Residential Interior Design: Creating your forever home

Designing your ‘forever home’ is a unique experience because it’s so profoundly personal. There’s no need to keep things bland or worry about what a potential buyer might think – it’s all about what works for you. As residential interior designers, we are often called in to help clients express their tastes and lifestyles and create the homes where they can imagine raising families and growing old, so we’ve put together some tips to help you on this journey…

Consider your current and future needs

Life never stops moving, so your forever home needs to work for you now and for years to come. The best residential interior designers will do their best to ‘future proof’ your home by making spaces flexible – one example is including extra plug sockets in rooms to accommodate rearranging the furniture at a later date. 

We often suggest to clients who have lots of different ideas about the uses of space or may have changing future needs to start with a feasibility study. This will allow you to assess the practical realities of various potential layouts or approaches, and is usually much more cost-effective than throwing yourself into a refurbishment and then identifying the problems a few years down the line...

Consider your budget

When deciding where to invest and where to save in a residential interior design project, we imagine turning the house upside down and shaking it – the bits that don’t fall out are your investment items! Things like built-in kitchens, bespoke joinery and lighting are worth spending more on in the first instance, while ‘loose’ items can be replaced over time. 

Larger pieces of furniture like beds, dining tables and sofas can last a lifetime if they’re carefully maintained, so you should allot a decent chunk of the budget to them. Our philosophy is ‘buy once, buy well. 

Finally, it’s better to live with what you already own, and slowly purchase better quality items, than to purchase a lot of new items at once on a limited budget.

Consider what you like

It’s easy to be influenced by the latest residential interior design trends on Instagram and Pinterest, but always try to root your interiors in what you already own and love. The best residential interior designers won’t build a whole design concept on a fad for a particular material or colour, but will instead aim to create a timeless foundation to which you can add trendy touches. 

Our designs always respond to someone’s personality and possessions, rather than the other way around. This is not only more cost-effective and sustainable, it also ensures that we’re creating homes that clients will love for years to come and that fit their lifestyle perfectly. 

Consider if you need help 

If it all feels a little overwhelming, residential interior designers are there to help. Professional designers can handle the sheer quantity of decisions that a refurbishment involves and help you avoid all those common mistakes that can end up being so costly and wasteful. 

Designers can also help source the best quality items for each project with a careful eye on the budget, and we usually have strong networks of craftsmen, makers and installers at our fingertips. This means you can maximise the potential of whatever you have to spend and get your home right, once and for all.