If the room still looks bare, fill in with inexpensive pieces that may eventually move to other areas of your home. There are also ways to fill in with color, pattern and inexpensive accessories for effect. These might include throw pillows, a wallhanging, framed posters, books, flowers, plants, lamps and collectibles that don’t cost a lot but look good.

Decorators have varying opinions about how you should furnish an entire home. Some think it’s best to buy one or two essential items for each room; others think it’s best to complete one room before moving to another. Some think you should purchase all the large and more expensive items first, because the less significant things will fall into place as you find them. Since most people moving into their first home are on a limited budget, the most practical and often the only option is buying little by little. Having an overall plan, however, ensures that you will make fewer mistakes, thus getting the most for your money. In this way, you won’t buy a sofa that’s the wrong size, shape and color, just because it’s on sale.

Upholstery Fabric
Picking out a sofa style is just the beginning. Once you’ve selected the sofa, you’ll be faced with the prospect of having it upholstered in any one of thousands of fabrics. It’s enough to unhinge the most informed shop-per. The way you see the sofa displayed in the showroom isn’t the way you have to live with it. You have lots of options, but you should know that some fabrics can as much as double the cost of the original sofa. Knowing this fact will enable you to edit out those fabrics that will move it out of your price range and concentrate only on those fabrics you can afford. In this way you’ll find the project exciting and challenging.

Fabric Colors and Patterns
When it comes to upholstery, it’s best to choose a solid color if your sofa will be placed against a wall. This will give you options for paint colors, wallpaper and drapery fabrics. If the sofa is placed out in the room, you can more easily get away with a pattern.

Neutral colors are always the safest and you can add colorful printed throw pillows for accent and excitement. Furthermore, you can change the look of a room more easily when the largest piece is a neutral such as beige, ivory or something in an earth tone. Shades of green are quite popular. This doesn’t mean that the fabric has to be plain and dull. Textured fabrics, such as damask or linen, in shades of neutral can be quite interesting.

Take Your Time
Don’t hesitate to ask to take fabric samples home with you to see how they will look in the room. While they are only samples, you can see if the color and print will go with the wall or rug colors and any other items you’ve already decided to put in that room.

Take your time and be as sure as you can about your choices. It will then take about six more weeks from ordering to delivery time. In those weeks you can actually forget what the sofa looks like. I knew a couple who were surprised when their sofa was delivered. They were convinced they had ordered something that looked entirely different. Take time to fall in love. You’ll be grateful every time you curl up with a book and a cup of tea, sink back for an afternoon of TV watching, or simply walk through the room and take it all in.

A Little Knowledge Goes a Long Way
With a little background knowledge you’ll be able to enter a showroom with confidence, ask intelligent questions and ultimately choose a sofa that will fit in with your lifestyle and the other furnishings in the room. Knowledge will also enable you to buy the very best quality item you can get for the amount you’ve allocated.

Usually a conservative approach is safest when buying expensive items. A sofa is an investment. You want it to grow by giving you a good return on your money. The return is that you love it more and more every day.

Undoing a Mistake
It’s unlikely that after doing your homework and taking the time to select the right sofa, you’ll find the colors or pattern are all wrong in the room. However, such a mistake can be rectified with slipcovers. This is an expensive solution. It’s better to get it right the first time.

In Praise of Comfort Above All
Every top decorator agrees that a sofa, more than any other piece of furniture, must be comfortable and classic in design. And they stress comfort, even over style. After all, if every time you sit on your sofa and feel the cushions are too hard or it’s too deep for gracefully getting up from, or you avoid stretching out on it, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is.

New York interior designer Mark Hampton knows the key to a good sofa: naps. “I would much rather take a nap downstairs on a big, soft sofa than go upstairs to bed,” he says.

Other Options
A polyurethane foam wrapped with down and feathers creates a firm but soft feel, and the seat cushions will retain their shape under great pressure. These sofas are much less expensive than those made entirely of down, and some people even prefer them. The foam makes the sofa a little firmer.

An all-foam sofa is inexpensive and will last eight to ten years. It’s not as comfortable as some others but it’s practical. It’s good to know that wherever you look for a sofa, you’ll always find a wide selection of all-foam sofas to fit your budget. This might be a good way to go until you can afford a better sofa. You’ll certainly get your money’s worth and then you can toss it.

