HOW TO FIND YOUR INDIVIDUAL STYLE. INTERIOR DECORATION TIPS.

Finding your individual style can be difficult. In a world when there are so many designer furniture shops, mid-range shops that advertise low price versions of designer based furniture, and low end range furniture shops more readily available on the high street, paint and wallpaper shops that sell both cheap and expensive ranges of paint and wallpaper, DIY stores, home stores that sell ornaments and soft furnishings and home finishing touches, it can be difficult to specifically know what you like with all that range to look at.
The market has so many interior design magazines, home design programmes and adverts for online home wear shops so we are bombarded with all this visual information and we don’t know what to do with it.
So how do you find your style, your individual style of your home? Well the first step is to go through some interior design magazines and find all those images of furniture that you like – there is no limit at the moment of how many you can choose, but go for the ones that really float your boat. Price range is not an issue at this step. This is purely to find out what you like.
There are different priced magazines, they target different audiences. Some of the more expensive ones do have designer furniture in, others at the cheaper end of the scale have topics about people who have decorated their house on a shoe-string budget so the cost of furniture in these magazines reflects what type of audience this it is aimed at. Get one of each magazine on display, this will take you right through the whole price scale.
Then, lets say you are decorating a lounge. Read the magazines and pick out all the sofas you like, the ones that really catch your eye for. Cut them out and keep them to one side. After this, decide what type of sofa out of all the ones you have chosen makes you excited and makes you really want to sit on it. Also think of what would you like to feel texture and fabric wise. Whittle this down to two or three if you need to.
You now have a basis to start on. Go through the magazines again and hold the pictures of the sofas up against other pieces of furniture you want to choose, for instance, coffee tables, TV units, side boards etc. Look at the colour, the shapes and lines in the style of this furniture to see if they compliment the sofa. See if the fabric and shape of the sofa works well with the finish of the bookcase or coffee table you are looking at.
If you have chosen expensive designer furniture, and you have a smaller budget, and you want to find a cheaper alternative then have a look in some of the high street shops on line to see if they have the equivalent style and shape but for a cheaper price. For instance, I would suggest John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, House of Fraser, Next and Ikea. Good online shops are Wayfair.com and Made.com. This will be the basis of the colour paint you will choose to go in your room.
Next you need to choose your colours. Get some paint sample booklets and have a look through them. Exclude the colours you don’t like and focus on the colours that really draw your eye. Do they go with the colour of the sofa and the finish of the bookcase for instance? Once you have found your colour or colours, the only thing you may have to compromise on is the shade chosen. If you have a dark room with minimal light then have a look at some interior design blogs or look at your magazines to find how to incorporate darker colours into a room whilst balancing it with some lighter colours to bring the light in.
You need to accessorise your home, and the easiest place to start is with lighting. What floor and table lamps go well with what you have chosen? Look at the colour, finish and the material of the lamps to see if they look luxurious next to your furniture and if it goes with the shade you have painted the walls. You now have your completed room and you have a style that is yours. Now you just need to accessorise your room, but the same rules apply about choosing mirrors and cushions etc. Does the material, colour, texture and finish go with the room? It is fun filling your room with the finishing touches and you will have luxurious sanctuary to live in afterwards. 
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