The old cliché says “home is where the heart is.” That may be true, especially for children. Our young ones’ hearts are not just at home, but more specifically, children’s hearts and identities are wrapped up in their own particular part of home—their bedrooms.

For infancy and it’s many hours of sleeping, children grow comfortable with “their space.” And where the rest of the house may be decorated with things reflecting Mom and Dad’s personalities and styles, a child’s bedroom usually reflects interests of a child. From mobiles to Winnie-the-Pooh or a Sesame Street theme, the nursery, which later involves into a bedroom, contains all things child-like—little clothes on small hangers, toys, often pint-sized tables and chairs (like the ones from Rubbermaid Specialty Products), picture books, fingerpaintings, etc. Everything to make the room feel like the child’s kingdom.

But with a growing child and his changing interests, how does an economically-minded parent design a room that will last many years, or at least from infancy to adolescence. Interior designers and decorators across the country had written numerous books on the subject. And all of them would be happy to design the room for your child, but if you do not have a mountain of funds or if you are more of a do-it-yourselfer, there are many things you need to consider.

First, decide upon the furniture. When your baby has outgrown the bassinet and frequently escapes from the crib, it is time to purchase a bed. You may want to buy one that matches the dresser already in the room. But if there is no dresser and you are starting from scratch, here are some things to consider:

According to Davenport House, a Florida-based mail order and on-line company, “When buying major furniture pieces, try to choose items that will grow with the child. Paint, wallpaper, comforters and accessories are easier to change.” Opt for something more traditional that you’ll be proud to have in your house. Though Davey may prefer the racecar shaped bed, he will tire of it quickly, and unless you’re willing to trade him beds, you’ll be forced to purchase a new one.

When purchasing a bed for your child, you may want to consider buying bunk or trundle beds. As a child grows, having the space for a friend to sleep over becomes more important. (If this is not an option for you, during a sleepover children can sleep in sleeping bags in a tent–or one made of blankets).

In addition to a bed, your child will need a dresser (or something to hold her clothes and shoes), shelves or tubs for toys and books, and a desk (for play and eventually homework). Choose items that have rounded corners and edges. All of these items are available in wide array of prices from the lower end, stylish and functional IKEA to the moderate priced, space-saving wood designs of This End Up (found in major malls) to classic and higher end Ethan Allen. Consult your Yellow Pages for a complete listing of furniture and home accessory stores.

Always involve your child in each step or process. When your preschooler or toddler gets to pick out posters and the bedspread this involvement further reinforces their sense of ownership of the room. If your child is older than toddler age you may want to have her draw a picture of how she would arrange the furniture in the room. For encouragement, you may need to ask questions, such as “Where will you sleep? Where will Teddy sleep? Where will you keep your Barbie dolls? Where will you draw?” She may draw an arrangement you had not even considered.

If your child is a toddler or preschooler and still prone to occasionally falling out of bed, when determining the arrangement of the room, you should suggest putting the bed against two walls for safety. Also for safety, keep beds and climbable objects (i.e., dressers and bookshelf units) away from windows, and make sure drape or blind cords are short enough that the child will not be able to wrap the thing around his neck.

When choosing a color for the walls, your child should always have a voice. Even if you cannot stand the royal purple she has picked, repainting is one of the easiest and inexpensive decorating changes. Let your child have her fun until she grows out of the color.

Other easy decorating ideas include jumbo stick-ups. These vinyl-like appliques can be reapplied many times and come in an assortment of designs including Disney characters, Berenstain Bears, Batman and the Land Before Time. One brand of kits, Priss Prints, is available at most Sears and J.C. Penney stores.

Another decorating idea for the wall is the height chart. For years children have stood with their backs to wall while some adult drew a line above their heads. If you love the idea, but do not want the pencil marks on your fresh paint job, Priss Prints also offers a mylar strip that measures up to six feet and comes with frames to display photos of the child alongside his measurement.

