Where to start interior design? We bought our own apartment! Although the first and most important step is already behind us, the real challenge is still ahead of us – the apartment bought on the primary market is handed over to us in a shell, also known as “developer” – it means that although it has all the necessary installations and things, thanks to which flat is functional, it is not furnished . Therefore, it will be up to us to design the interior and adjust each room to our own needs and make life in the whole apartment good and simply pleasant. But where to start the whole complicated process, bearing in mind that our budget has shrunk significantly after buying the apartment itself?

Let’s start with an idea

It is absolutely essential in the long and complex process of interior design to have the right idea. It is he who will decide in what style our apartment will be created and it is thanks to him that we will choose the main direction for arranging subsequent rooms. One of the main sources of inspiration and ideas nowadays is the Internet – surely, long before buying a flat, we looked at thematic pages related to interior design and based on them we developed a vision of our own four angles. It is very good as long as we approach it wisely- remember that every photo of the kitchen, living room, dining room or bedroom that we find on the web was created with the idea that “you should like it”. But what if in fact it is also nice, if it does not work in everyday life and you have to handle it like an egg so as not to disturb the whole?

When looking for an idea, it is worth not to limit yourself only to photos published on the Internet, but to use them as a kind of guideline. You can also look for an idea for your own apartment with friends who either live on rent or bought their own apartment. This solution is all the better because the same people are able to tell us about their mistakes in interior design – and it’s best to learn from someone’s mistakes. Huge stores offering furniture and presenting it in sample arrangements are also a good source of ideas. Contrary to the Internet, they provide us with examples of arrangement of selected rooms that are both beautiful and possible to see “live” and tangibly check .

One thing should be remembered in all this: do not limit yourself to one source of inspiration, and instead build your own style of living based on small elements that we like in each of the arrangements we review. Trying to give them one-to-one can end in disaster.

Priorities, priorities

Interior design  is something that cannot be done “in one fell swoop.” Therefore, it is important to take into account our financial capabilities and on their basis determine what we should do first and what we are able to wait a bit. The best rule here is to put everything on elements that would be difficult or impossible to change later. We are talking here about floors and walls – after placing further decorative elements on them, it will be problematic to change it. This is how we should prioritize subsequent parts of the entire process, especially if the budget we initially have does not allow us to complete the finish, but forces us to work on the apartment later and slowly implement the vision we set out.

Let us use the help

It is widely known that there are experts in the world for whom interior design is a way of life. Although opinions are strongly divided here, the most objective and truthful is the one according to which using a specialist is not a shame . It does not diminish our contribution to the apartment – especially since this type of person does not have to design everything for us, but only assist us in the whole process. Thanks to a person who knows his stuff, we can confidently verify our next ideas, checking if they look good only in our head and whether they exist in reality.

Summary

If we are new to buying our own apartment and interior design is something we are targeting at this point, remember to approach the process wisely and not get carried away. The inspirations we have not always viewed on the Internet will prove themselves in reality, and even the most beautiful interior may turn out to be non-functional. If we have a problem with combining the aspect of functionality with beauty and dazzling appearance, we can always use the help of a professional interior designer. This does not mean that we give him full control over the arrangement of our apartment – the scale in which we use his services depends entirely on us and may even be limited to verifying our own idea and tweaking it in such a way that it works in everyday life and fits into the area of ​​our apartment.