What’s your favorite room in the house? Is it the living room, where you spend the most time with your family? Is it the kitchen, where you can express yourself creatively through culinary innovations? Is it your bedroom, where you have more privacy and time to be yourself?
Whatever the case, your favorite room can get stagnant if you don’t make a proactive effort to periodically redecorate and reimagine it.
So how should you approach redecorating your favorite room?
Why Redecorate?
There are many reasonable motivations to pursue redecorating. You might feel tired of the existing décor or totally unstimulated by this particular arrangement of furniture. You might be inspired to try something new because you saw it at a friend’s house or in a movie. You might be feeling lethargic and stagnant in your personal life, forcing you to seek novelty so you can get a breath of fresh air. Or you might have gone through a significant change in your life and feel ready for a total transformation.
Whatever your motivation, the ultimate goal is the same: transform the room to look and feel different.
Let’s get started.
Tips for Redecorating Your Favorite Room
These are the best tips for redecorating your favorite room:
- Decide on a general theme. Try to start with a general theme or a central idea that you’re going to follow as you redecorate your favorite room. For example, you might want the room to feel more grounded and down to earth. Or you might want the room to feel light, ethereal, and positive. Or you might be focused on more specific decoration elements; for example, you might want to decorate a child’s room in line with characters and story elements from their favorite franchise. There are no right or wrong answers here, but you’ll find your job much easier in the near future if you have a central theme or concept in mind.
- Start with the center. For most rooms, it’s best to start with some sort of centerpiece and work your way outward. For example, if you have a fireplace and/or a mantel, it can serve as the centerpiece of the entire room. You can focus on improving the style and aesthetics of this centerpiece, decorating it as you see fit, and then you can adjust all the elements surrounding it to better complement and enhance it.
- Choose a color palette. At this point, you’ll be ready to choose a color palette. If you already have a theme or concept for your room in mind, this shouldn’t be especially difficult. If you’re at a total loss of what colors to choose, look for inspiration online; what colors seem to be in vogue? Are you looking for something simple and traditional, or something more audacious and vibrant?
- Describe feelings and mood. What do you want to feel when you walk into this room? Do you want to feel a calm sense of peace? Do you want to feel energized and invigorated? Do you want your affect to remain unchanged? These are all valid motivations, but your painting and decorating choices are going to depend on what you ultimately choose.
- List what you don’t like about the current setup. There’s a reason you’re redecorating. Take a moment to list everything that you don’t like about your current setup. Try to be as specific as possible here. What is it about this furniture arrangement that’s bothersome? Which decorative elements no longer make you feel joy? Why is this the case and how can you avoid it in your redecorating efforts?
- Move the furniture. You don’t have to be a feng shui expert to know that the placement of furniture can make a big difference in how the room looks and how you feel while existing in it. Get a buddy and rearrange the furniture in a few different ways to see what feels the best to you. In many cases, more open, flowing designs are superior to enclosed ones.
- Utilize mirrors. People often underestimate the power of mirrors to bring new life into a room. Mirrors provide the illusion of extra space and they can help highlight certain decorative elements if they’re placed on the opposite wall of those elements.
- Select strong anchor pieces. The right piece of art can instantly change the mood or vibe associated with your favorite room, so experiment with different art styles and different types of pieces to see what fits.
- Fill in the gaps. With a few strong anchor pieces in place, you can begin filling in the gaps. Empty space can be valuable, but too much of it can be a detraction.
- Stay flexible. Remain flexible as you get inspiration from different areas and find the perfect fits for your favorite pieces of décor.
If you’re not totally satisfied with the finished product of your redecoration efforts, don’t worry too much. You might begin to like the new angles more once you have time to adjust to them; many people feel at least a little uncomfortable in a familiar room that’s been changed slightly. If you don’t adjust in a few days, you can always revert to the original design or try something entirely new. Chances are, you’re going to be periodically redecorating your favorite rooms for your entire life, so you’ll never come up short on transformational opportunities.