Doug's Rooms Transforming Your Space One Room at a Time

Part I:how to decorate Decorating intimidates a lot of people. I see the evidence all the time when I'm taping Trading Spaces or giving lectures on design. Everywhere I go, I meet homeowners who are stressed out by the whole interior design process. They're short on time, money, and creativity. They're frustrated that their interiors resemble generic rent-to-own showrooms, with matching suites of generic furniture, but they're confused about how to improve them because they aren't exactly sure what the problem is. So they resort to decorating by default. Maybe you're even guilty of this, too. Tell me if this sounds familiar: For the master bedroom, you buy a headboard, two coordinating nightstands, and a matching dresser. You hang a mass-produced print above the headboard, paint the walls white, and voila-a finished bedroom. Or you plunk a coffee table in front of the sofa, add two flanking armchairs, hang some framed posters on the walls, shove a fake ficus in the corner and, presto, instant living room. This is the kind of "decorating" that keeps me up at night-and, fortunately for me, keeps Trading Spaces on the air. Doug's Rooms is all about removing the intimidation factor from decorating. Because welcoming interiors that you're happy to come home to every day and that reflect your personality aren't just for a lucky few who are chosen to appear on interior design television shows, or who can afford high-end decorators. Trust me: there are basic principles for achieving high-impact design, and they can be learned easily and put into practice-fast-by anyone. I've distilled them into five user-friendly rules that will have a transformative effect on your home and give you the tools to become your own designer. Turn the page to start reading about proportion, furniture placement, color, lighting, and clutter control, then flip to page 000 to see how I put them into practice in a variety of spaces. Proportion and scale: size matters Whenever I attempt to discuss proportion and scale with most homeowners, their eyes glaze over as if I'm a Fermilab scientist deconstructing the intricacies of atom splitting. I keep the definitions as straightforward as possible-proportion is the relationship of one object to another; scale is the relative size of an object-but the response is always vacant stares and mouth breathing. Then I hit on a foolproof way to explain these crucial decorating principles: I trot out the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. Sure, it seems like a simple fairy tale for the rugrats, but it's actually a detailed, textbook case of scale and proportion that everyone can understand. There's Goldy, puzzling through and trying out furnishings and accessories that are too big or too small, until she eventually hits on the ones that are just right. It's so instructive, it should be required reading for interior design students and anyone decorating a home-especially if the home in question is in a locale where hypercritical, porridge-guzzling blond chippies are roaming around. Creating a room that feels "just right" for them trips up many homeowners. While recognizing obvious gaffes is easy-a grand piano jutting out of a tiny sunporch, say-more subtle problems are tough to pinpoint, because there aren 't as many ironclad rules for scale and proportion as there are for other areas of decorating. Before I redo any room, for example, I trot out a list of universal design truths that are unchanging. That includes citrus yellow walls read as energetic, area rugs can carve out separate conversation areas in a large space, and fake flower arrangements are a must-have (if I'm redoing a methadone clinic waiting room, that is). Proportion and scale isn't as regimented, or as prone to foregone conclusions. Since it's all about objects in relation to one another, it's more intuitive than formulaic, more go-from-Wilson, Douglas L. is the author of 'Doug's Rooms Transforming Your Space One Room at a Time', published 2004 under ISBN 9781400050154 and ISBN 1400050154.