An Old Living Room Meets Its End: Amazing Modern Design using Photoshop

Thinking about updating your living room? Take a moment to design it first. You won’t regret it.

There are some great digital ways to design that can save you time and money, such as rendering.

If you are a visual person like myself, there is no better way to communicate an idea than visualizing it in an image. Rendering is the best instrument an interior designer has to show a design coming to life in an image.

In this post, I’m sharing with you the steps into the virtual design process with some Photoshop and Interior Design tricks.

The ‘before’ picture

Having a picture of the room you want to design will make things much easier. Even if you don’t have the exact measurements of the room, a picture will help with the size of the furniture you will be adding in place. Also, you can grab the actual architectural details of the room from it.

The client needs

The client requirements are the foundations for the new design. The more specific, the better.

The importance of understanding the client, getting to know their needs, will make the design good and accurate. At this step, you can use some pictures of “inspiration” that could be helpful for both parts. Below is the list of needs for this project and the inspirational pictures:

• Contemporary look
• Neutral color scheme
• No need for a TV in this room

Designing a Mood Board

A design board or mood board is an arrangement of images that creates a visual presentation to approach the client’s needs. It is the very first design step involved in the process.

A board brings a sense of how the most important pieces will function together. You don’t need to work yet with the actual pieces, you can pick other pictures with a similar look.

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Living room rendering

I use Adobe Photoshop for all the renderings. It is the most flexible tool for manipulating images that you can find.

Following you can find the four steps to create the living room rendering.

1. Clearing out the room

With your ‘before’ picture as your base, the first thing to do is clear out the whole room, leaving only the architectural elements the room is keeping.

2. Preparing the room

The next steps are adding molding (if necessary), painting the room with the actual colors, and adding the floors.

If using Photoshop, setting the walls as smart objects will allow you to design the wall without using any perspective. Then you can place the wall in perspective, with everything that has on it.

There you go! You have your exact room, but upgraded as the client wants it, and all empty.

3. Adding the furniture in perspective

Blank sheet syndrome? No worries, you have the mood board.

A quick insight into Interior Design: when designing a room you need to consider two sides. One is your client’s needs, the other one is the room’s layout. The second one will determine how to bring in most of your client’s needs.

Drawing perspective lines and using the old furniture placing will be essential for adding the new furniture in perspective.

4. Finalizing the 3D rendering

In this project, the new focal point is the triple french door that leads to the backyard. Also, the fireplace has been dressed up, carrying your eye up to the ceiling. On the opposite wall, a tapestry makes the room feel balanced.

If you would like to go deeper into this topic, check out my article How to give a room a designer feel that explains how carrying the eye from the floor to the ceiling, and to the opposite wall, will help to achieve a balanced look.

Final thoughts

The outcome of these steps is a mood board and a 3D rendering. These are the ‘deliverables’ for the client. E-design is a great opportunity to work virtually with anyone in the world since all the collaboration can be made online!

Not sure how to complete a rendering or which would be the best layout for your room? Get in touch! I’d love to hear from you.