Many home owners aspire to redecorate their homes. No matter what time of the year you choose to embark on this task, you can give your living space a whole new life.

As we spend so much time at home, catching up with family, hosting guests or just relaxing at the weekend, a home renovation project is often a good investment of time and money. But where should you start?

An effective plan is the first and arguably the most important stage of your next interior decoration project. You might want to change your whole house and all your rooms, but unless you have the budget, you need to be very selective with what you focus on.

Which rooms need attention?

Firstly, review the state of your house and decide which rooms actually need attention during your interior decoration project. Sometimes, simply altering the look and feel of one room can have a big impact on other parts of your house, meaning you don’t have to completely overhaul each and every room to achieve the desired effect.

We recommend going around each room one by one and evaluating whether you really need to change it. You should also think about writing an estimated list of costs associated with each room renovation, which will help you decide what you can fit into your budget.

Often, the living room and kitchen are the focus of interior design projects, and rightly so. We tend to spend much more time in these rooms which are versatile spaces for entertaining and relaxing. This could be a better choice of focus than your upstairs guest room that only gets used twice a year, for example.

Living rooms

This is often the first room on people’s lists of rooms that need redecorating. Whether you love traditional or modern, dynamic or understated, relaxed or conservative, your living space should be a space you feel comfortable in, allowing you to spend quality time with your family and friends.

Kitchens

When you're planning a kitchen decoration, it's essential to make sure the position of appliances and work surfaces is suitable to your needs. A kitchen needs to have a certain ‘flow’ to allow you to move around it smoothly, find what you need and entertain your hungry guests, all at the same time. To get this right, have a think about how and where you use the different items in your kitchen.

Bedrooms

A bedroom should be a personal sanctuary that expresses someone’s unique personality and character. If you don’t feel comfortable in your own bedroom then you could risk feeling out of step with life. Also, make sure there is always enough space to move around and the room is not cluttered. Ultimately, your bedroom should only have the essentials in it, such as your bed, dresser, a chair, precious personal items and bedside table.

Office spaces

Home offices are a key part of many people’s homes. Working from home has increased massively for many employees and it’s also a perfect space for stay at home parents, retirees or even children doing homework to find somewhere conducive to getting work done. If the home office is used solely by one individual, it can be a very private space filled with photos, books and personal files, however, the best home offices are usually versatile spaces that offer practicality for all members of the family when it comes to performing general admin tasks.

Focus on features

Instead of focusing on individual rooms, you may wish to focus on larger features that cross between different spaces in your home. For example, adding wooden flooring to your entire ground floor would have a huge impact on the aesthetic feel of your home.

Ask any interior decorator in Cardif, London or Edinburgh and they’ll tell you that this is a good way of adding value to your whole house, rather than selectively improving small parts of it bit by bit. Other large features you could focus on include windows (curtains, blinds, new fittings etc.), wallpaper and wall paint, and cabinets.