Instead, the living room is often the little showpiece of the house – immaculately presented but not very comfortable. This is an understandable mistake many households make when designing their houses. But in truth, living rooms are for living. They’re designed to be our leisure spaces – a room where we relax, talk, read, watch TV, play computer games, take a nap, enjoy a drink- whatever. So they should reflect that leisure and be fun and relaxed places to be. Furnishings should be designed for comfort rather than formality or to impress visitors.

So, for example, coffee tables you don’t mind people putting their feet up on now and again in a solid wood rustic style do far more to make people feel relaxed and at home in a living room than do the more formal polished versions that you’re terrified of scratching – or of putting a drink down on for fear of marking them.

If you are lucky enough to have a small room in the house that you can designate as the real “living room” then this can be a good solution. A small lounge where you crash to watch a little TV and that has a nicely worn-in feel about it that you don’t care overly much about preserving is simply a fun place to, well …, lounge!

And the furniture needn’t be expensive. Take a look at the discount living room furniture for sale at http://www.furnishinghomes.co.uk and you’ll quickly find some great ideas that don’t cost the earth, in solid oak that have a great natural feel and will help turn the heart of your home into its true purpose; a room for lounging and living in!

There’s nothing wrong with using patterns in your home decorating, as long as you don’t overdo it. Take the time to plan out a room before you go ahead and buy wallpaper or furniture, and decide where you’re going to put the patterns and what you’re going to complement them with. Use patterns as an accent or feature, rather than having them as the main focus.

For example, you could decide that you’d rather keep the furniture plain and decorate one wall with some interesting patterned wallpaper. But there are lots of sofas out there today that have some really great patterned fabrics. If you find one you really like, and think you’ll enjoy having in your home for the next five years, then perhaps that’s where to make your decorative statement.

You need to consider what will wear best, things like sofas and chairs, or the walls and flooring. Most people would change their furniture more frequently than the carpet, so it makes sense to keep the carpets plain. And it’s quick and easy to repaint or repaper a wall, and less costly than changing the sofa suite, so you could choose to experiment with patterns on your walls.

Leather sofas are often very smart and suit many different decorating styles. You can choose from a whole range of colours, so you could make your statement with a red leather sofa, for example, rather than patterns. Again, this is a purchase you should feel pretty sure about, as it’s quite an investment to buy a leather sofa that you only like for a short period.

If you love patterns but don’t want to commit to something that might be difficult to live with in the future, then the best thing to do is to accessorise with patterns. Pick cushions or a rug with a bold colour and pattern and keep everything else fairly neutral. Or go wild with your curtains and see how you feel. If you don’t like them, it’s not such a big deal to change them compared to buying a whole new sofa suite.

One way round this is to keep the main choices very neutral and to accessorise your room in such a way that you can easily give it a new look just by changing the details.

To do this, you need to choose a colour for the walls that will go with everything and it’s here is that the old favourites like ‘Magnolia’ or cream or light beige come in really handy. Against your light colour walls, pick out some beautiful but timeless pieces of furniture. The danger of choosing something that’s very much in fashion today is that it may not stand the test of time.

Solid wooden furniture is always a safe choice as it has a classic look to it. Avoid really ornate pieces, as you may find them overwhelming after a while. Many bedroom furniture ranges offer a one-stop solution as you can choose beds, chests of drawers, dressing tables and wardrobes all from the same collection, adding to that uniformity which will give you a great base to accessorise on.

Oak is a great choice as it comes in so many different styles – both contemporary and traditional. You can also get oak furniture ranges in a number of different shades and finishes. Have a look for oak wardrobes and beds online and you’ll soon see the wide variety that’s available.

As for the details, you might want to go big on pillows and pile the bed with all different colour pillows and cushions. Alternatively, hang a beautiful quilt on the wall and choose complementary colours for your bed linen. You can tie the room together by choosing some bright and colourful curtains that coordinate with other fabrics in the room.

And if, in a year or so, you feel like a change, it’s no big deal. Take all the accessories out and move them to the guest room, leaving you free to put a new and different finishing touch on your bedroom.

