Interior Design Ideas - Create a Folder For Each Room and an Interior Idea Box For the Project

Interior Design ideas are flowing through your head. Time to start organizing all those millions of thoughts about your interior design. Try to relax and have fun doing it. Please get a folder for each room. Put information pertaining to each room in each folder.

    Make a list of how each room is used now or more importantly how each room will be used.
    Next write down your design ideas for each area. At this point no idea is a bad idea! You can say my husband thinks this, I think that should be done and the kids think this. Please reveal all your thoughts and ideas that you and your family have been having, even if you think they are crazy, can not be done or are too far fetched. Get those thoughts out of your head and onto paper. Most importantly reveal all your dreams. Now is your chance to make your dream home. Dream big and do the design as close to that as you can in your budget
    If you have a set of building plans from your architect, that would be great. You will need the floor plan, the electrical plan, and all elevations - interior and exterior. You may need to utilize more, but that would be a great start. I understand that you may need professional help to understand these plans completely, but put a copy of each room in each room folder to refer to as needed. This is usually a 1/4" scale for residential design and an 1/8" scale for commercial design. This mean 1/4" or 1/8" = 1'0" on these plans so you can get a feel for the exact size of things.
    Now, go through as many design magazines as you possibly can and tear out pictures of rooms you like. You probably will not find rooms that are exactly what you want, so it is great to get pictures and mark them with notes such as, "I love the color of this wall", "this sofa is a great style", "I think these draperies are beautiful", I like this and I like that...
    You can also do this with hates. The "absolutely not", as one wonderful clients says when it is not something he is likes, are very important too.
    What are your favorite colors? Gather anything that is your favorite colors. This could be clothes, fabric swatches, tiles, a cup, a magazine picture. Take pictures of anything that you cannot fit in your folder.
    Take pictures and measurements of all your existing furnishings. Please make a note if it is a keep (think it will work as is), re-upholster, refinish or repair (needs work), donate or sell (not keeping - get rid of), and lastly trash it.

There is one very important rule here, possibly two. You must LOVE what you are putting in the file and number two, do not think about the cost. Use the best magazines and gather your dream items. It is not that you will be buying these, but you are establishing your dreams and loves to put together a design that you LOVE, and is a reflection of you and your family.

Put all these folders together in a box, pull out the room folder that you are working on at the time. You may also want one more general folder that has possibly the exterior color paint colors, flooring samples, main interior paint colors for the project and other general items. This should get the ideas out of your head and into the folders, make things much more manageable, and help you not pull your hair out with all these decisions that need to be made!