What It Says
A sofa speaks volumes. If it’s stiff and formal, it says one thing. If it’s big and plump, it says another. Sometimes the style of a room dictates the type of sofa it should contain. If you’ve just moved into a house in the countryside, for example, you might consider a casual, relaxed-looking love seat or sofa. For a more formal look, consider a tufted or tailored sofa. A chesterfield leather tufted and rolled-arm sofa and a tuxedo sofa are considered to be cliches among venerable, classic designs and have maintained their position in the “not so comfortable but always reliably stylish” category.

2. It’s easy to paint a simple border around the room. Measure down from the ceiling approximately 6 to 8 inches and run a strip of painter’s tape (unlike masking tape, it won’t pull the paint off the wall when you peel the tape away) along the wall as a guideline. Paint the border sky blue. Let it dry. Stencil yellow stars and moon shapes at random on top of the blue border. Use this color scheme for sheets, bumpers and a quilt on the crib, window treatment and floor covering. Paint the dresser with the same blue paint and add yellow stars and moons to the drawer fronts.

3. Use the simple stencil design of a car to create a border design around a toddler’s room. Position the border halfway up the wall. Use a strip of painter’s tape to delineate a line above which you’ll stencil the design. Use bright blue and red paint colors and alternate for each car.

4. Paint the bottom half of the walls with a soft pastel color. Then add a wallpaper border around the room as high as a chair rail. Apply a wallpaper with a soft overall pattern on the top half of the wall.

5. For a quick and easy design, paint the room a solid color, then apply a wallpaper border around the windows and doors.

6. For a coordinated look, use a matching crib bumper, sheets, crib skirt, quilt and curtains. Paint the walls and furniture one of the colors in the fabric.

7. If the rest of your home is decorated in a country style, carry the theme into the nursery. Use transparent deck stain, such as Thompson’s Water Seal stains, in one of over a hundred colors on unfinished furniture. Let dry and apply a coat of satin polyurethane to protect the finish. Or whitewash the furniture with a coat of white latex paint. Let dry for a few minutes, then wipe away the excess to allow the natural wood to show through. Let dry overnight and coat with polyurethane.

8. Revive old wicker furniture with a coat of spray paint. A wicker chair, a small night table and a dresser will combine to create a charming and romantic baby’s room. Add eyelet trim, ribbon or rickrack to the edge of cafe curtains and a valance.

9. It’s easy to create a room of cloudlike softness with sponge-painted walls in a pastel blue, pink or yellow. Begin by painting the walls with a light color latex paint. Then, using a natural sponge, dip it into white latex paint, remove the excess on newsprint and, working on one small area at a time, pounce the sponge over the dry painted wall. Continue to do this until you’ve achieved a subtle, textured effect. If there is too much contrast, just keep going over the area until it looks good to you. This technique is absolutely foolproof. Cover the entire wall with random sponging in this way. You can use this technique on furniture as well. The goal is for a blending of colors that are closely related in shading. It’s not advisable to use a light and dark color together as the results will be harsh.

10. If sponging walls isn’t your thing, but you like a faux finished effect, you can get any treatment you like in wallpaper. It is so real looking that no one will guess it’s not the real thing.

A young family I know moved into their first home, which had two bedrooms upstairs and a master bedroom downstairs. The kitchen and living rooms were too small to accommodate a dining table large enough for two adults and two children. They desperately needed a place to eat and decided to take one of the upstairs bedrooms for themselves, bought bunk beds for their two daughters, and put the girls together in the second bedroom. They were then able to turn the downstairs bedroom into a dining room.

When we were building our house, the plans called for a cozy den. Our architect had spent many years designing wooden boats, and we wanted him to design a room that would feel like the space inside a boat. Since we live in a boating community, this seemed logical.

The room, only 9 feet square, has a corner fireplace and built-ins all around, and is just right for two. But before the room was built, we planned floor-to-ceiling bookcases for all the walls, not realizing how little space would be left for furniture. When we saw the space, we quickly changed our thinking. We now have narrow shelves that run around the room above head level, which is more in keeping with the scale of the space.

