Apps To Redecorate Your Home With Your Phone
Whether youre looking to give your living room a quick refresh or want to completely revamp your home, these five apps can help you get started. Create a stunning look without blowing your budget no professional interior designer needed.
Guest post by Lori Cunningham
With dozens of decorating apps to choose from and inspiration just a finger touch away, redecorating your home has never been easier. Augmented Reality now lets you use your phone to see how colors, accessories, and furniture will look in your own house. On the horizon, you can expect to see apps using Artificial Intelligence to learn your style through your interaction with them.
Whether youre looking to give your living room a quick refresh or want to completely revamp your home, these five apps can help you get started. Create a stunning look without blowing your budget no professional interior designer needed.
Houzz: Start with online inspiration
Houzz covers architecture, interior design, decorating, landscape design, and home improvement. It has over 17 million high-resolution photos, all of which can be filtered by room, style, budget, size, color, or a combination.
Many of the pictures have purchasing information on the featured items, allowing you to purchase them within the Houzz app. You can also save pictures to an Ideabook to help keep your style ideas all in one place.
The Houzz app is free on iOS and Android.
MagicPlan: Create a floor plan from your phone
Take Advantage Of The Experts
Many stores offer free design service to their customers. Most employ design professionals to help you make the right choice, the first time around. Their advice can save you a lot of time and money. Here are some stores that offer free or low-cost design consultations:
- Budget Blinds free window treatment consultations
- Macys free window treatment in-home consultations
Pro decorating tip: This list is not exhaustive. Do your research and inquire if a store you like shopping at offers consultations or design service.
Spice It Up With Accent Colors
You’ll also want to decide on 1 -3 accent colors to use throughout your home. You may want to keep everything neutral and use various shades of white, cream, gray and accent more through the use of texture or wood tones.
On the other hand, maybe you love gorgeous pops of color and your accent colors may be blues, grays and greens.
Whatever you decide, don’t pick more than 3 and try to use them throughout each room in your home to create that cohesive feel. They don’t all need to be the same shade – vary the intensity and saturation to stop them from feeling boring and expected.
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Home Decor Idea #: Create A Vignette
Otherwise dead space can be dressed up to make the whole room look more styled. Areas like coffee tables, consoles, empty corners of a kitchen counter are all prime real estate for a well-dressed vignette, says Cummings. Its important to clean your home before company comes over. However, if youre hiring professionals, make sure you know these 9 things professional house cleaners arent allowed to clean.
Layer Each Room Over Time

Decorating your new home is a marathon, not a sprint. As you spend more time in your new home, youll get to know it better. You may have new ideas on how you want a room to look and function a few months down the road, so no rush to get it all done at once! Be sure to check out second-hand decoration and furniture options to save even more. Here are the elements youll want to address over time:
- Splashes of accent color
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Question: How To Decorate My House
11 DIY Home Decorating Tips Set The Tone at The Front Door. Alamy. Paint Wall Colors Light and Neutral. Bruce Buck. Living Area: Make Sure Your Sofa Talks to Your Chairs. Let The Sun Shine In Your Kitchen. Hang at Least One Mirror in Every Room. Scale Artwork to Your Wall. Layer Your Lighting. Anchor Rugs Under Furniture Feet.
Living Area: Make Sure Your Sofa Talks To Your Chairs
Think of a nice hotel lobby: The furniture is arranged in groupings that invite conversation. When you place the furniture in your living room, aim for a similar sense of balance and intimacy.
A conversation area that has a U-shape, with a sofa and two chairs facing each other at each end of the coffee table, or an H-shape, with a sofa directly across from two chairs and a coffee table in the middle, is ideal, says Michelle Lynne, a Dallas-based stager.
One common mistake to avoid: Pushing all the furniture against the walls. People do that because they think it will make their room look bigger, but in reality, floating the furniture away from the walls makes the room feel larger, she says.
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Start With The Biggest Piece In The Room First
Now that youve broken down your decorating plan to one room at a time, take the same concept and focus on finding the most important piece in the room.
The biggest piece in the room is usually the most important and most expensive. Thats why its important to start with that one piece and work your way from there. In a dining room, start with the dining table. For your living room, choose your sofa or sectional first. In your bedroom, the bed is the most important piece in the room.
