Interior Design Study: Redesigning a Bedroom

Introduction

Interior design is fascinating, combining art, science, and even mathematics into a completely new and different field. Uniquely, interior design offers an incredible freedom to both the designer and user, allowing the designers to create an aesthetic and space that facilitates the user’s experience. Every little touch in the design adds something special to a room, whether it’s put there by the designer or the user. Moreover, interior design, as a field, is particularly accessible, allowing even laymen to contribute. Interior design might find its way into your life through the art you add, the choice of paint for your walls, and in your furniture design. Each addition can change the emotions one feels in a room. However, while many people dabble in interior design throughout their lives, it isn’t as easy as many people think. Before one can truly become a professional interior designer, there are many different things to learn. From basic sketching and planning, interior designers have to learn how to turn the 2D into 3D, turning drawings into practical, real-life designs. While it may sound simple in words, it is much more complicated in practice. So, let’s go through an interior design project together. 

Methodology

This particular project is a bedroom redesign. As seen from Image 1, this is meant to be a teenager’s bedroom. Before starting to sketch any room, the first step is to understand the user(s) and the space itself. Some of the key points to be analyzed are the user(s) in question, their habits and preferences, the purpose of the space, and the size of the space itself. The other major factor to take into account is the overall vision for the space, post-redesign. In this case, the theme is relaxation. In order to carry out this theme, the color choices and styling are particularly important, as both have large effects on the mood of a room. Therefore, before starting this aspect of planning, it is a good idea to do some research on color psychology. This provides a basic understanding of what feelings each color induces. For example, blues, like navy, inspire feelings of confidence and other related qualities, such as loyalty, trust, peace, success, and relaxation. Other examples of colors that are relevant to this particular project are grey (security, intelligence, calm, composure), black (fail-safe, sleek sophistication, power, drama, mystery, modernity), purple (charm, luxury, creativity, fantasy, nobility), brown (comfort, relaxation), and yellow (joy, optimism, energy, vibrancy). 

After the preliminary work, drawing actual plans for the room can begin. While plan sketching looks simple and easy, in reality, it is quite complicated to draw a good plan. Not only must every aspect be measured, each measurement must be accurate down to the inch. In order for the project to succeed, the plan must form an accurate and realistic depiction of a better and more functional space. In Image 2, a clear plan and a plan including furniture are presented. The plan allows the designer to understand how much space has been used now and to determine the problem of the space. Therefore, the designer is able to come up with some ideas for the new design. The purpose of the clear plan is to provide an overview of how big the space could be used. Next, the 2D plan must be turned into a 3D model (Image 3). While the 2D plan will contain the information necessary for the design, a 3D model allows the designer to more completely convey the concepts and ideas that inspire the design and that the design is meant to inspire. Before beginning the 3D model, practice is necessary. Examples of good practice for this step are sketching 3D cubes, sketching the interiors of other spaces, and sketching buildings. For beginners, it is a good idea to begin with sketching 3D models on tracing paper with graphing paper under, allowing for more accurate drawings, in terms of position and size. The resulting model should look like Image 3.

The next step is to create a concept and mood board. Concept and mood boards are a very important part in interior design because it helps the designer provide a visual representation of his or her idea to the customer. In Image 4, the color scheme creates a depiction of the general atmosphere of the room and furniture samples inform on the style of the room for our project. From this image, the five colors at the top right shows the main combination for the room. Brown is included because it creates a relaxed and chill mood. Aside from brown, the colors represent simplicity, which fit to what the customer wants. To include brown because it creates a relaxed and chill mood. The decorations board further delves into the style of item that is suitable for the room (Image 5). A good choice of decoration allows the purpose of the room to be better achieved. In this room, the string lights create a warm and relaxing environment. The string lights are multifunctional, providing light while also allowing photos to be hung from them. This continues the cozy theme envisioned for the room, while creating more space in the room for other items.

Finally, the final place for the redesigned room can be drawn. By now, the space has been fully reimagined. The key factor to keep in mind here is to completely and clearly draw out the plans for the customer/user. As seen in Image 6, the final design doesn’t have to be extremely high-tech. The most important thing is that the drawn plan and 3D model of the space are representative of the imagined redesign. That said, this last part isn’t easy work either. All trouble-shooting and last-minute issues must be dealt with here, before submitting to the user. Last but not least is the final plan design of the redesign room. In this part, you can already imagine what the room/ space looks like. The most important thing is to draw your thoughts down on the paper and provide it to your customer. As you can see in the powerpoint above, there is not thing special to draw the final design, you just have to draw a plan and turn it into a 3D version of what the new space will look like. Of course, it doesn’t mean that it is easy work. Issues might keep occurring and you still have to try your best to solve it.

Conclusion

Overall, redesigning rooms and spaces is a fascinating experience.Interior design isn’t just about making a space more aesthetic – it also involves making the space a more functional and suitable place for the user. Interior design is just a more creative and artistic version of more traditional problem-solving work, in spaces as small as a bedroom or as big as a concert hall. Due to the changing nature of the spaces and customers addressed, the designer must be flexible to different levels of difficulty, moods, and other considerations. In this field, knowledge from all sorts of other subjects must be drawn, from architecture to psychology, to create the perfect solution for the customer. Though coming up with a solution is a success of its own, there’s always space to learn and grow, before becoming an interior designer. Difficulties of all kinds will be encountered and the challenges faced by interior designers will be constantly changing, but this field is perfect for anyone interested in problem-solving in a new and more creative way.

References

Ferreira, Nicole Martins. “Color Psychology: How Color Meanings Affect You & Your Brand.” Oberlo. Oberlo, 31 May 2019. Web. 17 July 2020.

Bloomfield, J., Bloomfield, J., & EditorJade is Editor of LuxDeco. She writes about LuxDeco’s exclusive collections. (n.d.). Colour Psychology in Interior Design. LuxDeco.

LIV for Interiors. “How To Apply Colour Psychology To Your Interior Designs.” LIV for Interiors. LIV for Interiors, 27 Sept. 2019. Web. Summer 2020.