Decorating a house is not an easy task, the bigger the house the more items you need to buy and it is best if they fit perfectly the first time. Therefore, it is important that you create a simple floorplan, as this will help you define each area from the beginning. Also create a furniture ideas folder, as this will help you define what items you need to for each place.
Once you have those, you can start creating your ideal house in a virtual manner. Please do not buy any items until you have the correct dimensions of the space, including the baseboard.
My house consists of three bedrooms (all doubles but in various sizes) with one being ensuite, a living area (including open plan kitchen, dining room and living room), a storage area and a small utility cupboard. The simplest floorplan is built in square paper with the equivalent of one square as one set unit, although this is not very exact it gives you a better understanding of the available space.
The first thing was to define the space, we decided that the ensuite bedroom should be the master bedroom, the small bedroom should be the guestroom and the last bedroom should be the studio (half home office and half bedroom). I decided that the best way to use the storage area was getting heavy duty shelves, as we had very heavy boxes which have all the year’s events decorations like Christmas, day of the death, Durga puja, etc.
Once the areas were defined, the first thing was to include our own furniture into the design, as we had taken so much care in picking up every piece that we owned. We decided that all of our bedroom furniture fitted perfectly in the guestroom, becoming this the basis of this room designed. These pieces were a super king bed, a chest of drawers and a wooden wardrobe. The pieces missing were two side tables, an extra wardrobe, the curtains and its rail; which were all bought at IKEA.
The other pieces of furniture we owned were: one bookcase, two DVD towers, a TV unit (all oak colour), a dining table with four chairs (all dark brown colour), and a drinks cabinet (darkish brown colour). The bookcase went to the office room; the dining table, the chairs, and the drinks cabinet went to the dining room; and the rest went to the living room.
We decided that in the living room the TV unit will be the centre piece of the multimedia unit and will have two DVD towers (oak colour) and a display unit with glass doors (dark red colour) on each side. Therefore, we bought two additional DVD towers and two display cabinets with glass doors; which were all bought at IKEA.
We decided to buy a five-seater L-shape sofa (dark red colour) and instead of a centre table a fluffy rug (dark blue colour); which were all bought at Sofology.
We decided that there was enough space in the dining room to extend the dining table from four to six places. Therefore, we need to buy two extra chairs, six new chair’s covers, and four foldable chairs (as I wanted to entrain more); which were all bought at IKEA.
We decided that in the studio, as before, we will divide the space into a home office and a spare room. We decided that for the home office, we will be divided it into my office and husband’s office. I decided that for my office I wanted a very modern feeling, therefore, all pieces of furniture were bought at IKEA. These included an L-shape desk, a lockable side cabinet, a lockable drawer cabinet, a two-door cabinet and two add-ons bookcase; which were all bought at IKEA.
We decided that for the spare room, we needed a three-seater sofa bed from Sofology and a basic wardrobe and some chest of drawers from IKEA.
We decided that in the big balcony, we needed a five-seater sofa with a storage unit, six back cushions, two big chair cushions and a rain cover for the chairs; which were all bought at IKEA.
We decided that since the family bathroom and the ensuite had wall cabinet, we only needed some accessories. These were: a 5-litre pedal bin, a free-stand toilet paper holder, a soap dispenser, a hand towel, a bath mat, and a door hanger; which were all bought at IKEA. However, I decided that each bathroom will be colour coded, therefore, I picked light green for the family bathroom and dark grey for the ensuite.
We decided that in the master bedroom to have a super king bed set and a fitted wardrobe. We knew we wanted a super king bed but we were not clear on the kind of bedframe. However, we bought an amazing orthopaedic mattress from Dreams. In case of the fitted wardrobe, we did not know what we could get but we knew to buy it from Sharps.
This concluded the first stage of the decoration logistic, the interior design phase, which consisted in building ideas of what was needed in each space and finding the perfect item of furniture to fit in it but the most important part is the tentative place of where to buy each item. I recommend that during this phase attend the Grand Design exhibition show, as this is the fastest way to collect the contact details of many supplies from garden furniture to cooking items, which will help in your designing phase.
Before even moving in, I knew exactly what I wanted and where I wanted it for. Therefore, the weekend following us getting the keys to our house, on 30th June, we went to shopping to Sofology, Dreams and IKEA to order all the items that I knew will fit with my design. The tricky part was to arrange the delivery few days after moving to have enough time for arranging the area where the items would go. Therefore, the delivery dates were set for 12th July for IKEA and for 17th July for IKEA and Dreams. The only problem was that the delivery of Sofology was until 10th September, which meant more than two months without a sofa.