Don’t be put off if a room seems too small or overly spacious; you can always create a design to compensate for any problem. Before planning what furniture you’ll need for each room, write down the following questions and answer them as best you can. Try to think of your immediate needs and, if possible, anticipate what you might need in the future.

1. How will the room be used most of the time? For example, the kitchen may not be a high priority on your list because you work all week and put together simple meals. However, if you enjoy cooking on weekends, es-pecially if two of you cook together, the kitchen should be designed accordingly. Even if you only dream of one day spending more time cooking as a hobby, you’ll want to plan space to accommodate your collection of cookbooks and cooking untensils.

2. Will the room be used for other purposes from time to time? For example, an eating area for two may have to seat more family members during the holidays, or friends who occasionally drop by.

3. Who will use the room most of the time? If, for example, you’re creating a home office in an unused bedroom, this is essentially your room. Since you’ll need to put up the occasional guest, you might select some pieces of furniture that work for both purposes. However, don’t sacrifice the functional office aspect of this room for the one time a year when your mother comes to stay for a week.

4. How much seating space will you need when the room is used optimally? A living room, for example, should be as comfortable as you can make it for you and the people you live with. However, you don’t want to drag chairs in from the kitchen every time you have company. Small occasional chairs can be worked into the plan for this purpose.

Add to this setting wooden, silver or white ceramic candle holders with white candles and, in the center, a white pitcher, bowl or clear glass vase with white tulips, a few freesia stems, white roses or white lilacs. The greenery from the stems and leaves is all that’s needed for a touch of color. Dress the sideboard (if you have one) with a white eyelet-edged runner. This is a common item found at flea markets, but you can find new, inexpensive items like this at bed and bath shops. If you rummage through your mother’s or grandmother’s linen drawer you may find something similar.

I collect napkins. They are inexpensive and provide color easily when I want to create a theme. For fall I use my rust-and-moss-green-plaid linen napkins on a brown tablecloth. During the holidays I have Christmas napkins in bright green and cherry-red checks. When I’m serving an Italian meal, I use my red-and-white-checked napkins, and sometimes I like a black-and-white theme. I have black napkins and candles that look great on a white tablecloth with my ornate silver candlesticks. Pale pink damask, blue and white stripes, beige and white checks, and a mix of pastel colors and floral patterns are included in my collection. When you have a variety of napkins and a few basic tablecloths or place mats, you can easily set a table to match your mood, a theme, the weather, the season or your meal. Try it. It’s a lot of fun..

If possible, begin by listing absolutely everything you’d like to have in every room, regardless of cost. List the things you intend to make over and write down how much time you think it will take to do each project. Then list what you need right away, what can wait, and guesstimate how long you think the complete project will take. Next, establish a realistic budget and timetable for each phase of the plan. You may find that the smaller, less expensive items will quickly establish the look and feel you want to achieve, and these will therefore be your first priorities.

Set aside a portion of your budget for the most important, and usually expensive, items. Most people define these as sofa, chairs, table and chairs for eating, a bed and dresser or armoire to hold your clothes, and maybe floor covering. However, you may feel perfectly comfortable living out of cardboard boxes on your bedroom floor for a while and eating at a card table, so that you can afford something else you want more desper-ately.

A plan is personal and can be flexible. For example, if a sofa is number one on your list and a coffee table is number five, you can switch things around if you find a wonderful coffee table before settling on the perfect sofa. Just keep in mind that you might have to buy the sofa to fit the coffee table rather than the other way around.

Do It Yourself
Painting and wallpapering are two things most people can do themselves, and it will save a great deal of money. In fact, painting is the quickest and cheapest way to transform a room and give it personality before adding a stick of furniture.

Saving by Sewing
Another do-it-yourself project is sewing. If you can sew a straight line on a sewing machine, you’ll be able to make simple curtains, throw pillows, table covers, seat cushions, duvet covers and possibly slipcovers. All of these add real impact to a room, and, if you make them yourself, you have control over the cost, depending on the fabrics you choose. In fact, if you can sew, you can use better fabric than you might be able to afford in a ready- or custom-made item.

