Student looking for whole-house design tips & tricks :)

13 years ago

Hello all, I'm a new design student working on a portfolio. I have lots of individual room designs for a variety of conditions/styles/budgets, but I would like to have a whole-house luxury design be the big wow, with 3D renderings and drawings. I have a lot of ideas, but I'm looking for any tips about keeping a design cohesive without being too consistent, as I've never done anything to this scale before. I've attached the floorplan I'm using (based on a luxury home that was sold near where I live) so you can get an idea about the sightlines. This house's architecture is quite contemporary and it's very bright. If anyone has seen any ideabooks or read any articles about whole-house designs, I would love to have a look! I already have the furniture layouts mostly done so I'm really just looking for style/colour/etc tips for keeping things unified. Even just mentions of things you like yourself! Thanks so much and sorry for the long read.

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Comments (3)

Pamela (retired) DeCuir
13 years ago
Congratulations on picking an exciting career!

Since you've already done the furniture layout, I'd go with choosing your flooring surface next. It appears that you could carry wood flooring throughout the entire space, but you may want to consider using tile or stone on the mud room floor and maybe the kitchen.

I'd then work with a palette of colors - you don't need to assign them to specific rooms at this point, just develop a group of colors that are happy together - probably not more than 10. If that seems a lot, consider that the flooring, doors, casings, and mouldings, all possess color and should be part of the big color scheme.

Next, I'd look at area rugs for the living room, dining room, office, and great room. They do not need to match each other, but they should all have the same "feel" and reside happily within your palette.

I'd then move into wallcoverings Make sure you include a textured surface type like grasscloth and perhaps a graphic print in a couple of the rooms.

Pick fabrics that will work with the area rugs and wallcoverings, assigning them to specific items within specific rooms. At this point, you will probably throw out a few of the colors from the palette finding that they won't really work.

Paints should be next and chosen from your palette. Make sure to pay attention to their "sheens" as this will make a difference in the cleanability of spaces likes hallways, mouldings, doors, etc.

Artwork and accessories should help reiterate your design.

AND, make sure your provide enought lighting so that your client can actually see the good job you've done!

Best of luck with your project.
halper thanked Pamela (retired) DeCuir
PRO
SawHorse Design + Build
13 years ago
This is a new house that we completed where the designers were able to keep a consistent theme through out the house using the clients old furnishings along with some new ones to compliment the architecture- http://www.houzz.com/projects/289012/Midtown-Green-House
halper thanked SawHorse Design + Build
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halper
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks to both of you for taking the time to help me out! Pamela, thanks so much for the step-by-step. This sounds like a very logical way to go about things and should help keep me on track with something of this scope. I hope someday I'll be able to work on a space like this one for real ;) instead of just on paper. To SawHorse, I really appreciate you sharing this ideabook. It's definitely given me some more ideas!