In addition to the aforementioned ideas, you can get many more by touring furniture and decorating stores, or by browsing the following books:

· Children’s Rooms: A Mothercare Book by Jane Lott (Prentice Hall)

· Designing Rooms for Children by Mary Gilliatt (Little, Brown)

· In My Room: Designing for and with Children by Antonio F. Torrice and Ro Logrippo (Fawcett/Columbine)

· Kids’ Rooms: Decorating Nurseries to Teen Retreats edited by Linda Hallam (Meredith Corp.)

· Rooms to Grow, Creating Rooms and Furniture for Children by Jane Cornell (Prentice Hall)

After getting ideas and seeing what others have done, hopefully you and your children can create a special place for them to grow.

Writer, editor, public speaker, and professor of communication, creative writing, and literature Jill L. Ferguson often addresses family issues. Her novel, Sometimes Art Can’t Save You, was published by In Your Face Ink (http://www.inyourfaceink.com) in October 2005.

Whether you are working with existing furnishings and fabrics or “starting from scratch” with an empty room, you should always use the elements and principles of design as a guide in choosing everything. The elements are your tools or raw materials, much like paints are the basics to a painter. The elements of design include space, line, form, color, and texture. The principles of design relate to how you use these elements. The principles of design are balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion and scale, and harmony and unity.

Principle #1: Balance
Visual equilibrium in a room is called balance. It gives a sense of repose and a feeling of completion. A well-balanced room gives careful consideration to the placement of objects according to their visual weight. The elements of line, form, color and texture all help determine an object’s visual weight, which is the amount of space it appears to occupy. Balance also refers to how and where you place the elements (line, form, color and texture) within a room. To maintain balance, try to distribute the elements throughout the room.
• Formal balance, often referred to as symmetrical balance, creates a mirror image effect.
• Informal balance uses different objects of the same visual weight to create equilibrium in a room. It is more subtle and spontaneous and gives a warmer, more casual feeling.

Principle #2: Emphasis
Emphasis is the focal point of the room. The focal point should be obvious as you enter the room; it is the area to which your eye is attracted. Whatever is featured, as the center of interest –a fireplace, artwork or a window treatment framing a beautiful view – must be sufficiently emphasized so that everything else leads the eye toward the featured area. You can add emphasis to a natural focal point or create one in a room through effective use of line, form, color and texture.

Principle #3: Rhythm
Rhythm supplies the discipline that controls the eye as is moves around a room. Rhythm helps the eye to move easily from one object to another and creates a harmony that tells the eye everything in the room belongs to a unified whole. Rhythm is created through repetition of line, form, color or texture. It can also be created through progression. Progressive rhythm is a gradual increasing or decreasing in size, direction or color.

Principle #4: Proportion and Scale
Size relationships in a room are defined by proportion and scale. Proportion refers to how the elements within an object relate to the object as a whole. Scale relates to the size of an object when compared with the size of the space in which it is located.

Principle #5: Harmony and Unity
A well-designed room is a unified whole that encompasses all the other elements and principles of design. Unity assures a sense of order. There is a consistency of sizes and shapes, a harmony of color and pattern. The ultimate goal of decorating is to create a room with unity and harmony and a sense of rhythm. Repeating the elements, balancing them throughout the room, and then adding a little variety so that the room has its own sense of personality accomplishes this. Too much unity can be boring; too much variety can cause a restless feeling. Juggling the elements and principles to get just the right mix is a key to good design.

Kathy Iven, Columbus, OH
kathy@fabricfarms.com
Kathy Iven is the owner of Fabric Farms Interiors, located in Hilliard, OH. Fabric Farms Interiors specializes in home décor fabrics and trims. They also offer custom drapery, bedding and upholstery services. The company was founded in 1971 and is the largest home décor fabric store in Central Ohio.
To learn more, visit http://www.fabricfarms.com

Whether you are working with existing furnishings and fabrics or “starting from scratch” with an empty room, you should always use the elements and principles of design as a guide in choosing everything. The elements are your tools or raw materials, much like paints are the basics to a painter. The elements of design include space, line, form, color, and texture. The principles of design relate to how you use these elements and are balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion and scale, and harmony and unity.

Element #1: Space
Space defines the boundaries and sets the limits on the functional and decorative things you can do. Usually you will not determine the space; instead, you will be faced with the challenge of using the existing space effectively.

