Interior design can be a mystery to those who are not professionals. And of course, every designer has their own set of rules and ideas gleaned over decades of work.

When setting out to furnish your first home, there seems to be a never-ending list of items you need to buy that you didn’t know you needed (i.e., a paper towel holder, towel hooks, et cetera). Before getting lost in the minutiae, outline some essentials that will make your new home feel complete, like a sofa or a great comforter. Larger items like a couch or bed frame are often more expensive, but if you spend a bit more now, you’ll probably avoid having to replace it in just a few years.

In interior design, the happy marriage between architecture and decorating, the way you look at things makes a big difference between a pleasant solution and a transformative one.

Color is another element that deserves a second look. When designing for kids or pets, I think white upholstery is best. That sounds counterintuitive, but if you think about it, white can be bleached and colors can’t; white tells you when it has to be cleaned. So why use fabrics that disguise dirt?

Proportion is the relationship of parts to a whole—for example, the legs of a chair to its back. Scale is also the relationship of that chair to the room in which it sits. A designer should not be afraid to plant large pieces of furniture in a small room.

La casa-estudio de Bèla Adler y Salvador Fresneda published in ELLE Espana