What’s the secret to making your space look like it was designed by an interiors pro? Well one of the most important is laying out your furniture and your other design elements in a floor plan to see how they will really fit in your room. I reviewed 4 room layout/floor planning apps with video demos to to see which were the most user friendly to help you design your interior or garden space.

This is my exact design process written down for designing and decorating a space. The whole point though is to make it adaptable so it serves YOU, your home, and your loved ones. If you follow these guidelines, you will create a room that is comfortable, cohesive, functional for you and yours, and reflects your own personal style.

It also doesn’t need to cost a fortune. I firmly believe that design constraints, whether budgetary or otherwise, often result in a more interesting project and not the other way around.

Most of us are sheltering now, so I decided it would be appropriate to write about getting creative and decorating with what we already have or can find in nature for free in our collective backyards. Many of our home projects have been put on hold indefinitely while we try to flatten the curve and also reassess our financial situations which may look very different from a few short weeks ago.

Have you ever experienced decor-dismay when you discover scratches and damage to your nice tabletop or furniture because something with a rough edge had been placed on it without a protective layer? You realize every time it was even slightly moved, it was slowly etching itself into your countertop until you finally discovered it? I have, and in fact, I’ve had this happen twice in the past month - one from scratching and one from water damage, and both were totally preventable.