Wondering how to divvy up your total interior design budget? What percentage to spend on furniture? What % to pay on window treatments? Here's a quick summary. Let's say you have $30,000 budgeted for your living room décor. Here's a wise way to break it down.
I usually tell my clients to add an extra 10% contingency fund, just in case something comes up that we don't anticipate. Don't forget taxes & design fees are on top of this. Our fee for full service, virtual interior design is $875 per room. Rendering by Vasyl Mihay I provide my clients with low, medium and high budget ranges, so they know in general what you need to budget for each room. Contact me if you'd like a copy of this! I hope this gives you a little guidance to know where your money will go, on average, for a residential living room! Contact me if you need help!
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Are you wondering What is the difference between an Interior Designer & Decorator? It can get complicated, but here's a brief summary... Interior design is the art & science of understanding people's behavior to create functional spaces within a building. They are often used for renovating kitchens and bathrooms. They know code and take all the details into consideration. They do not create architectural drawings for permits (they can hire out for that), but they do draw floorplans and furniture plans for discussion purposes, which is very helpful for clients & contractors. Interior decorating is the furnishing or adorning of a space with decorative elements to achieve a certain aesthetic. In short, interior designers may decorate, but decorators do not design. We'd be happy to design or decorate your home! Update: For More information check out my video interview below from Oct, 2021. I speak more about it around the 19 minute mark after discussing trends for 2022. What does your dream home look like? Contemporary, Traditional, Craftsman, Mid Century Modern? Townhome, House, Apartment? Whichever style or type of home you choose, there are important steps to follow in designing your dream home. In this 5 part feature, we will be looking at 15 helpful steps, guiding us to complete the home of our dreams. Today we'll cover steps one to three. 1. Selecting your perfect structure. We all know to keep a folder of tear sheets of desired looks, from magazines, or creating a board on Pinterest, (check our our Pinterest boards here!) . Don't worry about cost just yet; I want you to keep your mind open at this point. Tear out anything at all that catches your eye or makes your heart flutter! After accumulating several photos, look for a similarity. In general do you like ranchers or multi-level homes? Stone, brick, wood, stucco? Lots of windows, or cozy and quiet? Come up with a theme - 'your look'. Speak with your builder and architect about which type of home can be placed on your lot. Often something we like, can be incorporated into what we can afford. The style of your exterior architecture should influence your interior design. i.e. Victorian homes generally look best with traditional interiors; lodges look wonderful with structured, but casual furnishings. Remember to bring that exterior feeling inside. For example, exterior rock siding also works for the interior fireplace surround. #2. Floor plans and elevations: On to the inside. Have a copy of your floor plan available, this is a must! If you are not building a new home, you can hire a design firm to draft out your existing floor plans. We need plans to either build from scratch, add on, or renovate. Elevation plans are also important - they allow you to visualize the finished look of a vertical wall. An elevation is a view of an interior or exterior wall. You are standing back, looking directly at the wall. This is a flat, two-dimensional view. Only the height and width are obvious. This view of the wall shows items that cannot be clearly shown in plan. This could be kitchen cabinets, fireplaces, wall moldings, doors, window sizes, light switches, electrical outlets, or a finish pattern that is applied on the wall. ![]() 3. Function: List the needs you have for your house. How do you really live? Be honest! Do you need a: play room, large kitchen, four bedrooms, den, or a large family room? Write a list of what you do each day - down to the nitty gritty- including things like how much laundry you do, which door you generally use to enter a home - garage, side or front door. Things like these really let you customize your home to your unique needs. For example; when I come home I rarely enter via the front door. I park in the garage and usually bring items from the car into the home. I immediately enter the laundry room, so, I need a place right near the door to set down my bags of groceries, design sample boards, etc. A pet peeve of mine is when you enter the home from the garage, come inside, then open the closet door to put away your coat - while someone in your home is trying to greet you - but they are blocked by an open closet door. To avoid this, ensure the door swings are drawn in on the plans to all you to have smooth sailings whichever door or hallway you use!