On 7th July, the day after our first night in our new house, I realised that all those months developing the perfect logistics for the moving paid off, as we had a great night sleep on the fully furnished guestroom and we were ready to start unpacking.
The first thing that needed to be unpacked was the kitchen. However, it was more laborious than what I imagined, as I used this opportunity to dispose of broken, expired and useless items; and finally, the remaining items were placed in the cupboards in a general manner. I spent most of the Saturday emptying boxes, and arranging and re-arranging the items in the cupboard, therefore it took me until Monday to finally finished with all the boxes of the kitchen.
On Sunday, we spent emptying the boxes of the living room, setting all the multimedia equipment (TV, DVD player, sky, etc) and unpacking our suitcases to finally settled in our new bedroom. The living area needed to be empty of boxes, as the delivery of IKEA was due the following Thursday 12th, and we needed the space to fit all the furniture boxes. Although, the delivery on 12th were the small items, this needed to be built and put in place before the major delivery arrived.
On 14th July, we meet with the designer of Sharps in order to have a consultation as to what size of wardrobe could fit and the cost of this. I decided that I needed to optimise the space and picked the biggest wall to make the wardrobe. Fortunately, the designer has able to take measurements without the need of us moving any boxes. We were surprised to discover that we could have a four-meter length floor-to-ceiling wardrobe and we decided to divide the space evenly, half to myself and half to hubby. After customising the space, we were satisfied with the cost and the next steps, and we ready for our new tailor-made wardrobe.
On 17th July, the big delivery of IKEA arrived, this delivery included 39 items some small and some very big like the doors of the display cabinet, fortunately we had enough space in the living, as we did not have a sofa for this. The same day the mattress arrived, fortunately we did not have to move anything, as all the boxes were next to one wall leaving sufficient area for the mattress to rest in the other wall.
By this time, our house was full of boxes and we had our first dinner party arranged for 22nd July, leaving use just five days to build the essential furniture to host our guests. Therefore, we decided for our first milestone to build the five-seater sofa and table for the big balcony, the extra two chairs for the dining table and changing the covers of all the older chairs, and finally the guestroom additional wardrobe.
We managed to fulfil our milestone building goals and we were able to have a successful first dinner party. As it was middle of summer and the weather was fabulous, we enjoyed an early dinner and a wonderful evening in the balcony.
Our second milestone was the visit of one of my hubby’s best friend on 9th August. For this visit, I wanted to finish most of the packages. However, the next phase had a two-part challenge. The first part was building the furniture and the last part was filling it, while at the same time trying to dispose as many boxes as possible.
All up till now, the furniture that we built matched perfectly with my floorplan designed. However, as explained before, the floorplan was not an exact model and the spaces looked bigger than they were. Therefore, the first challenge was the side table of the guestroom.
The guestroom, as all the bedrooms, was designed to fit a double bed. Since our bed was super king, we had to change the location of the bed and with this adjustment the side table did not fit on the side. The location of the side tables was in front of the bed, as this was where the outlets were placed.
The other change that I made was the balcony sofa. I first designed it to be in the small balcony, however, when building the chairs, I realised that it would suit better in the big balcony with the wall rather than the one with the glass.
Therefore, this shows you that you need to buy the furniture in stages and be flexible in case it does not fit like you designed but could fit in another place just needs a bit of imagination.
One of the major changes that I had to do in my design was the pantry. When I did my measurements, I was certain that I could fit a pantry at the end of the kitchen and I checked for suppliers. However, when double checking the location, I realised that in the same place was the light switches and the temperature setting, therefore, I could not place any piece of furniture taller that the switch so this only left with one option, the kitchen bins.
Although I faced some design challenges during this period, the multimedia cabinet was built exactly as designed. The only problem was fitting all our momentous in uncrowded way, which I managed to do perfectly.
The last pieces of furniture we built were for my office. Although, I was able to clear the space needed to fit my desk, my chair and the bookcase in the correct space; the rest of the room was still a room full of boxes. However, when buying the furniture in IKEA, I was unable to obtain all my filling cabinet system as these items were out of stock. This allowed me to build all the boxes of the first delivery and continued emptying the rest of the boxes from the moving.
The most challenging room to design was the dining room. This was because my hubby wanted to change the entire furniture arrangements for items made on solid walnut. However, since we still had many items to buy I was able to convince him to wait for a year to do this. Therefore, I needed to place the drinks cabinet in the correct position, where it would allow me to sit comfortable and still be able to open the cabinet without any major chair movements.
