Decorating & Design
Solve Your Biggest Design Dilemmas With Ask A Designer™
Updated on January 31, 2025

House & Home is here to help solve your design dilemmas. Each month we select one question to answer. Whether you’re tackling a kitchen design conundrum during a kitchen renovation, or just want to know how to best arrange your living room furniture, we’ve got the sound advice you need to help resolve tricky design challenges.
SEND YOUR PICTURES AND QUESTIONS TO [email protected].
Tips For Submission
To increase the likelihood that we will choose your question and to help us offer the best solution for your question, please read and follow these guidelines carefully:
- Include your name, city, province or state.
- Include floor plans, if available, plus photographs of rooms, furniture, samples of tile, fabric or existing room features (see Photo Tips below). We can receive emails including up to 10 MB in digital attachments.
- Include measurements of rooms and/or furniture you are asking about.
- Include website links to products you might be considering or already own.
- If your question refers to an existing paint color, please include the color name and manufacturer, if available.
Photo Tips
Our ability to answer your question effectively and which questions we select often depends on the photos you send. Photos that are bright, clear and in-focus are a big help. Here’s how to get great “before” shots so that we can help you get them worthy of “after” shots.
- Use the best quality digital camera you can.
- Stand back and to get as much of the room in your photo as possible.
- Hold the camera straight so the lens is completely vertical. A trick to know if you are doing this is to check if the room’s vertical elements (a window edge, doorway, corner) appear straight up and down in your photo.
- It’s best to take photos during daylight with all window treatments open and your camera flash off. Turn overhead lights and any other lamps off.
- Clear away clutter so we can see the furniture and other room elements (rooms look best if the beds are made and the toilet seat is down), and please don’t include people or pets in your photos.
- Try not to take photos with the camera directly facing a window (see our sample shot below as an example of common mistakes to avoid). The natural exterior light will overpower the interior and cast it into dark shadow. Instead, point your camera on an angle away from the window toward one side or the other of the room.
- These “before” photos may be published in House & Home magazine and/or its affiliates.
Send your question and supporting attachments at [email protected] or send by regular mail, addressed to:
Ask A Designer™
c/o House & Home
354 Davenport Rd., Unit G1
Toronto, Ont.
M5R 1K6
We look forward to your submissions, although we regret that we cannot reply to all of the letters that we receive personally.
Thank you!