There are many ways to go about improving your home. A pleasant side-effect of these improvements is that if you ever wish to move on to a new home and sell your old one, the value of the property may well have increased with the improvements made.
The initial mistake of many couples is to simply blast ahead, replacing things as it comes to them with whatever looks good. Your first steps must be to look at the room and imagine what you would like as an end result. What type of color schemes would you like for the room, which direction will the armchairs face, what limitations are there?
Some of the easiest home improvement you can do is replacing things around the house that act almost purely aesthetically. For example, curtains, bedding quilts, cushions. It is not expensive to do - unless you have designer tastes - and does not require any experience with carpentry or joinery or any similar work.
Rushing never solved anything and a decision that might seem great on the fly, may come back to haunt you in the end. The end result of unplanned renovation will be a room with no coordination, mismatched colors and furnishings. Try to see your end result before you do anything else and imagine what your room could become. Perhaps you could replace the sofa with some armchairs or move the television so that the room flows in a different direction.
Making your own designs is nice method for some, as their own personal touch will go a long way in making a happy environment. One good choice is to use computer software to aid in the pre-production of a planned design.
Never wing it when redesigning a room because you will most likely end up with a room that does not live up to your expectations. The first thing you should do is try to visulize what you like from the room and what is possible, such as where your arm chairs will go or what kind of carpet you like. You sometimes will just have to face facts and see that some things are not possible, whether it's the structural limitations or a budget limit.
Ultimately, you're likely doing it for one of two reasons, either to improve your living standard or to increase your home's worth and after the job is done, it's another one to tick off the list and take that burden off your back.
Finally , it is you who is living with the design. So, try to learn about what options you have and what you like before going down the road of no return and changing your mind half way through about the armchairs or something else. If all turns out well, then treat the whole process as a positive experience and see if you could redesign another room, perhaps trying new things out.