Solid Advice

As a young designer in my early 20s I worked for a custom design house. We offered custom draperies, bedding, slipcovers, upholstery, pillows etc. If you wanted custom we were the place to go. During this time, the early 1990’s I noticed a trend; people were buying homes they couldn’t afford to decorate. I would arrive at a home with 8 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a large formal living room, dining room, great room and basement. My client would only want me to measure for blinds to cover the windows because they couldn’t afford to decorate the large luxurious home they had purchased. What? This made me crazy! Many rooms were bare. Basically they were living in lawn furniture. They had bought the home for the address to impress their friends but never really enjoyed the home because they couldn’t properly furnish it. It was the old “Keeping up with the Jones,” syndrome. 

Today and always my recommendation as a designer is to buy a home in your price bracket, that you can fully furnish, and decorate so you can enjoy living in it and put your own personal touch on it. Sounds simple, right? That may mean starting out painting and updating the light fixtures. Then you can design the kitchen and bathrooms, and add custom draperies or window treatments and new furnishings. It can be done in phases as your budget allows. This is how many interior design projects are done anyways.