Element #2: Line
The lines in a room are second only to color in importance when it comes to setting the overall mood or feeling of a room. The lines of window fashions should support the dominant line of the room. In most situations, the dominant line is straight (vertical, horizontal or diagonal) rather than curved. Your choice of emphasizing the direction of lines will determine the mood you want to create.
• Vertical lines add height and dignity, creating a more formal atmosphere. Vertical lines also balance the horizontal lines found in most furniture.
• Horizontal lines tend to create a restful, informal feeling. They work well in casual rooms or as relief to the strong verticals of formal rooms.
• Diagonal lines attract attention and lead the eye. They can be disturbing unless supported by verticals or opposing diagonals.
• Curved lines add a softening effect and keep the room from becoming too stiff. Use curved lines with some restraint to keep the room from becoming too soft and overly feminine.

Element #3: Form
Lines that join together produce the form, or shape, of an object, which in turn impacts the overall feeling of a room. Straight lines create rectangles, square and triangles. Curved lines form circles and ovals. The rectangle is the most popular form and is often the dominant shape in a room. Triangles provide stability and curved shapes soften the contours of objects.

Element #4: Color
More than any other element, color can make a room beautiful. Color can set the mood. It can make a room warmer or cooler, larger or smaller. It can hide unsightly features or call attention to the center of interest. Even with the simplest furnishings, the proper use of color can transform a room.

Element #5: Texture
Texture is playing an increasingly important role in home decorating. Visual texture is a material’s apparent smoothness or roughness. To maintain and enhance a casual feeling, use fabrics that are more heavily textured, nubby or rough visual texture. Smooth, shiny surfaces such as silk, moiré, chintz and silk-like looks support a more formal feeling in a room. Using several levels of complementary textures adds variety and maintains interest. However, it is a good idea to avoid dramatic contrasts in texture.

About the Author
Kathy Iven, Columbus, OH
kathy@fabricfarms.com
Kathy Iven is the owner of Fabric Farms Interiors, located in Hilliard, OH. Fabric Farms Interiors specializes in home décor fabrics and trims. They also offer custom drapery, bedding and upholstery services. The company was founded in 1971 and is the largest home décor fabric store in Central Ohio. To learn more, visit http://www.fabricfarms.com
All rights reserved.

Much in the way jazz altered our concept of music, glass art has changed our expectations of residential lighting. In fact, glass art lighting is being hailed as one of the hottest new trends to hit luxury home design. According to 25-year Southern California interior designer Greg Griffith, G. Griffith & Co. of Destin, FL, “It’s emerging as a transitional point for a more energetic look. From Asian to 18th Century, every style and design can incorporate glass art lighting. The fact that these are actual sculptured pieces means you’re adding art to the room without cluttering the wall.”

Aside from aesthetics, the benefit to glass art lighting is that it’s so flexible, it ends up resolving many design conflicts. Take, for example, the story of the Wisdom Window. This stained glass piece was created by a California glass artist to create a welcoming light at the end of a dark, New York apartment hallway. The artist created four matching sconces, but wanted the end of the hallway to feel like a window. He innovated a design where a diffuser sheet will be installed underneath the stained glass piece, and lit from behind.

One New York glass artist developed a unique way to illuminate her bathroom. She created her own mosaic glass sink and lit it from underneath to create a warm, amber glow. It also doubles as her nightlight. To underscore the look of an underlit sink, matching sconces are ideal. Some kitchen designers are commissioning glass art sconces and pendants to match underlit glass kitchen countertops. This creates interesting, ambient lighting in a more finished-looking lighting package.

Glass art lighting can be a subtle accent, or a prism through which the light bathes a room in a swatch of exotic colors. “I find many decorators driving décor based on the lighting fixtures,” says Seattle-based glass artist, Suzanne Guttman. “It’s easy to fall in love with a tentacled pendant light or chandelier and make it the centerpiece of a room.”

