If you are planning on moving when the recession recedes, that’s another reason to make a few home improvements – focus on adding value to your home before it’s time to sell. Besides, why not make your home more pleasant and up-to-date while you’re still living in it? And I’m not the only one who thinks so: Ed Del Grande, the Orange County Register’s home repair guru, recently told a reader the same thing. You can read the article online here, but read on for my top tips!

Make Smart Decisions
Interior designers can help clients make smart decisions about what improvements to make and how to go about them – there’s no point in planning an “upgrade” that will clash with the style or architecture of your home. Here’s a few target areas that are good places to start:

• Replacing windows and doors adds value to a home and can actually help lower utility bills
• A potential buyer’s eye will focus on a few key areas:

- The kitchen: think about updating the cabinetry
- The bathrooms: don’t underestimate the power of fresh paint and a new shower treatment
- Landscaping: make visitors say “Wow!” before they even step inside

• Upgrade finishes like mouldings and light fixtures
• Refresh living areas with new paint schemes
• Replace worn-out flooring for a new look in hallways, kitchens and living areas

A good interior designer can design a new kitchen or bathroom from the ground up, providing material selections and colorways. But why spend the money on a professional? Because of a little-known fact: due to their relationships with a wide range of vendors – including those for flooring, fabrics, fixtures and furniture – they receive prices that are better than sale prices you can find in-store or online. An interior designer worth their salt will pass these savings on to their clients!

Find New Space in Your Home

Where you see a jumbled mess, a talented designer will see the possibility of organized bliss. Pay for a consultation – or better yet, see if you can find a designer offering a free consultation – to find places ripe for transformation. Creating a new area for storage or a specific purpose takes a little planning but a lot of creativity, and if you’ve chosen wisely, your designer can take a small budget and a small space and make a huge change in your home, and your life.

•    Cluttered hallways or coat closets? Clear them out and replace with a custom, built-in desk or shelving system. With a specialized design, you should be able to organize what was once a mess – and make it look beautiful, too.
•    An odd niche? Turn into a dedicated office space or a beautiful hutch to display collections or photographs.
•    Lofty ideas? Open up a child’s bedroom with a loft area, or add high ceilings and light to a living space.
•    Want to relax? Formal living or dining rooms are being swapped for family or entertainment rooms, or combined with the kitchen for an open-plan living space.

Take a Fresh Look at What You’ve Got

Does it need to be a new purchase to feel like an update? Not if you do it right, in my opinion. Would you be willing to pay for a few hours of a designer’s time if they saved you thousands – or tens of thousands – in material costs by working with your existing furnishings? Here are some of my favorite ways how:

•    Get a new ‘do: Re-do and re-use – recycling is all the rage, don’t you know! With the right vision, we can reupholster, repaint and reinvent just about anything in your home. A tired coffee table can become a luxurious ottoman, and a fading sofa can come to life when the cushions get new stuffing, the shape is restyled and fabric is replaced.
•    Change the details: transform the sofa with new accent pillows; reshuffle accessories on table tops and mantlepieces and in display cabinets; reframe existing art; or even add some greenery by way of new houseplants.
•    Finer art: Can’t afford a Renoir? Why bother? Frame and hang something more personal, like existing photographs from a trip or album. Have a collection? Get a professional to mount, mat and frame them – even something as mundane as a button collection can look amazing when showcased in this way.

Shopaholics, Rejoice

If you’re more of a hands-on shopper, you can take advantage of both a designer’s eye and the numerous sales, clearances and close-outs that pop up in recession times. I’ve been hired to go shopping with several clients to advise on purchases, ensuring that they are right for the home and the budget. This is a great way to refresh and update your home on a low budget and in a short amount of time!
For more expert advice and ways to transform your home even when times are tough, contact LRM Interior Design for a free consultation.

Designer's apartment in Chicago

One of my favorite web sites is Apartment Therapy. It showcases some great interiors that don’t always make it to the big glossy magazines, but are definitely worthy.

This week I found my “Inspiration” on their site – a small apartment decorated with bold style yet soft colors. The size of the space definitely spoke to me, as living and working in Laguna Beach has made me all too adept at designing for small spaces. I loved how they used wainscoting to create panels on the walls that inject color and bold patterns onto the white walls, but cleverly knew when to stop. It would have been easy to overwhelm the space with even one full wall of pattern.

The designer, also the resident of the featured apartment, used light, fresh colors that keep a small space bright and open. She also used fabrics that I am both familiar with and love, especially on the fabric-covered coffee table.

I felt that this apartment’s décor was well thought out and shows the designer’s personality and originality, plus a love of fabrics that clearly mirrors my own!

Here is a photo, as promised!

—Lisa