Knowing how to customize your floor plan really helps you plan a home to really suit your needs. Stay tuned for the remaining steps! If you need help designing a dream home, or just the perfect room, contact us here, we work virtually with our remote interior design services, and are here to help. Would you like a few quick tips on how to calculate the correct size chandelier or pendant light for over your dining room table? Here we go! In general:
Add the width and length of your dining room ie. 10' + 14' = 24. We need a light approximately 24" wide! Or here are a few general dining room table sizes, and the width of lights that would complement the table nicely. Oval table 42" long - light should be 18-20" wide. Oval table 48" long - light should be 24" wide. Square tables? Just take the table size and subtract 12" off each side. ie. 42" sq. table. -12" and -12" = 18" wide light. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Of course there are variables, but this will get you in the right ballpark! Who has heard of the rule of thirds? This important rule says that most designs can be made more interesting by visually dividing a wall or a photo into thirds vertically and/or horizontally; and placing our most important elements within those thirds. If you have a fireplace on a 12' wide wall, and perhaps the fireplace is 4' wide, well, you'd place the fireplace in the centre, leaving a 4' patch of wall on each side. Thereby dividing that wall in thirds. Another important design concept is Visual Center and Balance. Placing important elements or the focal point of the design within the visual center of a piece is another design trick. We all know the actual centre of a photo is right in the middle of the shot. But, did you know the visual center is slightly to the right of and above the actual center of the photo? This is the area that our eyes are drawn to immediately. This "rule" originally was developed by photographers to ensure every shot looks great. Don't we as designers, or homeowners want that as well? Basically when you are composing a photograph, or a wall, imagine two vertical lines and two horizontal lines dissecting your image into nine squares as shown below. Placing your most important elements at one or more of the four intersections of those lines, helps create interesting photos or design. Most balanced designs (and even unbalanced ones) rely on a grid. This invisible structure helps ensure that all the elements are placed in the right location, thereby achieving balance as well as helping with continuity and consistency of design. These are design principles that help the professional designer achieve visual balance.
If you'd like more info, please visit this great site at Photographytalk.com If you'd love to have a visually balanced room, one that is truly pleasing to the eye, please email me at info@jilsoniainteriors.com How many CFM do I need for my bathroom fan? Wondering how to calculate which size of fan you need for your bathroom? For a bathroom with a tub or shower, here's the magic ratio!
Calculate the volume of your bathroom: Height of the room x length of room x width of the room = total volume. ie. 8' high x 10' long x 6' wide room = 480 cubic feet. Now divide the cubic feet by 7.5 480 divided by 7.5 = 64 cfm fan size. Or select the closest available fan size, when in between sizes, always select the higher CFM fan. Meaning, if there is a 50 CFM fan and a 75 CFM fan, select the 75 CFM fan. There you go! I've been an interior designer for over 16 years now and I've realize good lighting placement is key for any space, especially so for recessed lighting - (we call them pot lights in Canada - no - not those sort of lights!). I've written this handy post to show you how it's done! (We'll talk about bathroom lighting in another post!). Note: Lumens measure the total light sent out by the light bulb. Watts measure the amount of power used by the bulb. So watts do not tell you how bright the bulb is - but Lumens do. However, since we are all use to discussing wattage, often people use 'wattage' as their term denoting the brightness of a bulb, rather than 'lumens'. For this article we'll use the term "wattage" as most people are more familiar with that term. Recessed can lighting design layout: Part A: How many pot / recessed / can lights do I need?
