Hello! We are pleased to announce the newest column in the Home & Garden section of The Capital, “Ask Decor Design.”

It is our goal to provide readers with practical advice and solutions to common problems homeowners face when decorating their homes. As interior decorators, we will share with you our 25 years of combined design experience to help keep you from making costly mistakes.

Good design doesn’t cost what most people think it will. Unfortunately, too many people find out the hard way how expensive it is when a design mistake is made.

Have you ever been stuck in the middle of a home design project and become frozen when you can’t figure out a good solution?

We invite you to send in any questions you may have about decorating, as well as problems you may have encountered in a project that never turned out quite as you expected. As we often tell our clients, it’s never too late to have the room that you’ve always dreamed of.

A common mistake people make is rushing to finish a project instead of spending time to consider all the options.

It’s no fun installing a $20,000 bathroom only to realize later that you could have had a larger tub if you had removed a small closet or could have had a seat installed in your shower, but had already ordered and paid for your items before the contractor gave you the new options.

It’s always important to design the whole room, instead of trying to pick individual pieces out in a random fashion. There has to be a big design idea or item that the room will be planned around.

Let’s say it’s a Persian rug you own and love that you have never been able to properly showcase. Instead of rushing to paint the walls tan and then selecting the other items as you go, make sure to choose everything up front before any work is done.

There are many tried and true design rules and if we could only give one, it would have to be design the whole room before anything is purchased.

Many times items you select may have an impact on other choices. For instance, let’s say you decide on tortoise shell bamboo blinds to add texture to this room. Then you realize the yellow and terra-cotta colors in the blinds don’t work well with the shade of tan you painted the walls.

By holding off and selecting everything before you jump in, you can alter the color of your paint to properly complement the new blinds.

You might also choose to pull the terra-cotta tint out from the bamboo blinds and use it as a highlight color when selecting the wood color of furniture in the room. Instead of using dark cherry woods, now you can choose a warm wood color.

Off-white trim also appears wiser than bright white for all the trim in the room since the Persian rug has cream throughout it. Lamps in a golden finish might now look too brash, allowing you to choose a more flattering rusted iron finish to play off the burnt orange and burgundies in the rug.

Many times we are told by clients it’s one or two details they hadn’t thought of that are their favorite parts of the new room, whether it be a small heater that is individually controlled under the sink in an older, cold home or installing the new drapes to the ceiling instead of the top of the window frame to make the room appear taller.

Great pleasure can come from the smallest details. Most people generally lay out their whole outfit before putting things on and this should become your new design mantra. Just like a pair of gorgeous earrings can make a T-shirt and jeans look amazing, it’s that one well selected item in a room that can really set things off and take it from ordinary to extraordinary.

BY Patrick Cox and Pat Bertrand via : www.hometownannapolis.com