Room Design Basics

• The process of designing a room gives homeowners and renters a chance to express themselves by personalizing their living space. While the sky is the limit when it comes to the details of your room design, there are some basics you should follow when putting together a room that is both practical to live in and beautiful to look at.

Functional Floor Plan

• Before even thinking about paint color, area rugs or furniture, you must think about the functionality of the room. What is the room's purpose? How will you spend time in the room? How will traffic move through the room? Whether you're designing a living room, bedroom or kitchen, you must imagine yourself spending time in the room and moving through it. Sketch out a floor plan and imagine the flow of traffic. Start with the most prominent elements of the room--the bed if it is a bedroom or the couch and television if it is a media room--and figure out how people will move around those elements. Then add in the other elements of the room--tables, bookcases, etc.--and make sure traffic will easily flow around the room. If you imagine that any of these secondary elements will prove to be annoying or hinder easy traffic flow, change your floor plan until things look right.

Lighting

• Lighting plays a major part in the design of any room. If you are designing a room from scratch or doing a renovation, place overhead lights in strategic places when drawing out your floor plan. If you're working with an existing room, take existing lighting into consideration when placing your furniture and add table and floor lamps where necessary.

Feng Shui

• Think about the ancient Chinese concept of feng shui, or the way that energy flows around the room. Research the basics of feng shui to determine how to encourage the flow of positive energy and keep a harmonious feeling to your room.

Make Eclectic Choices

• When choosing furniture to turn your floor plan into a reality, incorporate an eclectic mix of pieces. If you choose all matching furniture from the same line or brand, you run the risk of having your home look like a showroom. Try to adopt a mix of old and new pieces that complement each other and fall into the same basic aesthetic, but don't necessarily match perfectly.

Scale and Size

• When choosing pieces, also take scale and size into account. If your room is small, don't over-stuff it with large pieces. Likewise, if a room is very large, don't be afraid to choose large, dramatic pieces of furniture.