Congratulations! You’ve found the perfect house or condo to purchase and you’re just finalizing the purchase agreement. From this point on, important design and decorating considerations have to be made. Here are some that you may not have thought of:

Before you sign the purchase agreement

Here’s your opportunity to negotiate for upgrades and design revisions with the builder. Hardwood flooring is an option that I highly recommend to my clients, especially in the living room and dining room, both for enjoyment and practicality. Regardless of how long you intend on living in your new home, hardwood floors add resale value when you do decide to sell.

Does the floor plan have walls that create rooms too small to be functional? Think about how each room will be used and determine whether spaces can be opened up or whether a doorway could be filled in so that furniture placement is simplified.

Ensuring that the appropriate amount of lighting is also important at this stage, especially for new condos where ceiling power boxes for lighting cannot be added post-construction. Adding pot lights in a house should also be considered at this time, especially in bathrooms, kitchens and rooms facing north or east. And don’t forget the overhead light in the shower, an option with some builders that many purchasers overlook.

At the Design Centre

First of all, come prepared for this meeting. Look at decorating magazines and cut out photos of what you like for bathroom and kitchen cabinets, backsplashes, countertops, tiles. Do you prefer warm colours (brown, beige) or cool colours (black, grey)? I always recommend to my clients that they choose a neutral palette and add colour into each room with fabric, accessories, art and paint or wall coverings.

Before you move in

Now is the time to decide what pieces of furniture are going to your new home. For this exercise, you really need a furniture layout based on your floor plan. Knowing the placement of electrical wall panels and bulkheads is very helpful. If you’re unable to sell any pieces that you decide don’t belong in your new home, check out www.furniturebank.org – a non-profit organization that distributes gently used, donated furniture to persons in need in Toronto. Your furniture will be put to good use and you receive a tax receipt for your donation.

Window treatments should be considered for each room based on privacy concerns and room darkening requirements. If possible, arrange for a site visit prior to the move-in date in order to bring the window covering supplier in for measurements. That way, installation can take place shortly after you move in. Otherwise, temporary paper coverings are available at home improvement retailers until your window shades and/or drapery treatments are ready to install. This site visit is also an ideal time to take measurements for custom closet shelving if you’ve decided to have them installed professionally. Having the closet organizers installed after you’ve moved in, but before you have to unpack, will save you time and energy.

After you move in

Most builders’ warranties for interior walls are nullified if they are painted before the first year anniversary is over. If that’s the case for you, take the year to learn about your space – how the light shines on a certain wall at different times of the day for example – so that when you do decide to paint, you’ll be able to better able to choose the right colours for your home.

The furniture is placed, the boxes are unpacked and your artwork is hung. Now you can add the final decorating touches, to transform your vision of how you want you home to look, into reality.

As consumers, we are consistently obligated to make choices. We look for products which are pleasing to the eye, well made and not too expensive. More and more, we ask to know where products are manufactured and seek assurance that manufacturing processes are not wreaking havoc on the fragile equilibrium of our planet.

Until very recently, seeking out products which were both eco friendly and aesthetically pleasing was no easy feat. Fortunately, designers everywhere are increasingly committed to sustainable development and have begun to consider greener alternatives. This had led to the spawning of extraordinarily creative solutions to any number of environment-related challenges. Growing quantities of goods are being produced from recycled or renewable materials such as bamboo. Others are being designed to take up as little shipping space as possible, thereby reducing the amount of fuel required to transport them. What is more, many of these same goods—manufactured in locations around the world—now qualify as eco-aesthetic. And that’s a good thing! Companies closer to home have also begun to market decidedly greener products. For example, Laurentide Inc., a leader in the paint recovery and recycling sector, is one of only a handful of companies in the world to produce paint from unused portions of recycled paint materials. Boomerang brand paints ( http://www.boomerangpaint.com ) offer quality paint in a rich palette of trendy colours inspired by nature, designed to suit your style and to be consistent with greener values.

So if your sense of ethics is keeping you from realizing the décor of your dreams, the new trend towards sustainable decorating products will help you update your interior with a clear conscience. Simple steps like choosing recycled, sustainable products and ore ethical consumer goods are easy ways to do our part for the environment.

As much as we try to deny it, a big part of life in our modern society is the television and our interactions that surround it. After a day of hard work, we often find ourselves in front of our television set, enjoying hours of rest and relaxation with our loved ones. When it’s time to restyle your home, you may want to make room for a big screen TV, but your room layout may not allow it. Large televisions often have bulky profiles but Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) televisions solve that problem.

The LCD TV is becoming a popular part of most homes, not only because they create brighter, crisper, and higher contrast images, but when they are mounted on a wall, they become part of a room instead of part of the furniture. This provides a greater flexibility in organizing and designing spaces, but it also adds a couple of square feet where it would otherwise be lost.

The quality of early LCD TVs was horrible although the technology was revolutionary and rapidly improving. Most people didn’t think that they would be worth the investment especially considering that they used to have a $30,000 – $40,000 price tag. In larger versions, faster moving images were harder to see than other types of televisions although in recent years the technology of LCD’s has improved dramatically. In 2004, television manufacturers Sony and Samsung collaborated to build a factory that would produce upwards of 60,000 screens for the LCD TV industry. This showed their confidence in the LCD TV market. Other competitors tried to disprove the quality of these televisions but they eventually succumbed and created their own models.

A technological marvel for our times, the LCD Television solves space problems brought forth by new urban housing designs. As a result of space limitations in heavily developed areas of the city, such as downtown Toronto, more and more developers have been using house and condo designs inspired by Japanese and European models of efficient living. This means that rooms are small and spaces are tight and as a result have to be utilized well with flexible and space saving furniture. A large rear projection or common picture tube television would simply not fit due to its depth and bulk. The last thing you want to see when you enter your 600 sq ft condo would be the side profile of a 51 inch rear projection TV; imagine putting two fridges in your living room. It’s somewhat of a similar effect. A good design would also consider how you would interact with the designed elements.

In small condominium and odd shaped rooms, the LCD or plasma TV becomes a solution due to its low profile, allowing for design freedom as it can be placed where traditional TVs cannot, such as above a fireplace, inside shallow cabinets, or on a narrow room wall. Its display allows viewing angles of up to 160° which means that you can watch TV from anywhere in the room, unlike with traditional rear projection TVs.

We are seeing ourselves and other designers plan spaces with the television set in mind. In an article written by Fardid Biglar for Asian Wave Magazine, he outlines how LCD TVs can be hidden behind screens in multifunctional rooms. When formal, the television is hidden from view and when guests leave and it’s time to relax, the screens slide open and the room changes from a formal space to an informal place of relaxation where you, your family, and your friends can lounge, watch TV or play your favorite video game.

Last year for the Interior Design show, Kenneth Ho surprised the kitchen industry by designing a modern kitchen with a 42” Panasonic Plasma TV integrated right into a shallow contemporary hutch. Wood trim matching the cabinets created a seamless integration of the television and cabinetry. As the kitchen becomes more and more a contemporary gathering space for friends and family, the TV becomes increasingly an important part of it. It’s great when having company as well as when spending hours preparing a gourmet meal.