Interior Design Course: Week 1

Here's a recap of what I learnt at the Interior Design Course I started last week

WEEK 1

Building Design and Planning

Reading and Amending House Plans

Identifying Housing Styles
Landscaping

The building design and planning stages is where it all begins so take your time to pick colours and what you want the builders to do and what you'll organise yourself. You can then ask them to take services off the contract and reduce the quote if you think you can get a better deal elsewhere (I can see myself doing this if I build).

Building companies want your money so they are going to push you into signing but the fact is they need to be patient because there is no way you can make such important decisions on the spot. Don't sign the contracts until you're ready and happy with the choices you've made.

We viewed house plans that were changed 3 times and how the house was redrawn, kitchen appliances moved, doors and windows changed etc. You can still see where improvements can be made to make the home more functional and I guess this is where planning and drawing a house at the beginning plays such an important part - once you've signed off on it that's it so best to get this bit right no matter how long it takes.

We learnt how to increase a plan by 1:5 (although this moved a bit quickly for me, but I have my notes and worked it out in the homework). Once to scale you can play around with furniture placement to see how everything will fit in the room. I can see this would be particularly useful if you were building a new home you could see where your couch would go, coffee table, side table and you would then know where you'd need electricity for lamps and feature lighting etc.

This was the homework to increase a room to 1:5 and place furniture inside and do the wiring for electrical points and lighting. We also had to do a landscaping brief (although this wasn't actually covered in the class as we ran out of time) I used the information in the file and my zillions of magazines to come up with something. I hope the landscaping is covered in the next session as I'll be pretty disappointed if it isn't seems as though planning the front design is pretty high on my to do list.

Lastly, we covered all the different house styles and why its important when renovating that you stick to the same theme as the home - don't renovate an old home and make it totally modern - keep some of the features of the home and renovate with a nod to the old and the new. This is harder said than done as of course I like the look of modern but I am being careful not to make our home too modern on the exterior - trying to keep it classic (which includes using cream not lime!) - I can always have fun with modern decor on the inside.

My favourite older style of home is Colonial which have the big bay windows

My favourite modern home is the Balinese Resort with the big grand entrances

and lots of outdoor living spaces

The ole Jarrah Jungle house is the Pre War style. Apparently it's an easy one to renovate - new roof, render the bricks and put in a high fence and hey presto! Hmmm we seem to be doing exactly that!

Our house before

Our house now rendered ... new roof and fence coming soon!

I can now clearly see how there is a process for all these things from the very beginning and planning everything down to your furniture placement and the style of home that you love so you can follow this through in your design.

Week 2 is all about floors and lighting

 

[Images via realestate.com.au - 1234, Plan Imperial, House Bay Windows, House Balinese]

[My own images - file 1, file 2, file 3, our house before and now]