Help for Do-It-Yourselfers
The more you can do yourself, the more you’ll free up your budget for things you can’t make. Even if you feel all thumbs, don’t dismiss this idea. More and more manufacturers are addressing homeowners’ needs with products that make doing things yourself quite carefree and easy. They provide all sorts of help in the form of 24-hour, toll-free hotlines, Internet numbers for their Web sites, and booklets and pamphlets at point of purchase. Pick up all those freebies at home centers and stick them in the pockets of your notebook.

Inexpensive wicker furniture is widely available in places like Pier 1 Imports and discount stores. It’s great for an extra room because it’s light and movable. It can also do double duty. For example, two wicker chairs with seat cushions, a coffee table and end tables will look just as good in a bedroom, a den or a porch. A wicker trunk can be outfitted with a glass top and serve as a coffee or end table, and it’s perfect for storage if space is tight. It’s also easy to spray paint wicker in a color of your choice.

Cardboard dressers, used primarily for storing off-season clothes and not meant for everyday use, can be terrific for a guest room. Modular cubes made of particle board can be painted, covered with contact paper, wallpaper or fabric, and arranged to hold sweaters, shoes and small items. The top becomes a surface on which to place a lamp, clock and other incidentals. Two cubes, one on top of the other, on each side of the bed create a comfortable height for night tables. You’ll find them in home centers and discount catalogs.

Director’s chairs with brightly colored canvas seats to match the room decor solve a space problem. They are comfortable and can easily be folded away when not needed. Perhaps this is why, after all these years, they are still so popular.

Commonly used clamps
The most common clamp in the workshop is the G- (C-) clamp. This is a general-purpose tool that is available with a variety of throat sizes. It may be used on its own or in conjunction with others when, for example, working on the surface of a wide board or holding boards together for gluing.

The sash clamp was specifically designed for assembling window frames, or sashes, but it is also often used when edge-jointing boards to form large panels for table tops and similar items.

Sometimes, it is useful to be able to apply a clamp with one hand while holding the workpiece in the other, which is when the singlehanded clamp conies into its own. It works on a simple ratchet system, rather like a mastic (caulking) gun.

For picture framing and heavier items with 45-degree mitres at the corners, there is the mitre clamp. This can be quite a complex affair with screw handles or a very simple clothes-peg (pin) type arrangement, that is applied very quickly.

Special-purpose clamps
There are many of these, but one that the do-it-yourself enthusiast may find useful is the cam clamp, which is wooden with cork faces. This is a quickly operated clamp often used by musical instrument makers. Its advantages are its speed in use, its lightness and its simplicity. The cam clamp is ideal for small holding jobs around the home, although it cannot exert a great deal of pressure.

Another useful standby is the web, frame or strap clamp. This is perfect for holding unusually-shaped items, which can be pulled together from a single point.

They are most commonly used to join coopered work, such as barrels and casks, or multi-faceted shapes such as hexagons or octagons used in decorative frames and mirrors. The components to be joined usually lie flat on a horizontal surface.

Clamps in use
Apply pressure to a joint or the assembly you are working on as soon as possible after gluing – make a habit of preparing everything you need in advance. Keep a box of small scraps of wood handy and use them to protect the surface of the work. It is often said that you can never have too many clamps, and you will soon start collecting a selection of different types and sizes to suit all kinds of assembly technique. Many of these you can make yourself.

Practical tips
- Do not be tempted to release clamps too quickly. Be patient, allowing plenty of drying time for the glue.
- Think through the sequence for the clamping process and make sure you have enough clamps to hand before you apply any glue. You may decide you need another person to help.

Aside from installing shelves in the closet, there are inexpensive storage solutions for just about anything you want to put away. Several specialty mail-order catalogs and stores are devoted to making your life incredibly organized.

Bookcases offer storage space for certain items that fit neatly onto narrow shelves. For example, use plastic sweater boxes, hat boxes or baskets to hold underwear, scarves and socks on shelves.

Place a divider screen across a dead corner of the room to conceal a clothes tree, a large wicker hamper, plastic milk crates for holding shoes or sweats, or an ugly dresser. Attach hooks to the back of the screen for hanging clothes. Building in shelves around a window might be the perfect way to create an interesting display area, as well as adding architectural interest to the room. A window seat with a lift-up top is another building project that can be good-looking and practical. If building even a small project isn’t in the plan, consider a trunk. If it has a flat top, like a toy box, for example, it can also be used as a bench at the end of the bed or under a window. A fabric-covered foam cushion and a loose pillow would make this item ideal for sitting and storing.