Because they are fast approaching teenage years, your child at this age will want their own space and to express their personality, no more so than in the way they choose to decorate their bedroom. But before you panic, with visions of rooms painted goth black or shocking pink swimming before your eyes, don’t despair. There are ways to help your child express themselves through their bedroom without completely ruining your home.

Many girls approaching this age will want space for getting ready in the morning and for general cosmetic beautifying, so consider shopping for dressing tables with your daughter. If you let your children choose key pieces of furniture for their own rooms it will give them the sense of independence they crave at this age and allow them to make their own mark on their rooms.

As your children approach teenage-hood they are also likely to want to spend more time away from the family and in their own room; sad but true and a normal part of growing up. Consider shopping for oak TV units so that your child can watch TV in their room if they wish to do so. Obviously this requires a level of trust if there are certain programmes you wouldn’t want your child to watch, so ground rules would need to be set. However, what can be viewed on television these days pales into insignificance when compared with what can be accessed on the internet and via mobile phones, so if anything needs to be thought about carefully it is probably whether computers should be saved for shared family rooms only and whether a mobile phone package should have limited or restricted internet access.

Allowing your children to choose their own furniture for their rooms will allow them to both feel independent and as though they are able to express their personalities, which will be of benefit to both them and you.

When purchasing fixtures and fittings for your bathroom, such as Mira Shower from Mira Showers, pop a tub of grout into your shopping basket. Re-grouting is another cheap way of giving tiles that have seen better days a fresh look. Scrape out as much of the old grout as possible (you can do this with a grout removal tool from the DIY shop or make your own out of an old hacksaw blade) to start with. Then re-grout, smoothing the grout between the tiles with an old lolly stick.

Another way to save money to buy Showers from Mira and other bathroom furniture, is to replace cracked tiles rather than re-tiling whole areas. You will need to wear safety glasses for this project. Drill a hole in the middle of the damaged tile and chisel it out, along with old grout, to give a flat surface, working from the centre outwards. Then replace and re-grout. If you can’t find matching tiles, replace with tiles in contrasting colours or patterns which pick out the colour of the other tiles.

If you do decide to retile your bathroom, look for cheap tiles in discount warehouses, factory shops and online. Factory outlets often have overstock in perfect condition, as well as seconds. Remember the ever so true mantra: “Cheap tiles; expensive taps.”

Of course, it depends what kind of project you have in mind, but for the absolute novice decorator, a good start is painting a room.

All you need is a few brushes and rollers, the paint colours of your choice and a couple of days’ time available. It’s a good idea to cover up well with dust sheets, so that you avoid splashes that you then have to get off furniture and floor coverings. Once you’ve tried one room, you’ll get the confidence to move around the house. For that reason it’s a good idea to start with a small room like the downstairs cloakroom.

When you’ve gained a bit of DIY confidence, you can move onto bigger projects like sanding floors. There’s nothing complicated about this, but be warned that it’s a really messy job and it can be exhausting and noisy work.

You’ll need to hire a sander and get different grades of sanding paper. Clear the room completely and tape doors to other rooms as the dust from sanding gets everywhere. Once you have a clear workspace, you should assess the state of the boards and make any necessary repairs. You can fill any gaps with slivers of wood that you glue into the gaps. Make sure all boards are screwed down tightly to joists.

When you start sanding, begin by working across the room diagonally with the roughest grade paper. Then cross in the other direction. As you take the layers of grime away, you’ll be able to switch to medium grade paper and then follow the directions of the boards. Get rid of the dust as you go, so you can see where you’re up to.

Once you’ve used the finest grades your floor will almost be finished. Then you’ll need to walk on it with stockinged feet until you get a protective layer of varnish or wax down on it. If you’re varnishing it, leave it for at least 24 hours after the drying time before putting any heavy furniture like a dining table and chairs back in the room.

When you’ve completed a project such as sanding a floor, you’ll be able to give yourself a pat on the back and perhaps you’ll want to splash out on some new furniture from the Harveys living room furniture sale to complement your beautiful sanded floor!