Interior Design For Couples

Interior design for couples is one of the hottest, most popular types of design these days. In the past, men have not taken the initiative to actually be involved in the interior design of their homes, often resulting in very female orientated, elegant designs that are beautiful although not exactly appealing to the Saturday afternoon football crew. This type of design is often beautiful and can be ideal in certain situations. Although, more and more men today are interested in helping to decide what their home looks like on the inside!

Beware! Interior design for couples can put you (the designer) into a bit of a hot seat in the battle of the sexes. Here are a few tips on how to avoid disaster. First of all, always communicate with and listen to what both parties involved envision as being their dream space. Many times one party or the other will be much more dominate in the planning and conversations then the other. Take note of this and pay special attention to the quiet party by asking the questions and making sure to offer them the opportunity to express themselves. In this aspect of interior design for couples, you are the mediator. Take both sides into careful consideration before doing any planning.

During planning stages, again, be sure to include both parties in the process and if one person is noticeably quiet during the conversation, dont be shy to point things out that might be important to them. This way, you tend to buffer any arguments or resentment that may arise from your interjection of a neutral opinion or thoughts. If there are any problems, remind them both that your vision is to create a space that is pleasant and acceptable to both of them and that interior design for couples can be unpleasant but it is very easy to work within both persons boundaries in order to ensure that everyone is happy with the outcome.

If you see certain situations that you, as a designer can find ways to compromise in order to fit things into both peoples expectations this is key. Also, stress to both parties involved that a little give and a little take is vital when discussing and planning interior design for couples and that while they wont always reach the same conclusion, if they both make some trade offs it will create an environment they are both comfortable in.

If all else fails, encourage both people when making references to certain aspects of one anothers design ideas that they are good ideas that can be compatible with the others thoughts. Whenever dealing with interior design for couples, a certain he says, she says attitude is likely to arise at some point and it is your job as the designer to see that things work out smoothly and in the best interest of both people.

Color and furniture are normally the main items that are disagreed upon in interior design for couples. Suggest to the female counterpart that the leather sofa her husband is interested in can be a very classic and comfortable edition to any living space. Explain to her husband that the peach color she is looking for can actually be considered a light beige. You would be surprised what miracles a little bit of convincing can do when carried out in the right manner.

If neither party is willing to compromise, I have seen for instances when the designer actually had both of the couple write down their design needs/wants and do a point by point comparison/bargaining session that allowed each person an equal amount of yes and nos. Sound ridiculously childish? Be prepared!

Rosemary Leake is an Independent Consultant with Southern Living at Home. Inspired by Southern Living magazine, our exclusive home dcor line brings warmth and style to every room of your home! Visit Rosemary's Interior Design website for more articles and resources - http://www.interiordesignprofits.com. Also get your FREE Mini-Report: "A Complete Guide To Interior Design."

Ideas For Interior Design

Ideas for interior design are a dime a dozen these days. In fact, you can likely watch one hour of television dedicated to the subject and come away with enough information to design an entire home. The problem with the tv-to life application of ideas for interior design is that, to begin with, they are difficult to document. Unless you sit beside or in front of the tv, scribbling madly onto a piece of paper, it is tough to actually hang on to all of the ideas you might get from the show. Also, success with any interior design project is planning, planning, planning. Duplicating or copying a design from television into your home might involve some extra steps or planning that was not included in the thirty-minute or hour-long segment of the show. It is this reason that one should sit down and actually go through an entire dry run of a design before it is actually executed. This way, there is a better chance that you will figure out and take necessary preventative measures to ensure a problem free application.

Television is not the only resource for information and ideas for interior design. Books are a great helper to designers of any background or experience levels. The content found in books is often much more thought-out and explanative material then that of a tv show. This is so because many books entail much more basic material and information then a normal television show can include in a short segment of time. Also, books are commonly co-authored on such subjects and are generally edited before released in any form to consumers so the content has often times been written and/or edited by at least two separate parties. This is the case most often times, but there are always exceptions to the rules.

If a book seems too labor intensive or time consuming, you might consider magazine articles as a source for ideas for interior design. In magazines, you have the additional benefit of visual representations of design concepts that you can actually hold onto for an extended period of time. Many interior design professionals take advantage of this benefit by collecting large quantities of these articles or pictures and placing them into a format that is easily accessible to them. This is a tremendous resource for finding a particular look or feel that a client or person might not be able to describe in actual industry terms.

