Home Improvement Hacks from Professional Interior Designers

I've always had mixed feelings about using an interior designer because so many of the interior designed houses I visited had a rather bland appearance. They always reminded me of a very good hotel – lovely bed linen, cushions, carpets and lamps – but somehow not very homely.

And my pet hate about these sorts of homes is always the art works hanging on the walls; they are typically unexciting and unadventurous but worst of all they are chosen simply to match the colour of the walls, cushions or other accessories not because of their own unique beauty and that is such a shame when there are so many great works of art to choose from.

But whatever I felt about these beautiful, yet sterile, homes I was never in a position to hire an interior designer anyway as I simply couldn't afford to. So my thoughts were irrelevant. Some friends had reassured me that it was not as expensive as I might think but I quickly realised that their idea of expensive was not the same as mine and I would have had to take out a loan just to pay the designers fees let alone raise the money for all the lovely things they would want me to buy.

However, I have more recently started to change my opinion of the work interior designers do because a Finnish friend has just finished refurbishing her home with the help of an interior designer and it looks truly fantastic. Best of all it feels like a family home – albeit a very large family home, the like of which most of us can only dream about. It certainly doesn’t have that sterile interior designed feel.

She has mixed original artworks by Mari Sunna – a native of Finland now living and working in the UK with inexpensive framed prints. She has mixed contemporary transparent acrylic chairs by Phillipe Starck with heirloom wooden furniture all topped off with super sleek bathrooms and a huge L-shaped kitchen dining living space overlooking a neat back garden with woods beyond.

Whilst some of what she has done is expensive (particularly the marble bathrooms) much of it is affordable and wouldn't require me to go into debt to re-create something similar. Some of my favourite take-away tips from this home that I am going to try and replicate on a budget are:

Over-sized lamps with colourful linings – beautiful at night when they are switched on. Oka do similarly large lamp bases at affordable prices but I might have to use the interior designers contacts to have the very special lampshades made.

Statement mirrors literally everywhere – even in the downstairs cloakroom there is a large fancy circular mirror almost filling the wall; and I have seen similar in at least a couple of mainstream stores.

Extra large white gloss tiles contrasting with dark wood furniture

Jewel tone accessories

And last but my no means least – some wonderful art works of my own. I have already ordered an huge Modigliani canvas print of "The Jewess". It may not be an original but I hope it will make a great statement in my living space.

Wish me luck!