In order to suit this, I changed the location of the cabinet to the other wall and this limited the space for a display cabinet. I was able to obtain for free the display cabinet, however, I just had to pay for the transportation. This display cabinet fitted perfectly in the dining room and although every piece of furniture here has a different tone of brown, there are all woods making of this an eclectic combination.
On 9th August, the second milestone and my husband’s friend arrived. By this time the living area (kitchen, dining room and living room) and the guestroom were free of boxes and everything was in its place. And since we had the new mattress, he was able to sleep in a nice mattress but still no bedframe.
While he was still at home, the construction materials for the new wardrobe were due to arrival and for this all the boxes of the master bedroom needed to be moved to the living room. This is when I realised how lucky we were that the furniture was delivered in stages giving us enough time and space to move around boxes and emptied its contents in slow but efficient manner.
The third milestone was set for 29th September for our next dinner party with friends. The next spaces to sort out were the storage room, the boxes of the living area, and the master bedroom as the delivery of the sofas was fast approaching.
The next space to tackle was the storage room. The idea behind the design was easy access to all the storage items distributed in an array of plastic boxes. Therefore, what we needed were two shelving units capable of fitting the boxes. I was able to find a heavy-duty shelving unit on eBay. However, after assembly I found out that due to the thickness of the size of the shelving unit, the boxes did not fit and I was forced to buy an additional unit a bit bigger in length but less robust. The extra shelving unit, I moved it to the studio for storage. With the spare shelves, I was able to build a small unit that fitted perfectly in the utility room.
The next step was to empty and classified all the master bedroom boxes. The clothes were classified into three piles: one to keep (for wardrobe), one to sale, and the last one to recycle. This process made things lengthier but allowed us to just keep the essential clothes. However, due to lack of time the boxes aiming for sale and recycle were kept in the master bedroom.
The final step was to move the boxes of the studio from one side to the other to make space for the sofabed, as the sofas were due to deliver on 10th September. The sofa and the rug were the last pieces of furniture needed to finally complete the living room arrangements.
On 29th September, the third milestone and the second friends’ party arrived. By this time, the wardrobe construction was completed and full with clothes, and the sofas were in place, however, there were still minor details to complete.
The last milestone was set for 1st November as my best friend with her entire family (five members) were due to arrive for a two-week holiday. Therefore, everything needed to be finalised as all three bedrooms and the entire house will be needed for this purpose.
By this time, most of the essential furniture was bought, however, I still needed the rest of the office furniture, hanging mirrors for the bedrooms and some odd bits to complete the arrangements. The next IKEA delivery was planned on 23rd October giving us less than 10 days to complete everything. The last furniture delivery was on 26th October, which had the master bedroom furniture which contained the bedframe, side tables and under bed drawer.
On 31st October 2018, the last milestone arrived. By this time, both the master bedroom and the guestroom had the curtain installed. The master bedroom furniture was built, all the boxes were taken for sale and the leftovers for recycling. All the empty boxes were donated to a friend as part of their own moving arrangement (recycling boxes), there is still couple of boxes left as we realised that further downsizing is required.
The office furniture was built and all the filling folders and books were in place. However, the rest of the items of the office boxes were classified into three: one for rubbish, one for keeping and one for selling on eBay. Although all boxes were empty and re-classified, there are still three boxes awaiting further downsizing: the one of stationery, the one of eBay and the boxes full of my husband’s stuff.
Although, the items needed to make my house functional and in perfect living order were finished by the end of October 2018, there are still the subtle details that made these decorations from ordinary to extraordinary and this is basis of Part 2 which will be covered in 12 months.
This is because the construction company recommended no to place any decorations on the walls in case of any major structural damage detected, all these decorations are missing. The lightning is still basic. The office still has things to be done: there are many big boxes for selling on eBay, the rest of the items need to find their proper place to make a functional office, and the furniture for my husband’s office. The main bedroom still has temporary furniture and requires a new storage system. The small balcony is empty. And finally, the blinds are missing from the office and living room.
The basics for a successful decorating project are: creating a basic floorplan in paper, creating a furniture ideas folder, using masking tape for creating markers on the floor (to visualise the space), setting milestones to have an area to build furniture and to move boxes as required, and a basic toolkit (containing: masking tape, measuring tape, level and electric drill).
My best recommendation is to enjoy the process, as this is the time to be creative, design the space to suit your unique needs, and be patient, as this process is a marathon and not a sprint. It is important to design every little space you have make it functional and this is achieved by getting the correct piece of furniture in the correct place (like to holes below the sink, which have a box with a handle for cleaning purpose). The best design space is the one that when you are in it makes you feel relax and creative, and this is the aim of the best interior design project.
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