The Reston-Great Falls Interior Design Corner:

Every other Friday, the Reston-Great Falls Interior Design Corner will come to you. The posts are focused on making home improvement enjoyable, efficient and less stressful. Comments and questions are always welcome! If there is a topic that you are interested in, please bring it to my attention, so I can include it in future posts.

I hope you have read my first post: “Getting Ready for the Spring Home Projects-Avoid making expensive mistakes”. If not, you can catch up and read it now!

Once you have selected your interior designer, it is time to develop your project. If your project includes structural changes, you will need an architect and probably an engineer to calculate loads. If there are no structural changes, an interior designer and a general contractor are a good choice. Keep in mind that good communication among all the professionals working in your project is critical. Each professional’s expertise is important to the success of the project.

Get your interior design ready before you start any construction work in your home, in particular if you are facing a several-month’s renovation. Regardless of your contractor’s urgency to get started (for example, “have the cabinets delivered by Friday”), make sure that you and your spouse are happy with the design. The first phase in many projects is demolition of old but functional cabinets, utilities or structures. The moment you get the demolition started, your anxiety will go way up. Let’s face it, the process is disruptive, but it has to happen in order to get the reward, your beautifully envisioned room.

Think ahead about how you will cope with the stress from the dust, noise and disruption. Getting enough exercise and going for walks are helpful. Take this opportunity to do things that you always postpone, but that bring you joy, such as attending a concert, visiting a new exhibit at a museum or going to the movies. Here in the Washington Metropolitan area we are blessed with an extraordinary variety of events. Longer trips can be helpful as well, and we certainly come energized after being away for a few days. However, long absences may delay your project or lead to unintended results, in addition to higher expenses, if you are not available to provide feedback to your interior designer and contractor when inevitable questions arise. A nice compromise is a long weekend.

If you are getting new upholstered furniture, select it before the demolition starts. It generally takes four to six weeks to have it delivered, but more importantly, make your decision before the renovation process impacts your mood.

If you find it difficult to visualize the outcome of a project, you are not alone. For example, we tend to adjust furniture sizes in our minds to make them fit perfectly into the available space. The beauty of the virtual world is that we have the capability of generating your entire room in 3D. Having an accurate sense of the dimensions is very important to predict how comfortable you would feel in a room. As with color, people view space through their own personal experience and emotions. For example, a room with little open space leaves some people feeling warm and cozy, but others cramped or trapped.”

Some people need to see an open space in the middle of the room; others need to see a well-balanced furniture layout. In the next post I will give an example of how the right answer came through a 3D model.

You will learn more tips at the series of events by Amelia Vallone Interiors focused on Color Trends and setting up the right mood for your home (e.g., color schemes, lighting, upholstered furniture, window treatments, accessories and much more) at Total Wine, in Reston, and on kitchen and bathroom renovations, cabinetry and tiles at ProSource of Dulles, in Sterling. Visit the Patch and my website for dates and registration information. The events are free of charge.

Amelia Vallone Logan, Ph.D.