The Cost of Beautiful

Investing in gorgeous glass art lighting is less daunting than one may assume. A Bellagio budget isn’t necessary to incorporate museum-quality glass lighting into a residential design. Sconces range from $400 to $1,200; small pendant lighting (suspended by one point in the ceiling) ranges from $300 to $600; larger pendants and chandeliers can range from $1,500 to $10,000. Serious collectors consider glass art an investment as well as being an aesthetic piece, just as they would an original painting, or a piece of antique furniture.

Glass Art Lighting 101

Once a homeowner decides on glass art lighting, it’s helpful to know a little about the glass and where it should be used, based on its physical characteristics. Here are some tips:

Blown glass has some limitations to the size and diameter that an artist can create. Some blown glass lighting utilizes many pieces in its design to create a larger, more sculptural effect.

Cast glass is very beautiful, but quite unusual in lighting because it is very heavy to suspend. One glass artist has created a woven glass technique that takes on the look of woven fabric, and results in a glass art lighting fixture that feels like a glass blanket.

Fused & slumped glass is popular for glass art lighting. Through the use of molds, fusing allows the artist to create large diameter canopied type lighting, thus enabling a single shade to be up to 48” in diameter. This creates consistency in shape and wonderful, unusual textures.

Etched glass is another wonderful medium for flat panel lighting. Pieces such as The Three Graces, by glass artist Margaret Oldman, can be lit with plain or multi-colored fiber optics, depending on the look a designer is trying to achieve.

Mosaic and stained glass are similar, in that they’re both ideal for flat panel lighting. Artists will often incorporate Italian smalti glass, blown sheets of transparent glass broken into small pieces, or dichroic glass, which is coated on one side with a metallic-like mirror finish.

Buyer Beware

One thing homeowners should remember, especially with lighting, is to be sure that the glass artist they’ve chosen understands how the electrical specs will dovetail with the piece, and that they know U.L. standards. As founder of Glass Artists Gallery, I estimate that close to 30% of our first-time customers come to us because they had negative experiences commissioning residential glass art lighting on their own. We are very careful about screening the artists we represent to make sure they understand the technical specifications

In short, glass art lighting choices become a very personal way to reveal a homeowner’s fingerprint on the interior design. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”

For more information or to see thousands of images of art glass lighting, visit Art Lighting Gallery

Jack Healy is part owner of Functional Art Gallery, LLC - Functional Art Gallery - a growing family of online resources for the designer, architect, builder and discerning homeowner. The company focuses on handcrafted functional & architectural works of art for both residential and commercial projects. The Functional Art Gallery family includes Glass Artists Gallery, Sinks Gallery and Art Lighting Gallery. Together these resources provide the largest collection of artisan and designer products available in North America.

Does your home make you feel happy, energized, and at the same time bring you peace? Or, do you feel unhappy, depressed, or distressed in your home, and you don’t know why?

Many people design and decorate their home following traditional interior design methods only to feel unsatisfied with the results. Perhaps you’ve repainted, reduced clutter, and updated your home, but you still feel something is missing. It’s time you learn the principles of Design Psychology so you can purposefully choose design elements that promote positive emotions and well-being.

Imagine revisiting the most memorable, joy-filled home you’ve had the pleasure of spending time in. What made this home special to you? The people who lived there? Were they happy, enthusiastic, and enjoying life? What features in the home and furnishings instilled joyful memories in you?

Envision your own joy-filled home. What feelings does this home conjure in your imagination? Do you seek joy and happy activities? Or, do you yearn for peace, tranquility, and rest?

We want our homes to provide and promote comfort, relaxation, inspiration, refreshment, laughter, and happy moments. You can intentionally design your home to foster joyful feelings when you apply the principles of Design Psychology. How? Choose design details, such as lighting, colors, patterns, textures, and furnishings specifically to support your emotional needs.

First, jot down the activities you desire to take place in your rooms. Second, make a list of the feelings you want to support in your specific spaces. With these wishes in mind, you’re ready to tackle your home makeover by deciding new design details that support your emotional requirements.

You can use fresh interior design ideas for your home makeover to make your home feel great and look fabulous.

© Jeanette Fisher (Publish with live links only.)

