How do I decorate a house?

cncaudata

I'm building a new house. It has 2800 square feet. My current house has 1300 sq ft worth of furniture, and half of it I don't like.

Is there a free online resource for decorating, layout design, or anything like that? What about a forum? I would kill for a style guide - e.g. You should always put rugs in xyz location and your sofa should be x inches from the wall... We have a pretty good idea of what we like, what color scheme we're going for, etc. but the basic stuff I don't have a handle on. If I knew I needed an end table I'd have no problem finding a great one, but I don't know if I need an end table or a potted plant...

What I really want is an interior decorator, but I don't know if I can afford it (how much do they cost?).

Angel177

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ was a great boon when working out how to plan stuff around our place, just search for what you want.

Enc

I worked for an interior design firm for almost 10 years, and here's a trick you can do that's cheap to figure out some things: Buy some home magazines. Ones with as many pictures of houses you can find. Southern Living was a good one in the states, but there are hundreds. Look at the pictures and see how designers are placing things, then find one that works for you.

Most interior designers keep massive libraries of magazine clippings from these things, notebooks after notebooks of style ideas for when they get stumped. Its the best, easiest, and cheapest way to figure out how to make your house look wonderful AND fit your style. Just find an image that is close to the feel you want and go from there.

Honestly, unless you plan on investing more than two thousand dollars on your home upgrade, just doing magazine clippings would be my suggestion. If you are planning on investing more than two thousand dollars, get a professional.

Designers tend to be priced in a wide field depending upon skill, competency, and prestige. Most operate on a visit plan basis (for example, a five visit and research setup from start to finish typically runs you about $300-$500 for an established, mid-ranged designer and includes a lot of under the hood work with selecting things for your specific needs). There are plenty of cheaper designers too, some charge by visit and can be as cheap as $50 per visit, but you get what you pay for. These folks tend to have less experience and fewer industry connections.

The larger firms tend to have some perks you can get otherwise, like having open lines of credit with furniture and accessories companies which makes your purchasing costs go down substantially (if you are getting a well crafted couch, say 1-2 thousand dollars, you could be saving hundreds by these perks). Typically large furniture companies only vend to designers and stores, which then sell to the client. Stores are almost always more expensive than the designers because they have to cover overhead.

cncaudata

Thank you both - I had forgotten about apartment therapy, which is a great "magazine" online.

I think I can afford $3-500 for good help when I'm ready to upgrade my living room, for instance - since I'd expect to be spending $5-10k to do it...

I found a pretty awesome tool here: http://www.raymourflanigan.com/Interactive-Room-Planner.aspx where you can draw/move furniture/walls/windows rugs etc. So at least for my existing furniture, I can plan out how we'd like to arrange things before we move in.