Decorate for Spring: 10 Tips from 10 Top Designers

Do a Three-Second Scan

For each room, I ask all my clients to do what I call the "Three-Second Scan."

With a pen and a small notepad, go into each room with your eyes closed. Open your eyes, and very quickly—in three short seconds—spot three objects in the room that visually bother you the most. Use that as your starting point for redecorating.

This forces you to prioritize the top things to change, rather than leaving you feeling overwhelmed with an long, taxing list. When you look at your lists from each room as a whole, a story begins to emerge, highlighting a stage or theme in your life that you are moving away from.


— Angela Min, a residential interior designer with Susan Serra Associates with more than a decade of professional experience working in New York City and the Hamptons