Room by room
Practical guides to improving, furnishing and finishing a home — kitchens and interiors, gardens and outdoor rooms, keeping the place safe, and the small decisions that make a room work.
What an interior designer does, and what the work pays An interior designer specifies the materials, layout, lighting and furnishings of a built space and is typically trained in space planning, building…
Homeowner sets a fixed budget (e.g. $10,000) A $10,000 budget buys a cosmetic refresh, not a gut renovation. That figure covers new…
Room has little natural light A north-facing window, a spot more than a few feet back from any window, or a room…
Homeowner sets a fixed budget (e.g. $10,000) Ten thousand dollars buys a surface-level refresh, not a new floor plan. At this budget,…
Doors and drawer fronts look dated or damaged while the cabinet boxes are still sound If the doors are chipped, warped, or…
Free tool · runs in your browser
Put in the size of the room and how many coats you want, and it works out how much paint to buy — with the doors and windows taken off, and rounded up to whole tins with a little spare.
Open the calculatorWhat you’ll get
Corrections & suggestions
Products change, and what works in a small flat does not always work in an old house. If a guide is out of date, or there is a room or a job you would like us to write up, the editorial team would like to hear about it.
