The one thing I always do before designing a room

The one thing I always do before designing a room

I used to think I decorated by instinct. But I've come to realise there’s something I always take note of before choosing a colour, a fabric, or even the furniture.

Kate Watson-Smyth

Nov 04, 2026

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When I was planning my online course for

Create Academy

,

the platform’s producers wanted me to write down my design process, so they could break it down into a series of chapters. Meanwhile, when I co-hosted

The Great Indoors

podcast with Sophie Robinson she would often talk about the precise steps she took in creating each room, and ask me for my own methodology.

I have always been slightly embarrassed to admit that I don’t actually

have

a linear process. For me, designing a space has always felt more like instinct. If pushed, I would say weakly that I just have a feeling of how the room should be.

This is a long post so you can either read directly in the Substack app or click either “view in browser” at the top of the email or, for Gmail readers, go to the end and hit “view entire message”.

But after putting together a series of before-and-after

Instagram

posts on the house in Italy last week, I realised that there

is

something I always do before I go anywhere near a paint chart or a layout plan, or even a specific piece of furniture.

Instead of asking what I want the finished room to look like, I start by working out what it

already has

. And then I decide how to enhance (or mitigate) that. In my

Mad About The House Planner

I referr to this as the “Love, Lust, Loathe” list.

It’s about understanding if there is a great feature: a shaft of sunlight that falls through the window where you could put a chair, the perfect spot for the picture you’ve been dreaming of - or conversely, an ugly fireplace that you definitely want to rip out and replace.

The rest of this post is for paid subscribers. This is where you really learn how to make the most of your own space, so that it inspires, supports and nourishes your soul. And all homes should do that. Come and join us - and in addition to an extra weekly post, you also gain access to my monthly Drop-in Design Clinic on Zoom, where you can bring me your decorating dilemmas and we will chat them through.

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