Formula: total sq. footage x 1.5 = total wattage needed. Total wattage divided by 60 watts (or whichever wattage you select) = total amount of recessed can lights. Example: 240 square foot room x 1.5 = 360 divided by 60 (the bulb wattage I'd like to use) = 6 recessed lights needed. Part B: Draw up a ceiling diagram (reflected ceiling plan) showing the amount of can lights you need (Part A formula). The cans / pots / recessed lights should be evenly distributed around the room, usually they are in rows with an equal number of cans in each row. Here's a great example of a kitchen lighting layout, the yellow dots show the recessed lights, the red dots show the pendant lights: Now we will calculate the spacing between each recessed light. Part C: Light spacing in a row:
Part D: Task Lighting Layout: Task lighting is extra lighting used to highlight spaces where you need either extra light, or specialized lighting throughout the home. You may want to add under cabinet lighting, or pendant lights over the island in the kitchen, to bring the lighting closer to the work area. How to calculate the distance and spacing for task lighting: Step 1: Determine the distance from the ceiling down to the surface you wish to light, i.e.. the floor or a countertop. Step 2: Divide this distance by 4 to obtain the distance from the wall to the first light unit. I.e.. 8' ceiling lights should be placed two feet away from the wall. Part E: Wall washers recessed lighting layout: (lighting that shines down onto a wall in order to highlight art or a wall feature) Step 1: The rule for installing wall wash recessed fixtures is approx. 1.5' to 3' away from the wall. Step 2: Fixed lights can be placed closer to the wall. Step 3: Place adjustable lights farther away from the wall. The optimal aiming angle to minimize glare is 30-degrees from the ceiling, that way we avoid glare. Step 4: Space wall wash fixtures the same distance from each other. Step 5: A good rule of thumb is that your accent lighting should be 3 times brighter than the ambient light in the room. This is useful for living rooms, hallways and dens/offices. Part F: Beam Spread There are generally 2 types of recessed lights - Spot lights and Flood lights. Spot lights have a narrow beam of light casting light to a focused area, usually these are used to highlighting art or important design elements in the room. They cast beams 45 degrees or less. Flood lights case a wider beam on the floor area and are used for lighting larger, more general areas. They cast beams up to 120 degrees. Lighting Beam calculation: Angle of beam x 0.18 x ceiling height = Beam spread in inches. Example: 60 degrees x 0.18 x 10' ceiling height = 108" divided by 12 = 9' wide beam spread. To create overlapping beams of light for ambience, make sure that your beam spread diameter is equal to or greater than the distance between light sources fixtures. Recessed lighting design & installation: Now that the recessed lighting placement locations are determined, we need to find out if they can be installed in these locations. Use a stud finder to determine where the ceiling joist are located. You might have to adjust placement locations to avoid hitting a ceiling joist. It's always best to pre plan the lighting design before your renovation or new build in your home. Please remember to contact your electrician before making any electrical decisions. Hi everyone, here's my first design blog (dipping her big toe in cautiously). I thought I would start with something that a lot of us have trouble with in interior design - scale and proportion. Some interior designers use the terms proportion and scale synonymously. To be professional, we will need to make a fine distinction: Proportion is the relationship of one part of an object, to its other parts. In other words, proportion is the relationship of one part of a single piece of furniture to other parts of the same piece of furniture. For example, the cocktail table top below, that is in proportion to its legs. Scale refers to the size of one piece of furniture in relation to the size of the other furniture in the room, or in relation to the size of the room itself. For example, a giant lamp next to a chair, would be out of scale. An object is in scale when its size is harmonious with the size of the objects and space around it. OK, so now what? Let’s assume that you found a sofa for a living room with suitable and pleasing proportions. Now you've got to visualise what will happen when you add different sized pieces to create a furniture grouping around this sofa. Take the scale test. When you visualise end tables on either side of the sofa, you don't have to measure to see whether or not the scale works, you just feel instinctively that the scale is right. You will look at an object and instinctively measure it, not by its actual size, but by its visual weight. An object’s visual weight will be influenced by its shape, colour, and pattern, as follows: The larger its shape, the heavier its visual weight. (OK that’s easy, what else?) The more intense its colour, the heavier at its visual weight. The bolder the pattern, the heavier at its visual weight. These things we intrinsically realize, but sometimes we need to stop, look at our rooms, and see if we have design balance. When you select furniture, you want to consider only pieces that are suitable in scale with one another. This is just another aspect of achieving harmony. A room cannot be harmonious if one or more pieces of furniture are out of scale. How do you go about selecting pieces that are in scale to one another? Always try to start with the most important piece of furniture first. i.e. a large dining room needs a large dining room table. This piece must be in scale to the size of the room. If it's not, forget it. The room arrangement just cannot work. We need to select a different piece.
Scale in large rooms. Big rooms can handle big furniture. In fact big rooms require big furniture. In addition, a large room can handle furniture that features intense colour and bold patterns. What's more, a big room calls for large architectural features too. Such a room seems more in scale if it features big windows, big doors and a big fireplace. In other words, the architectural elements of the room should be in scale to the size of the room. Small rooms: Well this is where we break the rules. In the 'old days', we used small furniture in small rooms. But not anymore. We're finding that we can indeed use large furniture in small rooms - however the proportion of the furniture must be in proportion to the other furniture in the room. No large sofas and tiny coffee tables here! In reality, these are not a sequence of steps, but rather common sense using the rules of scale and proportion. Good luck and happy designing! Jil, Jil Sonia Interiors |
Author:Jil Sonia McDonald - Interior Designer of Jil Sonia Interior Designs. Archives
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