Home Decorating Ideas: 101

Your home should be somewhere for you to fully relax, and not just something that you moved into some time ago and still doesn't feel comfortable. Regardless of its size or location, a home needs to feel like a palace! The way to do this is not to spend extortionate amounts of money on lavish works of art, but simply to decorate it how you would like, and with today's home design boom, there are plenty of options for you to try.

As with all big projects, home decoration needs a bit of thought put into it, which includes some good research. You need to decide on a theme that you like, as all homes are centred around some sort of theme even though you may not realise. You can do this by reading through decorating magazines and books, and watching programmes about decorating on TV, and soon you will find that one style sticks out to you more than the others.

All themes are linked very closely with a colour scheme, which is the next thing that you need to consider when decorating your home. You will be aware that for example an Indian theme has many reds, dark blues and blacks, whereas a Mediterranean theme would have mainly whites, yellows and oranges. Whichever theme you choose, you need to link it with some particular colours to avoid your home looking disjointed and out of place.

Creativity is vital in the decoration process, and you need to play around with possibilities. If the house was originally built with a dining room and a huge kitchen, that doesn't mean that you have to use the dining room for what it was intended if you plan to eat in the space you have in the kitchen. Think about what else you could use that defunct dining room for; a study perhaps, or a home library.

Ok, so you've decided exactly how each room is going to look and what you are going to use it for. The next step is to decide which room you are going to decorate first and what you need for it. So empty the room, as you won't want to be climbing over furniture to paint the walls, and head down to your local DIY shop, where you can buy supplies. First you will need paint or wallpaper.

With regards to applying the paint, you will need some sort of brush, pad or roller. If you go with brushes, buy decent quality ones that don't shed bristles. If you don't you will end up with just the handle of a brush left, and a wall textured with all the bristles, which is why for larger walls pads or rollers are recommended, so you don't need to worry about bad brushes. Pads and rollers also make the job much quicker, although rollers can be very messy, so anything in the room, including you, needs to be fully covered up.

But don't jump straight in with painting the walls, make sure that you know exactly what is going to go in the room first, as you wouldn't forgive yourself if you had just finished painting the walls, were out buying a new tin of paint, and spotted a lovely table in the furniture shop next door, that really didn't go with the colour.

The most important thing about decorating is to make it enjoyable. Not only will the task be much less arduous, but you will also end up with a better product. So have some fun, do it with a friend, and then when you have finished a particular room, use it for a couple of days and enjoy your creation before starting on the next one.