b'tips and tricksthe master planInterior designer and tutor Debbie Abercrombie explains howto create your renovation master plana swatch board. Whetheryourerenovatingthewholehouse,afewroomsorjustonespace, having a master plan will save you time, effort and stress. Ininteriordesignerterms,amasterplancomesintheformofaswatchboardliterally a board on which you paste samplesof the colours, materials and fabrics you aregoing to use.Debbie Abercrombie has put together thisexample,forawholehouserenovation,which will give the nished result a cohesivelook.Evenifittakesyouveyearstocompletearenovation,onceyouhavecreated your swatch board, you can keepreferring back to it to make sure you dontwander off track. While some of the original products chosenmaychange,orbecomeunavailable,youcan always nd new ones that t with therestoftheboard.Also,ifyoufeelyourtastes change slightly, you can modify theboardtosuit,withoutradicallychangingyour direction and therefore ending up witha living room renovated last year that looks completely different to the bedroom youreplanning for next year. As well as products and colours for the board,Debbie says to collect magazine clippings,product brochures and images that you like,to put in a scrapbook or le box as these can also act as a guide when collecting your samples. For example, if you nd yourselfcollecting ethnic-patterned images, you canthen ask the various fabric showrooms forcurrent examples of this style, and maybeend up with the Coyoacan fabric seen at thetop of our board. words Sharon Neweypictures Mark Heaslip40 |'