The one thing designers don’t tell you before you hire them is that they will very likely want to gut and replace everything in your space. But what if you were able to refresh your living spaces with what you already have and get dramatic results from it?

It’s absolutely possible. It’s been a specialty of mine for over 25 years. Using what you already have, rather than advising you to replace things builds a collection of furniture and heirlooms you can enjoy for a lifetime.

 

 

I’ve done a lot of very nice projects this way and it’s not only beautiful and unique but it’s also a highly personal approach to design.

The Problem with Traditional Design Services

First let’s talk about traditional design services. If you’re using an experienced designer, one with at least 15 to 20 years of experience, it can be a really positive experience with beautiful results. 

But there is also a lot of waste in creating spaces from scratch. I understand the appeal of starting fresh, but quite honestly, it feels wasteful, throwing away perfectly good furniture particularly if that furniture happens to be solid wood. 

So, always make sure your designer is willing to work with all or most of what you have. Be reasonable. If you’ve bought things after say, 1985, the quality can be questioned. If it’s from KMart it’s likely not great quality. 

I personally don’t care for FlexSteel’s or Lazy Boy’s designs and find it hard to work a nice design scheme around them. But that’s just me. 

A New Way to Refresh Your Living Spaces

Imagine seeing your home with fresh eyes, utilizing what you already have in new and inspiring ways.

Using what you have as a design catalyst is very personalized. It’s tailored to you and what you want, making the process accessible and convenient.

People are more mindful of their homes but they’re also mindful of how they’re investing their funds and for my clients, repurposing things in their home makes sense.

How Using What You Have Works

The process I’m talking about is three steps and starts by purchasing a virtual design package.

Mine is priced just under $300. It comes with an optional 6-month payment plan and a money back guarantee. 

After that, you receive a comprehensive questionnaire and workbooks to help you get started.

Once you’ve completed the initial work, you’ll attend a 1-hour recorded Zoom call with me where you can receive your written plan that’s tailored to your needs, make any adjustments and get your questions answered. 

We can work on furniture placement and defining your style first. Doing this first saves a lot of time and money. Then we choose 3 to 5 things that will really enhance what you have so that you refresh your spaces in a conservative, affordable way retaining the personal aspect of your home.

 

 

Tips for Using What You Have

Rearrange Your Space

Arranging furniture correctly makes a huge difference, giving your room an ‘anchored’ feeling. Experiment with different furniture arrangements until you get it right, to create a more functional and visually appealing space.

Having a large-scale piece or ‘simulated’ anchoring piece like a large mirror over a large-scale dresser, will give your room the feeling of scale which in turn makes a space feel finished.

Placing furniture isn’t the time to get creative. There’s always one best way to place things, and when you get it right it makes a big difference.

Repurpose Furniture You ‘Already Have’

‘Repurposing’ or taking furniture and accessories from other rooms is an integral part of my own design process. For example, in one home I placed a hutch in the dining room. When I repurposed it in another home, I had it painted by a decorative painter and used it in the entry. 

In a friend’s townhouse I took a wicker desk and chair from a guest room and used it to round out the conversation area of her living room. In a client’s home I took a hutch from a primary bedroom and repurposed it in the living room opposite the sofa to add a visual anchor.

Guest bedrooms are great places to find things to repurpose. Yes, it means a blank hole in the guest room. But the guest room is usually considered less important, less used than say your living room or dining room. And I’ve found that I can almost always, easily and affordably find something to fill in the blank.

Add Personal Touches

I think one of my biggest complaints about modern home design is that every home looks the same. Modern, clean design can also be hard to personalize. But homes that have a mix of design styles and ‘eras’ easily accept items that reflect your personality.

To make your home more personal display favorite serving pieces, family photos, artwork, or souvenirs from your travels. 

 

 

Refresh with Fabrics, Upholstery and Slipcovers

Incorporating new fabrics into your spaces pulls together your old wood pieces beautifully. Updating your sofa, armchairs, accent chairs, curtains and throw pillows gives your room an amazing new look. It’ customizes and ‘upgrades’ what you have, making it unnecessary to buy new things.

Refinish Furniture You Have with Paint, Stains and Glazes

My favorite approaches to saving wood pieces in your home is to refinish, glaze or apply decorative paint techniques to existing wood furniture. This is a great way to update pieces that might look outdated but have great quality.

Knowing the right colors is the challenge here. I like to go through my Pinterest boards for inspiration and recently redid my dining room table, hutch and 6 antique ladderback chairs with decorative paint and glazes. I had received a mailer from a decorative painter near me. 

We struck up a friendship and I started using her within a year or two.

Why This Approach Works

In a nutshell, this approach focuses on enhancing what you already have. By keeping what you have you actually ‘build’ a collection of furniture rather than replacing it every 10 years.

It’s a cost-effective, custom, personal, environmentally friendly, conservative, sentimental approach to design. 

Using What You Have Stays in Style Longer

Besides looking beautiful, creative and personal, using what you have stays in style longer because it’s a mix of styles and eras.  

Love what you have. Make the most of what you have first. Then and only then, consider adding new pieces. New items are best treated as thoughtful, lifetime investments. Heirlooms to coming generations. So, think again before discarding your mom’s old dining room table!

Use-What-You-Have Virtual Design Packages

You want to freshen up your home with a few, new things that compliment what you already have and love but you’re afraid of buying the wrong things again.

You have a lot of furniture, but it could be better arranged and some of it’s, well … dingy.

You’ve never worked with a designer before, but you’d like to give it a try, start slow and retain control over the project and budget.

Or maybe you’re downsizing with a lot of furniture, and you need help deciding what to keep, what to replace and how to arrange things in new, cohesive ways.

Or you’re combining households with a new partner and need help pulling both of your things together in a way that reflects you as a new couple.

Introducing the Holistic Home Virtual Design Package: the only service of its kind where we work together virtually, rearranging and refurbishing what you already have, choosing 3-to-5 new pieces for the living space of your choice to help you never buy the wrong things for your home again. 

This is my signature program and it’s a great place to start if you’ve never worked with a designer before. 

Working with designers is fuzzy. So, let’s take out the guess work. In this virtual package you get one affordable, set price tag, a payment plan and a money back guarantee. 

Let this be the year you finally commit to your home. Click here to get started… Holistic Home Virtual Design Package.

 

 

What is Wellness Design? Learn more about the connection between your wellbeing and your home, featured on Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s Dying to Ask Podcast. And if you’d like to dive deeper into this topic, check out my blog post, “Hiring an Interior Designer”.