Personalising your new build property with interior design.

Whether it’s your first home or your next home, whatever the case, you’ve come into possession of a new build property. But how to decorate?

Starting with a mood board is a great idea. Collect images, colours, and textures that inspire you and reflect the look and feel you want for your new home. This will help you focus your thoughts and make design decisions with a clear vision in mind. From there, you can begin to develop a design plan for your new build house.

It's important to understand how natural light affects each room, this will help determine the colour pallet for your space. A great invention is the peel and stick paint samples, they prevent damage to your newly painted white walls and allow you to test out how the colour looks at different times of the day.

Something else you need to ask yourself is are you happy with the flooring choices? They will act as a catalyst to your design process, a good floor will elevate any space. If you are not happy, try using rugs as a way to change things up; however, always opt for larger than you think you would need; smaller rugs in the centre of a room can in fact make a room feel smaller. Opt for a rug under your sofa as this will trick the eye into thinking there is more space than there is. Adding character to a new build can be challenging, but there are plenty of ways to achieve it. Consider incorporating unique architectural details such as ornate coving, panelling or higher skirting boards or just by using interesting materials. Adding artwork or decorative elements can also give your space personality. Don't be afraid to mix and match styles or colours to create a unique look.

Using wall to wall curtains can create the illusion of a larger room. Especially as new build properties usually have standard ceiling heights. Understanding how to deal with your windows can be tricky as they are often white upvc. If you are somebody who wants to add dark colours to your new build, firstly congratulations on being bold with your design choices! However, my only concern with adding a dark colour to the walls is that it can make the white upvc stand out too much in the space, which is not desirable as it can draw the eye to it. To avoid this, I would suggest leaving the return of the window in white as it can help soften the overall appearance. You can add simple beading around the edging of your window which not only adds some architectural detail to your window but will also give you a finish line for your paint colour.

I recently purchased a newly constructed property, I was fortunate enough that I was able to make design choices whilst it was being constructed, however there are still difficult design decisions to be made and you are certainly limited to what you can and can't do straight away. So, the key areas that I focused on were choosing flooring that I knew would look great with my preferred style and choosing beautiful fabric for window treatments, this meant that I would feel happy with the space as it evolved after we moved in.

It's important to make informed decisions at the beginning of a project to avoid costly mistakes. NSD Studio can provide guidance to help you make the right choices. The process is simple, send us an email at info@nicksnowdesign.co.uk and one of the team will be in touch and can arrange a zoom call with myself and my team.

Blog written by Nick Snow BIID, Founder of NSD Studio.