Jeanette Fisher teaches home makers ten ways to makeover their homes for happiness. Get the designer’s touch on a budget. Free Interior Design Psychology Information Ebook. Interior Design Psychology Information

In researching what makes people happy, I discovered that "Planning" makes us happy. Therefore, why should a homemaker turn over planning to an interior designer who creates homes to make money and impress others? Furthermore, most designers ignore the important outcome of creating a home, which is to support the emotional well-being of the residents.

Most of us enjoy looking for that perfect accessory, daydreaming about colors for our rooms, and planning a new look for our home. You know yourself best. Don’t give all the happy moments of planning and choosing decorating details to paid professionals. Reserve the enjoyment of designing your home for yourself.

Homes decorated to support desired emotions create happy spaces for joyful living. Design Psychology, a new method for residential exterior and interior design helps you choose home improvements and furnishings for your happiness and productivity.

Follow the first and only rule of decorating for happy living: "Design happy spaces." Choose design ideas for your pleasure as well as individual needs. Design spaces to give you and others comfort, reassurance, and merriment.

For instance, take the use of a room and ask yourself how you need to feel in this space? Did you answer calm and serene or awake and energized?

Beyond issues of style, elements of color, textures, patterns, and lighting influence the way we feel both physiologically and psychologically. This means that your body reacts to the design details in your home; and, your emotions react as well.

Home decoration is not a permanent state because our rooms evolve as our lives change. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes — enjoy the process and focus on your goal of providing pleasurable daily moments in your home.

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

What Is Design Psychology?

Design Psychology exceeds "traditional" interior design practice by considering the effects of design elements on our five senses, as well as our emotions. Rather than decorating to impress or to follow a certain style, you can choose specific lighting, color, patterns, and other design elements to support your happiness and well-being.

Design Psychology includes an understanding of both physiological and psychological effects of design elements. For instance, our pituitary gland releases tranquilizing hormones when we view sky blue. Knowledge of physiological effects of color can be applied to home decorating to make sure a room uplifts, calms, or energizes.

Our physiological reaction to aspects of design leads to our psychological response. We all know that a trickling waterfall not only looks pretty, but relaxes those nearby. But do you know that certain textures make you feel irritable, while others comfort? Or that undulating patterns uplift the spirit, while geometric patterns cause anxiety?

With an understanding of design psychology you can choose elements of vision, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste which bolster positive feelings and contribute to happy living.

How Do You Get Your Home Decorated and Furnished Right the First Time?

Using design details chosen to encourage joyful living is easy. First, learn about lighting — the most important factor in residential design. Next, use colors appropriate to the natural setting, lighting, and desired emotional response. Then think about reactions to patterns already in the space and add harmonious patterns based on nature; patterns proven to make people happy. Other design details in your home also come into play — sounds, accessories, furnishings and arrangements for comfort.

Once you understand the science of Design Psychology, you can follow your own inspiration and creatively employ design elements.

Just as master artists study the physical body and anatomy, your background knowledge in Design Psychology prepares you with underlying theory. The practice or application of design details in Design Psychology is the ART of Residential Design.

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

Ethnic traditions, customs, and attitudes carry forward our family values. Paying tribute to family heritage and tradition also gives our children a strong sense of family ties. Our roots make us what we are, and showing respect for ancestral traditions gives the interior of your home a special individuality.

Vernacular Heritage

Regional architecture, called the vernacular, designs structures to harmonize and blend with the environment. Designed to reflect the past, using historical influences, vernacular houses complement rather than dominate their settings. These homes recreate the traditional neighborhoods of the past with a strong sense of place.

Many vernacular structures provide friendly zones and foster a relaxed lifestyle. For instance, Santa Fe stucco and adobe block homes often have central courtyards. Friendly porches customarily found on Florida cracker houses invite neighborly chats. Key West’s wood-framed "conch houses" and North Carolina’s "low country" houses feature broad verandahs and large windows to take advantage of the area’s cooling breezes.

Vernacular homes provide sheltering transitional space from the outside to the inside, but homes without such transitional spaces can benefit greatly when structural or landscaping details are added to bring the private interior space of the home into harmony with the outside world. If your home lacks a covered entry, consider adding a wood or iron framework or an awning to create a feeling of protection and shelter.

