I'm not going to lie: I don't have a very good eye when it comes to interior design. There's a reason I never posted any pictures of our old house in Florida. Okay, it was mainly because the walls in the home were covered with '70s original wood panelling - but also, & arguably more so, it was because I didn't know how to design around the horrid wood panelling. Many regrettable choices were made in that home (like the decision to pair eggplant purple with mahogany), but I'm not going to make the same mistakes in the new pad. Since I'm a "whole picture" kind of person, Photoshop has become my best friend when scouting for fabrics, furniture, & color.
Before you make decisions on fabrics or furniture pieces, you can throw it together in Photoshop to get an idea of how it's going to look in real life (if you don't have Photoshop, use a program called Gimp - it's free!). This method helped me pick the fabric for the roman shade tutorial.
Step 1. // Take a picture of your space, using whatever camera you have around. Try & get a straight on shot so you don't have to deal with any awkward angles.
Step 2. // Find an image of the rug, fabric, couch, etc. you want to put in your home. It helps if the image has a totally white background & is also photographed straight on.
Step 3. // Open the image in Photoshop. Select & copy the entire image (Command + A, Command + C), then paste. This will create a new layer. Delete the "Background" layer by clicking on the trash can icon in your layers menu.
Step 4. // Using the magic wand tool, select the white area of the image, & delete (Command + X). If your image is not on a white background, use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (under the regular Lasso tool) to trace around the image. You don't have to be precise, the whole idea of doing this is just to get a general sense of how your space will look. The Lasso tool will grab the object & not the background, so after you've traced the object go to "Select" in your toolbar, then click "Inverse" (or Shift + Command + I). This will select the background & you can delete it.
Step 5. // Select the whole canvas & copy (Command + A & Command + C). Open the image of your home that you took in step 1, then paste the copied image onto your home image (Command + V). Chances are the object will be the wrong size. No worries! Reshape & resize by pressing Command + T to transform. Keep the image proportional by holding the shift key as you resize.
Now you have a good idea of how the whole space will come together in real time. For example, I absolutely love this couch, but the legs totally don't match the flooring in the living room. Seeing this I now know I have to pick a couch with different legs, but the teal color totally works.
Throwing everything on the same canvas in Photoshop is also helpful when picking fabrics - & saved me from getting the wrong print when making the roman shades that hang in the kitchen. I was digging on all of these swatches, but once I saw how they would look in the warm-wood-influenced space, I knew they wouldn't work.
Hopefully I'll be able to make a few sound design choices in the apartment, despite my non-designer streak. Decorating is fun, & buying furniture & stuff for the place is making me feel all adult-ish (scary!).
xoxo,
-m.e.
// This post is not sponsored, nor is We Can Make Anything connected to any company or product represented within this post. Any images of products shown in this post belong to their respective companies; all opinions & ideas expressed are my own. That being said, this couch is totally presh. //
P.S. If you want to make the curtains like the ones hanging in my living room, there's a tutorial for that too!
Excellent idea!
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