Consider what tasks you may be undertaking in each room where lighting can affect or aid you. Cooking requires more concentrated lighting, therefore a combination of bright downlights and recess lighting, in cabinets and above stove tops, is useful. For reading, flexible and directional lighting aimed away from you is better. Powder rooms require a combination of sidelights and downlights. Dimmers will quickly become your new best friend, providing an energy efficient and effective way to quickly change the atmosphere and warmth of a room.

Aside from being functional, your furniture plays an important role in supporting your theme. Some pieces may function well but their style or color may stick out like a sore thumb. Try to salvage it with slipcovers, tablecloths or paint. If it's a lost cause, remove it from the room.

Another important element of interior design where it is necessary to take infinite pains is details. Everything from the trimming on the lamp shade, the color of the piping on the scatter cushion, to the light switches and cupboard handles need attention. Unlike color people find details boring. As a result it gets neglected and skimmed over or generally left out. As color expresses the whole spirit and life of a scheme; details are just as an important underpinning of interior design. Details should not be obvious but they should be right, enhancing the overall feel of a room.

Contemporary style is based on the concept of the present, the here and now. This style is neither warm and fuzzy nor cold and harsh; it simply is. Clutter is nonexistent in a contemporary space, while the design elements of neutral, clean, smooth, and subtle reign supreme.