Pro decorating tip: The biggest piece in the room is likely where youll invest the most money. It usually gets the most use in the room, therefore quality is important. You can probably save some money on accessorizing, picking up secondhand bedside tables or finding an inexpensive coffee table, but never skimp on your sofa!
Ask Yourself These Questions:
- Does your home truly reflect who you are? If the answer is no, or only a little, then ask yourself Why not? Then figure out what is needed so that it does reflect you.
- Are all your needs being met physically and emotionally? What do you do upon waking, eating, working? Is everything you need at arms length or easy to get? Do you have the right wattage of light bulb to read by? Is the sink at the right height, the cabinet for your dishes right above the dishwasher so you can empty it with ease. Do your rugs feel good under your feet? These little things make the way you live the best not designer plates or an expensive appliance.
- How do I really want to live? Is it casual, formal, cozy, spacious, dark, light.
- If you were the only person you had to impress, how would you decorate your home? This is the hardest to figure out but once you do, you will be on your way to knowing what change is needed so you feel good in your home.
How one feels in their home is as individual as each one of us our tastes, personality, and past. Your home should feel customized just for you and your family.
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When In Doubt Keep It Neutral
I’m personally a huge fan of keeping the walls neutral. This can mean white, light to medium gray, greige or even tan.
Whatever your color preference is, keeping it light and neutral means it will serve as the perfect backdrop for the other elements you will introduce to the room – furniture, rugs, art, etc.
Plus, if you like to constantly switch up your decor and accessories, its so much easier when you have a neutral backdrop that won’t compete.
Remember When Decorating Your Home To Keep These Points In Mind
Enliven Every Day Surround yourself with beauty. Dont save items that you love for special occasions only- use and enjoy everything you own every day. Drink your daily intake of water out of a crystal goblet.
Use the good china every night. Buy the fluffiest towels so when you step out of the shower you feel pampered. Place a lit candle on the table at dinner every night. Keep a vase of flowers on your desk.
Fulfill All Your Senses -All through the house, play your favorite tunes and spray or diffuse room fragrance. Buy the softest bedding you can find so after a tough day your body melts into the sheets.
EditEditEdit Learn to be choosy most of us are so programmed to live the way marketers want us to live.
They rely on the fact that people no longer have the creative energy after a busy day to think for themselves. Edit out the noise and only choose what truly makes you smile.
Follow Your Instincts That little voice in your head is usually right.
Break the Rules How boring would homes look if we all followed the rules? Decorating rules were made to be broken. There is no such thing as the decorating police you are the only one stopping yourself from doing what feels right when it comes to picking out what you like and dont like.
Let it Evolve Take your time decorating a home to feel good does not have to be done in a day, a week, or a year. I let my decorating evolve it will never be done since I am still living.
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Select Your Large Items First
The big pieces of furniture, such as sofas, beds, and storage shelves, will set the tone for the rest of the room. You can easily find throw pillows or wall hangings in a variety of colours, but large items have a limited selection when it comes to the design. Once you have the big items for the room, you can then find accent pieces that complement them.
Upcycle Furniture Thats Past Its Best

Image credit: Future Plc/Colin Poole
If youre thinking about throwing out a piece of well-worn furniture, stop. Take another look and see if you might be able to upcycle it. This wardrobe has been given a new look with remnants of wallpaper on the glass panels. A coat of paint or varnish, or new upholstery, are other easy ways to give an unloved piece another go.
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What Makes A House Luxurious
A luxury, or high-end, home is typically valued within the top 10% of properties on the local real estate market. High-end homes tend to be considerable in size, located in optimal areas, constructed and finished with high-end materials and designed with uncommon architectural details and exceptional amenities.
Art Is Always Worth Adding
While sitting down with the The New York Times, NYC-based interior designer Brad Ford advised DIY decorators to gather inspiration from resources such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Houzz in order to figure out the look and overall ambiance that they are going for. Having this solid foundation makes it so much easier to distinguish and sift through the various avenues of art and décor that are available. However, no matter what kind you prefer, art is a definite must.
From paintings to blown-up photographs of nature or landscapes, there are several different routes you can take when it comes to decorating your walls. If you’re looking for some affordable options, Target has some amazing deals that will actually impress in regards to quality and aesthetics. In addition to decorating the walls of your space, be sure to add some sculptures or smaller paintings throughout the house along bookshelves, mantles, and side tables.