Cover an inexpensive, round composition board table (they come in various sizes) with a quilt, full length table cover or a blanket, topped with a lovely linen square. Use this as a night table on one side of the bed; the concealed area under the table is perfect for unsightly storage. The top will hold much more than an ordinary-size end table and it will look quite elegant.

Office supply catalogs and art stores can be great sources for storage units that might not be obvious for use in a bedroom. For example, a little taboret unit on rollers called a “Boby” is used in art studios. The drawers swing out and there are shelves and all sorts of storage space packed neatly into the 18- x 18-inch unit. It’s extremely versatile and compact. Hobbyists have discovered it for sewing equipment and other tools, but it can be used in the bedroom or stored inside a closet.

Looking Up and Down
There’s always room at the top. Run a deep shelf across one entire wall of the room, as high as you can comfortably reach. Line the shelf with laundry baskets or other good-looking large containers for storage. They should all be identical in order not to look messy or cluttered. Add a shelf above the door for holding books or collectibles.

Don’t forget the area under the bed. Keeping in mind the height of the frame, find cardboard storage boxes to hold out-of-season clothes. Custom bed frames and even high-end box springs made by Slumberland come equipped with a deep drawer. Consider purchasing such a bed if space and storage are limited.

The things you use the least—out-of-season clothes, extra blankets, old tax records, and memorabilia you want to save but not necessarily display—should be the least accessible. If they are put away in boxes under the bed or on a top shelf of the closet, be sure to label the outside, as most people tend to forget what is out of sight. Plastic storage containers can eliminate a lot of guesswork if you want to know at a glance what you’re storing.

Modular Units
It’s easy to build a wall of storage with identical-size cubes. These units are sold separately so you can create your own custom storage system to fit anywhere. A tall, narrow tower of shelves, for example, can stand alone or become the basis for an entire wall of storage. You will also find cubes that hold adjustable shelves and vertical dividers. Whether you need storage space to hold your media equipment or clothes, a modular shelving unit makes sense and can be quite attractive. An entire wall unit filled with books would be practical as well as good-looking.

If you know anything about the Eastern philosophy of feng shui, you know that the placement of furniture can bring harmony to every aspect of your life. Where better to employ this philosophy than in the bedroom? Supposedly, you can bring energy to your life as well as find inner peace just by placing your furniture in certain relationships to each other and the room. Rumor has it that even Donald Trump called in a feng shui adviser for one of his Manhattan buildings.

The main thrust of feng shui is that you can create an environment within your home that relates to the natural order of the universe. If you’re curious, it can’t hurt to consider some of the principles of this traditional Chinese school of thought. For example, concern with compass direction is important to feng shui practitioners. They profess that positioning your bed so that you can see the sun rise will do wonders for your morning attitude. Further, they suggest, never put your bed underneath a window; if possible, the head of the bed should face north or east, but should not be directly opposite the door.

Once you have the ideal aesthetic and spiritual location for the bed, the rest is easy. Night tables on each side should be large enough to hold your “stuff” and high enough to be comfortable. They don’t have to match. In fact, you might use small dressers as side tables if you need extra storage and don’t have room for a larger bureau. Or, use a small desk on one side of the bed with an occasional chair. If lamps aren’t attached to the wall, they should be high enough for reading without shining in your eyes.

Decide where you will keep your clothes. It might be a dresser or armoire, but if you don’t have enough room for another large piece of furniture, you can design and outfit your closet with shelves for efficient storage of bulky items. Once you’ve figured out where to put the essentials, you’ll know how much room you have left for the extras.

Even a small, cast-off wooden chair is better than none in the bedroom. While you might be the neatest person in the world, you need a place to toss your clothes at night, or for holding a bathrobe or the laundry you don’t have time to fold and put away. Find a corner to hold a charming little chair. This is an item that’s easy to find, either old or new, for little money. If there’s room for a comfortable easy chair or a chaise longue, all the better. Know your priorities and plan accordingly.

Other items that work well in a bedroom and don’t take up much space are a quilt rack, a full-length mirror, a floor lamp and a television stand.