Design Plan is Crucial
by Reita Bayman

According to English Designer David Hicks, "In great design, how it's arranged is more important than what is being arranged."

Which is just another way of saying that your plan is the most important part of designing your room, not the stuff you're going to put into it.

Like everything in life, if you don't have a plan, you don't have a clue. Without a plan, you couldn't take a decent vacation. You wouldn't know how much money to exchange into travelers checks, you wouldn't know how long you'd be away, you wouldn't know where you were going, or even if you'd arrived!

We don't take successful vacations without a plan, why do we think we can design our entire home and live in it successfully for the rest of our lives if we don't have a plan?

Your design plan should take into account the architectural features of your rooms, the natural flow through them, and the purpose of each one.

Then you need to inventory your entire house (including the attic and basement) to see what you have, not merely what you are currently using. After these steps have been completed, you can consider where things should go and if there's any reason to buy something new.

When buying new items, look for the kind of thing your plan calls for, in the right size, color, and texture. And then find one you like!

A good design plan keeps you focused so you aren't as tempted to buy something simply because you like it. And as we know, that's the main cause of design failure - buying things simply because we like them.