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Cosy Up With Sheepskin
Image credit: Future Plc/Brett Charles
If you dont already have a sheepskin rug, this tip will involve a tiny trip to the shops. However, John Lewis has natural sheepskins in a choice of four colours, for £35.
Basically, sheepskins make every room look cosier and more luxurious drape them across seats and beds or place on floors.
Where To Start When Decorating A New Home From Scratch
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Have you recently moved into a new home? If you’re staring nervously at blank walls and empty rooms, this post is for you. Decorating your house from scratch doesn’t have to be a daunting task. With these tips, you’ll have an action plan in place in no time so the decorating fun can begin!
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How Do I Store Items In My Apartment Ffxiv
Open the Outdoor Furnishings window via the Housing menu under Social in the main menu, then select the Storeroom tab. In addition to this new tab, a storage mode option has been added to layout mode. Using this option will allow you to move furnishings directly to the storeroom rather than your inventory.
The Possibilities Of Dark Tones
Visually striking, light and meters are two of the requirements they need to succeed and look as they should. For this reason, reserve them for rooms of large dimensions, bright and preferably facing south. The dark tones bring vividness and intensity to the spaces. In addition, they have the ability to print personality and character. Thats why, if you do not want to give them up even in the smallest rooms, paint a wall or insert a key piece in this tone. The result of this is tremendously evocative and special when you decorate your house.
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How To Begin To Feel At Home
So how do you get your home to start feeling the way you want? Simply start with a list.
Start small tackle a kitchen cabinet first.
Take everything out and ask, What do I hate, what do I love? Only put back in what you love. From this point forward only add back in what you truly love or need to that cabinet and then move to the next.
Keep going around your kitchen. Once youre done, start in another room until you have edited every room in the house. It may take you weeks or longer, but know that you are on the right path to creating a home that feels like you are getting a big hug every time you walk through the door.
Layout The Rooms Floor Plan

If you are in your house you can use cardboard or painters tape to layout your floor plan before getting the furniture in the space. Or you can do it old school and sketch it out on a piece of paper . When you are laying out your floor plan- what is it that you want to keep in this room- what can you re-purpose from another room to create function in your new space? I will be using a console table that I currently am using for my vanity as a sofa table because we have to float the sectional. With there being a staircase on the other side of a half wall and a toddler that loves to chill on the back of my sectional- we aren’t taking any chances! Our current side tables may or may not be used as nightstands depending on how everything feels in the room. The living room rug will be moved to the master bedroom and a new one will replace it at some point as well. So think outside the box for this
Just get a general layout for the room that will function and flow as you think you will need it to in the space. You will probably need to tweak stuff over time as you learn how you operate in your space that’s alright- nothing is ever permanent in design, things are always changing and adapting to your life.
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Start With Large Pieces Then Layer In Accessories
Furniture does not all need to match. Yes, a matching bedroom set may be easier to find that figuring out nightstands that work with your upholstered bed, but the end design will look so much better when you have a “collected over time” appearance to your room.
Once you’ve got the big pieces in a room, you can start to layer in window treatments, art, throw pillows and accessories. Again, this will take time to achieve the look or vibe you want. Don’t feel like you have to rush it!
Learning simple tips like how to mix and match patterns, or how to style a coffee table or bookshelf will really take those accessories and decorative items to the next level.
Home Decor Idea #: Splurge On Statement Pieces
Dining room tables, stand-out rugs, chandeliers, and sofas all have the ability to upgrade a homes sense of luxury. Identify a few key pieces that you see and use often and decide if it makes sense to budget for a splurge. If you decide its a go, choose colors and fabrics that are easily cleaned and not easily stained or destroyed. This chandelier would add an element of luxury to any home decor ideas for living room or dining room.
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Anchor Rugs Under Furniture Feet
Follow these basic rules for an area rug: “In a living room, all four legs of the sofa and chairs in a furniture grouping should fit on it the rug should define the seating area,” says Breining. “At the very least, the front two legs of the sofa and chairs should rest on it,” he adds.
Even living rooms with less than generous proportions usually require an 8-by-10-foot or a 9-by-12-foot rug to properly accommodate a seating area. Go too small with the rug size and everything looks out of scale.