It’s one of the most commonly asked questions we get when people are designing a brand new home. It makes perfect sense! After all, a new build is a big investment and unlike a reno show, you’re not designing one room at a time. You’re making lots of selections for lots of rooms in one go! So it’s no wonder everyone wants to know how to create a cohesive design in their new build.
We’re showing you 5 easy steps to create a cohesive design in your new build.
1. STICK TO A STYLE
Without finding the right style or styles for your dream home, it will be hard to pick the right colours and materials that will help you create a cohesive design. Choosing a style can also help you stick to your budget because you’ll know exactly where to splurge and where to save. In Dream Home 8 we prioritised shaker profile cabinets over tiles, as we needed this feature to perfect our Modern Farmhouse style.
It’s easy to mix styles to create your own unique style, just like we did at Dream Home 7 -The Coastal Farmhouse and Dream Home 8 – The Modern Farmhouse. If you’re not sure how to mix styles to create a cohesive design, we can teach you how in our new course Selections Made Simple.
2. CREATE A VISION BOARD
A vision board is an easy way to make a one page visual collection of inspiration images!
Your style helps you identify the key design elements you want in your new home, whereas your vision board will help you visually capture the feeling you’re trying to create. Both of these are great visual references to help you throughout your design selections to create a cohesive design.
HOT TIP
Once you have chosen your style, created your vision board and signed off on your selections with your builder, resist the urge to keep scrolling Pinterest and Instagram. This often leads to decision doubts. #notfun
3. REINFORCE WITH REPETITION
Choosing all the colours and materials for your new home should be fun and exciting, especially when you get to choose for multiple rooms at the same time. But it’s here where people often get overwhelmed. One of the things we do in every new build to create a cohesive design throughout the whole home, is to repeat colours and materials. This is pretty easy to do once you’ve created a style file and vision board.
At Dream Home 5 – Modern Aussie Resort we used the same tapware, cabinetry, vanity tops and played around with the colours, shapes and patterns in our tiles and mirrors. There are some simple design principles we use to do this and we can teach you as well through our new course Selections Made Simple.
4. RESIST TRENDS TEMPTATIONS
Following trends can be very tempting, trust us! We know we’ve fallen for that trap before. Build times can vary from as little as 6 months to 2 years (or even longer!) Therefore, making your colour and material selections based solely on a trend puts you at risk of your design dating, before it’s even finished.
Instead of following trends, focus on using a style file and vision board to guide you through the design selection process. You’re more likely to create a cohesive design because you have consistent colours and materials. Whereas following trends may give you a new home with a confusing mix of too many styles that don’t work well together. You want ‘Handover Happiness’ instead of ‘Handover Heartbreak’, right?!
5. COHESIVE COLOURS
If you love the idea of including colours in your new build, one of the best ideas is to choose one colour and use varying shades and tones throughout different rooms. Whether it’s cabinetry, paint colours or even tiles, the idea of cohesive design isn’t that everything matches exactly, but that there are similarities between rooms. Think, fraternal twins instead of identical twins.
DESIGNING YOUR OWN HOME?
Our new course Selections Made Simple is a game changer.
It’s the ultimate online course to help you confidently design your dream home. We’ll teach you everything you need to know to choose the right colours and materials for your new build.
Want to know more? Click below.