Ethnic Influence on American Architecture and Furnishings

Since Americans have always constructed houses that mimicked their native homelands, it’s not surprising that Italian and Mediterranean villas, grand English country houses, and simple French farmhouses can be found across the United States. From the earliest days of our nation, Americans have taken design details from all over the world and copied, adapted, and redesigned their ethnic patterns and furnishings.

Patterns originating in Africa, such as animal prints and intricate geometrics, have been duplicated in many ways. Mexican antiques, Danish and Swedish furniture, and Oriental-influenced accessories have intermingled in our homes. From New England Cape Cods to Santa Fe adobes, our diverse heritage has influenced American architecture and interior design, while log cabins, rustic western interiors, and American folk art have suggested distinct American origins.

Style and Emotional Ambience

Style is the end decorating result of the combination of detail characteristics reminiscent of an era, an artistic movement, or a particular region, such as the Victorian era, Art Nouveau period, or Midwestern Prairie style. Mood or emotional ambiance is the personal interpretation of style to evoke feelings, whether they are cleanly slick, elegantly formal, cozily informal, or romantically eclectic.

Architectural Styles: Structure and Furnishings

Rooms all of one period or style are best left for museums or exhibitions. Eclectic rooms mix furnishings from different periods, such as a contemporary sofa, a silver maple Chippendale side table, and a gilded Louis XVI mirror. The beautiful and the bizarre, the exquisite and the commonplace, mixed with frivolity and delight, create joyful homes.

Architectural style may refer to a structure or to a type of furnishing. Mixing period styles with today’s lifestyles is called New Traditionalism. Combinations of styles with a light– hearted flair create elegant, unpretentious rooms. A few grand pieces, interspersed with simple furnishings, will bring informality to an otherwise stodgy home.

Architectural style also influences interior design. Understand the architectural style of your home and use it as a reference point for your decorating. In my own case, our modern furniture looked totally out of place in our 1878 home, so we traded our glass dining table for a traditional wood one, and replaced a modular sofa with a squishy antique one.

Some Victorian homes look magnificent when furnished with contemporary furniture, but this is harder to accomplish than the reverse, which is a contemporary house, furnished with antiques. Grand old houses decorated with modern furnishings look better with plain, simple wall finishes and un-frilled window coverings.

Juxtaposing styles from your heritage with other styles that suit your fancy makes for interesting rooms and homes. Not all rooms in your home need to incorporate the same style, but some blending from room to room ensures harmony. Mixing heritage styles according to those who share your home also creates a harmonizing aura.

Your Personal Style

If you have a strong affinity for a particular architectural style, incorporate it into your total design plan. Encourage respect for your family traditions by surrounding yourself with ethnic furnishings and family heirlooms. Any style can be adapted to your way of living, whether it’s serenely sleek, traditionally formal, or casually informal, by either dressing up or paring down your decorating embellishments.

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

Many years ago I was told that the least expensive way to redecorate is to rearrange what you have. It was one of the best decorating suggestions I’ve ever had-not to mention the one that can be the most fun to implement. How can you beat it? A new room-practically free! You get such a feeling of satisfaction when you accomplish something spectacular using your imagination and what you already have.

Of course, like many suggestions there is a good way to do this and one that isn’t quite so satisfactory. So here’s a step by step.

1. Choose the room you want to give a new look.

2. Decide on the type of change you would like. Do you want it brighter, lighter, more sophisticated, or more casual? Do you want to give it a contemporary flavor or make it a bit exotic?

3. Take a good look at what is in the room and decide what doesn’t fit the new look/theme that you chose. What is worn out, out of place or out of proportion?

4. Assess the room: Stand in each doorway and in each corner of the room and give it a good hard look. Would the furniture look better on an angle? What is the traffic pattern? You don’t want furniture sitting in the way of how you need to move about the room. Most of us can’t afford to have a room that just sits and looks pretty. A well designed room works for you.

