Stand in the doorway to your room and decide how you want your room to present. What do you want to notice first about the room? How are you going to use the room? How many people would you like to accommodate in the room? Where do you want your TV or where is there provision for it? Will it be easily visible from all seating? Will the positioning of your seating look inviting? When it comes to colour, do you want a room that looks fresh and cool or one that is warm and cosy? This will dictate your colour scheme as well as the natural lighting in the room. The room shown appears to take inspiration from the painting which is a very good way to start a colour scheme, but you can always work in reverse and find artwork that compliments and enhances the room. Once your have some direction, go shopping with your camera phone and take photos of anything that interests you. Collect sample colours where possible and gradually build your room. Don't buy anything until you have the major items decided - we can be very restricted in choices, and an impulse buy can end a disaster. It will all come together, it just takes time and patience.

Old post but thought I'd update. We have finally moved into our forever home and on occasions, obviously in winter, we still have crying window (sob). We have the wet windows on the south side of the home which is the shady side so not unexpected but also on the north side where we still get lovely warm winter sunlight streaming in and I still do have all my windows slightly cracked open and it does help. Incidentally I have glass bricks in our bathroom on the south side and there is no condensation on this window at all. Our home has insulation in both the exterior and interior walls and we have double insulation in our roof, so factor 7 unlike the usual factor 3.5 not that it probably has any bearing on the moisture issue. We have a 1.8mtr wide veranda surrounding the entire home so the windows are some what protected from the elements but when the temperature gets fairly low and can be almost zero in winter, it seems impossible to prevent this crying window sindrome but I can live with the fact it is fairly easy and quick to remove with a Karcher window vac now, brilliant little machine at $99 and it only takes a few minutes. We have an exhaust fan in both bathrooms that is vented outside so the moist air does not go into the roof space and in fact even my rangehood ducting is vented outside too!! We even had condensation in the roof cavity as well to the point of having a rainforest up there but since fitting another whirlie into the roof making it three in total now, it appears to have almost entirely eradicated that problem. I can say catagorically now that crying windows are a very difficult problem to eradicate in very cold climates where obviously the inside of the home being heated at night is going to create the perfect conditions for the condensation to settle with the inside being far wamer than the outside and there in lies the problem which canot be changed. I have blinds and curtains that I close ever day before dark but it makes no difference. As I have aluminium windows and doors throughout, so no timber anywhere, it isn't such an issue for damage but annoying none the less but life goes on and I do so love my beautiful new home!!

Having been raised in an era when TV was invented we ended up eating in front of it with dinner on lap. When I had my own family the rule was made that we ate at dining table no TV on, because that's how the Brady Bunch, My three sons, Little House on the Praire all did it. And we've done that ever since, in summer on patio and winter inside, but we all sit down together. I'm lucky out jobs and lives enable this to happen.

we have a "cosy cottage" style house where we have dormer windows in the 2 bedrooms upstairs with timber cathedral ceilings. Causing some problems with having wardrobes for clothes storage. In our spare bedroom downstairs we solved this problem by installing a built in wardrobe with mirrored sliding doors. This room is right beside the bathroom so it works really well as a dressing room.