pieces we currently have enough to decorate around them?

You may already have pieces that you can use in a room but if you aren’t loving them already, you won’t love them after you have decorated the whole room around them. You will just be out more time and money and will only have a room that you still aren’t thrilled with. Don’t fall into the trap of saying to yourself that you have already spent so much time and/or money that you might as well invest more! If you don’t like something you already own—get rid of it. Try to sell it if you can and cut your losses!

Pick an Inspiration Image

Regardless of whether you are starting from scratch or already have a few items that you know you want to use, pick a piece to draw your inspiration from. Look on Pinterest and formulate an idea of what you want your room to feel like. Then look for one piece that embodies the look you are going for and start building your room from there. This may be a large piece like a rug or it may even be as small as a pillow!

My guest room/office was a good example of this. I hadn’t loved the paint color since we painted it when we moved in, but I also didn’t hate it. In the back of my mind I was thinking that I would like to paint it and had a general idea of what color I would go for; but, I felt no pressing need to immediately act. Until I found The Rug. I was innocently scrolling around on Pinterest and up pops this gorgeous rug! I clicked and to my delight I found that it came in the size I needed and it was on sale!

When I found the rug the rest of the room came into focus and I could picture the look and feel of the room. It established my guidelines for my room.

Our bedroom is working out much the same way. As I said already, I have a rug and curtains. The curtains were inexpensive and had been purchased several years ago so if I decide that they won’t work, I am totally fine with getting new ones as they have already had a good life. I also have the rug. It is fairly new and I do like it so I am going to use it for inspiration for the rest of the room.

I am not saying that every room you do you should pick a rug to build your decor around, but pick something!

In our other guest room I have curtains. Again, they are recycled from our former home, but I love them! When we moved into this house, I didn’t have anywhere to use them and was considering making accent pillows out of them. It didn’t happen and in the meantime I painted the guest room. It needed curtains. I came across the old ones and decided to see how they would look. They are perfect!! They are my inspiration for that room and I will build the rest of my prints and colors off of them.

Side note: I do have a color palette for my home (read my post “How to Create a Cohesive Color Palette” here) so, for the most part, I try to decorate within that color palette. However in my case, my two guest rooms are considerably smaller than every other room and because we live in a rural area with no close neighbors, I don’t use curtains in the main living area of my house. This means that things like curtains and rugs in the guest rooms will only be able to be interchanged with each other. I advise sticking with one color palette for your home but you can stray when it comes to guest rooms and certain pieces (like the examples I gave above) that may not work anywhere else in your house. Therefore you don’t need to tightly coordinate them if you don’t wish too. Just remember you’ll be more limited with what you can interchangeably move about your house.

Plan It Out

In the past I have bought things willy-nilly and been less than pleased when it all came together. I have now started in my mind roughly mapping out how I want it to look. If I see an item that I am needing, like a rug for example, yet don’t have a mental picture for the room, I hold off on buying anything until I decide what I want it to look like. Your inspiration piece can be the jumping off point, like my rug was, but I still didn’t buy it until I had thought through how everything else in the room would coordinate with it.

Have fun!

Try not to let yourself get stressed out. Stress is a creativity killer! If you are feeling too stressed to make a decision, then don’t. Wait until you are feeling calmer to resume looking at pictures and furnishings. I’m willing to gamble that it won’t be long before creativity strikes!

We want our homes to be reflections of us. We want them to be cohesive. We try to follow the rules. But, the only unbreakable rule in decorating is that you do what you love! Don’t confine yourself to the “decorating rules” if it is not you. Do what you love and love what you do! Happy decorating!!