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While I love to make my home more beautiful, the hardest part is not necessarily doing the decorating project. For me, it is developing the idea in my head. A well-formed concept allows me to begin the planning phase of a project. Usually my projects start out as a slight annoyance like “that wall sure seems bare”. While it may not really be that the wall is bare, it is this voice inside telling me something needs to be changed.

Because I do this as a hobby (and usually only to my own home), I can usually think a week or two (or sometimes longer) about how to fix it. During this period of time, I typically look at the project at different times of day to see how light will be hitting it. This is one of the most overlooked steps as a room can change appearance significantly throughout the day. Items, furniture and fixtures in the room can change as well. The second step is to talk to my friends about their ideas and how they may “fix” the problem. Sometimes I find out that what I thought was the problem was not really the source of the issue. In the example of the “bare wall”, I ended up changing the color of that one wall to compliment the rest of the room while highlighting the decorations. The wall really was boring, not bare. This advice came from a friend who had seen a picture in a magazine with this treatment. Just that little question, “have you thought about painting the wall?” changed my whole view and ultimately became the solution. A different perspective is often helpful and can quickly put you on track. You may be so close to the issue, you are unable to see the real problem that is obvious to another person.

I typically find developing the concept is one of the most challenging parts of the project. Once I know what I want my end result to be, the planning and execution fall in place easily for me. If you have any tips, please post in the comments to share how you develop your initial decorating concepts.