The terminology used by designers is fairly self-describing although people that are not exposed to the jargon might not understand certain concepts or phrases used in defining ideas for interior design. For example, most people are generally aware of the terms traditional or modern design although they might have trouble explaining ones such as Minimalist or Americana. There is no reason to feel inadequate if these phrases are unfamiliar to you, just understand that the learning process takes time and is exactly as described, a process.

If you are comfortable with your own level of creativity, browse as many magazines as possible to put together a unique style or design code of your own and work within those guidelines and ideas for interior design applications. If you are a little less comfortable with your own sense of style and find it easier to point to a traditional design category, gather all the information possible related to that category and stick to the general guidelines presented in the information you have assembled.

The best way to assimilate information offering you ideas for interior design is to take a little information from each of the above suggested sources and compile it into a creative archive of sorts that you can access again at a later time in order to compare and contrast with your own ideas and vision.

Rosemary Leake is an Independent Consultant with Southern Living at Home. Inspired by Southern Living magazine, our exclusive home dcor line brings warmth and style to every room of your home! Visit Rosemary's Interior Design website for more articles and resources - http://www.interiordesignprofits.com. Also get your FREE Mini-Report: "A Complete Guide To Interior Design."

Interior Design For Bargain Hunters

Interior design for bargain hunters is the new fashionable item in the arena of interior design. Everyone is interested these days in making their money stretch as far as it possibly can. There are many, many possible ways to achieve this. The most important determining factor in your success is the amount of patience and time you are willing to invest in order to find and purchase true items of value and not frivolous purchases which are of significantly less value that you will regret later.

The places you will find most traditional bargain hunters looking for pieces related to interior design are places such as second hand furniture stores, seconds depots, and discount stores. If you shop around in these stores, you are likely to run across great purchases for interior design for bargain hunters. These purchases might include items such as furniture, linens, accessories, and the like. You can even occasionally find bargains on household electronics such as wide screen televisions and stereo systems. Be sure when buying items such as these that they are in useable condition and the fact that they are broken is not the reason they are for sale so cheap.

Another potential place to purchase items for interior design for bargain hunters would be homemade sales such as yard sales, flea markets, auctions, and estate sales. These places are no longer areas where you will find the occasional bargain hunter and enormous amounts of obsolete, valuable items that no one will find but you. Rather, these places have been commercialized as being places to find great deals and even the most common shopper has his or her eyes open for that dream deal. This being said, these places are still great resources for the bargain hunter who is looking to buy well-conditioned, useable items for a better cost then one would find in a department store.

An aspect of interior design for bargain hunters that many people do not ever even consider is the labor involved with creating the designs. This can include services such as painting, moving, carpet cleaning, ect. Labor prices are the end of interior design that often are the most costly (with the exception of furniture and flooring). Bargain hunting for labor is a bit different then bargain hunting for actual physical items. You might think that perhaps you can afford to hire someone for less actual dollars an hour that possess perhaps less skill then another more expensive worker. This is a tricky aspect of interior design for bargain hunters.

Keep in mind that many times workers who have more experience or are better skilled at a certain task will complete the work at a faster pace then the unskilled worker, thus actually evening out the hourly price, and also there is not as much of a possibility of costly mistakes. So, honestly, depending on the skill level of the worker involved, you might be better off with the more expensive yet more efficient laborer.

Whatever the market or product you are searching for, be a smart, price-savvy comparison shopper and exercise control over spending amounts. Establishing pre-set spending amounts is a form of self-discipline and should be exercised throughout the interior design process. Bargain hunting for interior design can be as simple as taking this principle to heart and applying it to all of your decorating activities.

Finally, hard work and attention to detail can enormously decrease project costs so if you have the time and the understanding to see an aspect of the designing through yourself, this alone can turn a large budgeted project into a small one. After all, that elbow grease is worth a little something

Rosemary Leake is an Independent Consultant with Southern Living at Home. Inspired by Southern Living magazine, our exclusive home dcor line brings warmth and style to every room of your home! Visit Rosemary's Interior Design website for more articles and resources - http://www.interiordesignprofits.com. Also get your FREE Mini-Report: "A Complete Guide To Interior Design."