I want to update my room — where do I start?

Perhaps you look around a room in your home and know you want to change it, but that’s about as far as you’ve got. It might feel dated, cluttered, unfinished or simply a bit tired. You know you’d like it to look better and work better, but do you start with the colour scheme? The furniture? The layout? The storage? And what should stay?

Or perhaps you have the opposite problem. You’ve saved hundreds of ideas, looked at paint colours, furniture, lighting, rugs and clever storage, and every new thing you see sends you off in another direction. Instead of helping, all that inspiration has made it even harder to picture what you actually want your own room to become.

I meet people in both situations all the time. I’m a Home Makeover Coach, and a large part of what I do is help people work out what a room really needs before they start changing it. I work mainly remotely, using photographs, videos and conversations to understand what isn’t working, what genuinely needs changing and — importantly — what doesn’t. Then we can put the decisions in the right order and create a realistic plan to work through.

Because that’s often the real difficulty with a room makeover. It isn’t one decision; it’s lots of smaller decisions that affect one another. Change the furniture and you may change the layout. The layout affects the rug and lighting. Those decisions influence colours, storage and what else needs to stay or go. Start making those choices randomly and it’s surprisingly easy to spend money without getting any closer to the room you actually want.

So before you choose a paint colour or start filling an online shopping basket, there’s a more important question to answer: What does this room actually need?

The problem you see may not be the real problem

Often, a new client will come to me asking for something quite specific — perhaps a new colour scheme because they want their room to feel calmer. But once we talk through the space, it may become clear that colour isn’t really the problem. If the room is cluttered, all those possessions are bringing their own colours, shapes and visual noise into the room. Sorting out the storage and reducing what’s on show can completely change how the room feels — and it may not even need decorating after all.

Of course, sometimes a room really does just need updating. The layout works, there’s enough storage and the furniture is right, but the colours, curtains, lighting or furnishings have simply had their day. In that case, we can concentrate on giving the room a fresh look without turning it into a bigger project than it needs to be.

That’s why I think the first step is to work out what you’re actually trying to fix. Once you know that, it becomes much easier to decide what needs to happen — and in what order.

Please don’t start with the best part — shopping!

I know. Shopping for lamps, cushions, accessories or a lovely new piece of furniture is far more enjoyable than measuring cupboards, thinking about storage or working out what a room actually needs. Buying something new also gives us the satisfying feeling that the makeover has finally begun.

Unfortunately, it can also be how expensive mistakes begin.

Before choosing individual items, you need some idea of what you’re trying to achieve with the room as a whole. Which furniture is staying? Does the layout need changing? What colours and materials are going to work together? Is there anything practical that needs solving first?

Once those decisions have been made, shopping becomes much easier because you’re looking for something specific rather than hoping inspiration will strike in the middle of a shop.

This matters financially too. Which? recommends planning home-improvement budgets carefully because changing your mind once work is underway can quickly increase costs. The same principle applies to decorating a room: something bought too early may turn out to be wrong once the rest of the scheme takes shape. Planning isn’t about taking the enjoyment out of a makeover; it’s about avoiding paying for the same decision twice.

One room is a very good place to start sorting your whole home

If several rooms in your home need attention, it’s tempting to think about all of them at once. But an entire house can feel enormous — one room doesn’t.

Concentrating on one room gives you something manageable to focus on and, importantly, something you can actually finish. It also teaches you a great deal about what you like, what works in your home and how you make decisions, which can make the next room much easier.

There is one small caveat. If you know you’re eventually going to update several connected rooms, it can be sensible to think briefly about the bigger picture first. You don’t necessarily need to do the whole house, but you don’t want to make decisions in one room that you’ll regret when you get to the next.

The aim is to have enough of an overall direction to make sensible decisions — then concentrate on the room in front of you. A clear direction makes everything easier. This is the point where a collection of separate decisions needs to become a room.

My Inspiration Images

When you’re juggling colours, furniture, flooring, curtains, lighting and all the lovely things you’ve saved online, it can be surprisingly difficult to imagine how they will actually look together. That’s why I now include an Inspiration Image in every plan I create. It brings the ideas together visually, so you can see what you’re working towards before you start making changes or spending money.

Once you have that direction, you can start filtering out the distractions. Instead of asking, “Do I like this sofa?” the question becomes, “Is this right for the room I’m creating?” That’s a much easier question to answer.

You only need to know what comes next

One of the biggest reasons we delay a room makeover is the feeling that we should have everything worked out before we begin. You might think you need to know your style, choose every colour, understand the layout and have a complete shopping list before you can make a single decision. But you don’t – you just need a clear idea of where you’re heading and enough information to make the next decision confidently.

That might mean sorting out the storage before choosing a colour, deciding the furniture layout before buying a rug, or simply talking everything through with somebody who can untangle your ideas and put them into a sensible order. Once the first decisions are right, the ones that follow become much easier.

You don’t need more ideas. You just need to start — in the right place.

See my home and garden makeover plans and inspiration images here