Having too many ideas can be more detrimental to practicing interior design than having no ideas at all. The beginner interior designer is apt to quickly amass a collection of images, colors, furniture shapes, and room styles that are all forgotten almost as quickly as they were gathered. The room should be minimal today, layered and dramatic tomorrow, and every choice made by the end of the week contradicts the last one. The issue isn’t imagination. The issue is a lack of a clearly defined practice goal. Practicing interior design becomes easier once you decide to stop trying to “better” all areas of a space at once and instead practice one design skill at a time.
A good place to start is composition. Before you worry about paint colors or decorative accessories, you need to learn how objects relate to each other in a space. Choose one surface to practice on, like a console table, shelf, bedside table, or coffee table, and play with only that surface using objects that are available to you. Notice how height, negative space, alignment, and visual weight all impact a space. If every item is the same height, a surface will feel flat. If every item is lined up against the perimeter of a surface, the space will feel fussy and unfinished.
Small composition exercises help to create control in a space because they narrow the space down to a more manageable problem. Another great skill to start with is scale. One of the most common mistakes beginners make when practicing interior design is not accounting for scale when choosing furniture and decorative pieces. A lamp can be beautiful, but still much too small for a large sideboard. A rug can be beautiful, but still too small to adequately anchor a seating area.
To practice scale, stand in one space and notice three things: the scale of furniture in relation to the wall, the scale of furniture in relation to other furniture, and the scale of objects in relation to the surface they sit on. Quickly sketch out the space and mark pieces that feel too large, too small, or visually disconnected. This exercise will train your eye more efficiently than scrolling through inspirational images, because it will hold your attention on the space right in front of you. Often, color is the first skill a beginner wants to master, but color is most useful once a space has a bit of structural definition. If you want to start with color, contain the exercise to a small area.
Gather 3-5 items from one space, like fabric, wood, metal, paint, and paper, and set them side by side in natural daylight. Consider warmth and coolness, softness, contrast, and repetition. One of the most common color mistakes beginners make is choosing items that are beautiful on their own, but don’t relate to each other. This will result in a space that feels disjointed rather than cohesive. This issue is easily corrected by identifying the dominant color note in a space and then using the remaining colors to either subtly support it or intentionally contrast with it. 15 minutes of focused practice can have a big impact on a space when the target skill is well defined.
Take the first few minutes of your practice time to decide what skill you want to target that day, whether it be scale or composition. Then, practice on just one area or surface rather than the entire room. Take a photo of the space before you make any adjustments, make only 2-3 changes, and then take another photo. In the last few minutes, write down what you like better about the space and what still doesn’t feel right. This short act of reflection is important, because interior design is all about comparison.