If you have ever watched HGTV, it can seem like rooms materialize out of thin air, the project takes 20 minutes, and everyone is over the moon! That's all well and good, but how do they get there? What are the steps we need to take to create a beautiful and practical space you are sure to love?

First things first, we need to establish a budget. Establishing a budget will help us prioritize your project and set realistic design goals. As your designers, our job is to value engineering your project by guiding you on where to spend and save. We will discuss what the "must haves" are, the "nice to haves," and the "not a priority" items and come up with a comprehensive design plan based on your budget.

Once a budget is established, we need to decide on the purpose of the space we are designing. Who will be using the space? Will it be a cozy family room where your kiddos will have free reign? If that's the case, we must select practical, durable fabrics and create lots of storage and usable space for game playing, movie nights, and family time. Or are we designing a primary bedroom sanctuary? If that is your goal, then we need to create a sexy and serene space where you can relax and recharge.

Now that we know who will be using the space and what the primary purpose of the space will be, we get to decide how we want the room to feel. What is the overall mood or feel you are looking to achieve? Dark and moody? Neutral with a ton of texture? Whimsical and colorful? This is where the fun begins! What inspires you? In this phase, we are not selecting specific items. Instead, we want to see what you are drawn to. It can be a beautiful nature scene, pictures from shelter magazines, inspirational rooms pulled from Pinterest... What colors, styles, and textures resonate with you?

With our mood now established, we get to pick our anchor piece. This can be a beautiful fabric, fabulous light fixture, interesting tile, etc. It's the one element that will act as our springboard into creating the rest of the space. We always suggest having one WOW detail that we use to build the rest of the room around. It doesn't have to be the most expensive item, but it should be your favorite design piece. Like a statement piece of jewelry or artwork, the anchor piece is the star of our show!

Now that we have our anchor element in place, it's time to develop our color palette. We will use our anchor piece as the connector to the rest of the items in the room. We can decide on fabrics, wallpaper colors, paint colors, etc. to coordinate with our cornerstone item. Next up is the preliminary floor plan. Let's lay out our room. How many pieces do we need; What sizes work; How do we want the room to function? Make sure to refer back to our room's purpose and budget! Here is where we can work our magic and provide a mixture of high/low items to create a carefully curated, luxe, yet practical space designed especially for you! Remember, just like fashion: less is more. We want to select high-quality, bigger ticket items that will stand the test of time. Then we can layer in more trendy items like pillows, throws, and decorative accessories.