5. Make a list of the items you want tokeep and measure them.

6. Take a buying trip through your house and see what you can use from other rooms. One very important suggestion: double check measurements and colors of the pieces you have “bought” from other rooms. If you want to expand a little, there are frequently friends or relatives who have pieces in their homes they would like to get rid of, so if you don’t have quite what you like, check the family cast offs. Note: You might find you need to freshen your walls with a coat of paint or cover a chair or sofa with a slipcover or purchase new lampshades, but expense should be kept at a minimum, or you defeat your purpose.

7. Once you have your look and know what pieces are available to you, put it all on paper. You need to have a plan, because you could lose your ‘willing’ helpers if they have to move a sofa 6 or 7 times to get the right look because you didn’t do your homework. Pay special attention to electrical and cable outlets, heat and air vents and doors and windows. Lighting is important and unless you’re trying the hard way to keep the kids out, you want to be able to get in and out of the room easily and move around comfortably in it.

8. Clear your room. Take the unnecessary pieces and accessories away and put the pieces you want to keep together in another room.

9. It’s time to paint the walls and clean the windows and woodwork if needed. Shampoo carpets, wash floors and make sure your background is sparkling and clean.

10. If there are any small items you are going to need to purchase to complete the look, go do it while everything is drying. DO NOT go shopping without a list. You have your plan and you know what accessories you need to complete your look. The easiest way to get off budget and end up with clutter is to go without a list.

11. When the paint and floors are dry, place rugs on the floor (before you move in the furniture). It is also easier to do window treatments now while the room is empty. They can be adjusted later.

12. Gather your helpers. Move in the larger pieces of furniture. Add your smaller pieces such as tables and ottomans and then bring in the accessories.

13. Lamps are very important, so make sure they are located where they will work the best. Don’t under light your room.

14. Hang your pictures and adjust window treatments.

A note: less is more. An uncluttered room will give a more of an impression of newness then one with too much of everything.

15. Enjoy your new room. In fact throw a party and let everyone admire what you’ve accomplished. You’ll be able to afford it with the money you’ve saved.

Happy decorating!

This content for this article was provided by design consultant to ON THE GO 4 U, Suzanne Copenhaver. Suzanne has years of experience dealing with less than perfect home interiors and infrastructures. She provides in-home consultations on color, space, and design and teaches workshops on decorating for ON THE GO 4 U.

Indra A Books, author of many other lifestyle articles is also the owner and founder of ON THE GO 4 U, Personal Shoppers & Concierge Service in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The company’s creed is to provide its clients with the ultimate life management experience. In addition to its shopping and concierge services, ON THE GO 4 U also publishes a monthly e-zine and conducts workshops on wardrobe, entertaining and decorating. For more information about the author and ON THE Go 4 U, please visit http://www.onthego4u.net

© 2004 Indra A Books, ON THE GO 4 U.

Because psychologists relate true happiness to joyous occurrences happening frequently, decorating your home to promote everyday pleasure makes sense. If you’re planning a home makeover, provide for the cumulative total of all the little pleasure moments.

When people rate their happiness, it is the ratio of pleasant to unpleasant emotions and experiences that count. These happy experiences may be simple pleasurable, everyday happenings, not always grand events.

Design Psychology, a new method for residential interior and exterior design starts with planning spaces to support emotional well-being. Homes decorated to support desired emotions create happy spaces for joyful living.

Design Psychology Ideas for Pleasure

1. A tea table in the Main Bedroom provides an intimate space for conversation or individual reflection.

2. A reading nook provides a quiet space for escape.

3. A game table provides a place for playing together.

4. A meandering pathway in the garden provides an enticement to stroll.

5. A garden bed provides the perfect place for relaxing and leisurely afternoon naps.

I mean a real bed, not a flower bed, although you need flowers too!

Let your imagination flow freely, enjoy the process, and focus on your goal of providing pleasurable daily moments at your home.

Joy to you!

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Jeanette Fisher, Design Psychology Professor, is the author of Joy to the Home eNewsletter. Discover innovative Interior Design Psychology and makeover your home to support happiness, productivity, and well-being. For Design Psychology information, see http://www.designpsych.com/ For more information about “Joy to the Home,” see http://www.joytothehome.com/