According to many professionals , an excellent way to begin with planning your dream kitchen or bathroom is to purchase an interior design magazine or two.

Naturally, you can get a lot of great ideas from the internet too, and at zero cost.

You should compare styles and features of bathrooms or kitchens and the various gadgets and accessories. Choosing a colour scheme comes much later.

Cut out pictures of kitchens or bathrooms that you like as well as pictures that you don?t. Separate these pictures in to like and don?t like piles. Do the same for the accessories and equipment. Make up a collage of pictures so that you end up with two boards full of ideas. When you then meet with a kitchen planner or bathroom designer you now have a great way of summarising what you like and what you don?t like.

A great way of keeping the family occupied for a while, certainly a quality time together thing, is to get all the family to take part in making your ideas boards.

Functionality should play a major part in your design. For example If you are chopping up vegetables, you won?t want to have to walk backwards and forwards across your kitchen space to place said legumes into the cooking pot and put the peelings in the garbage. Think about how you will move about your new room and what you ? and others - will be doing in it.

Armed with your theme boards of likes and don?t likes, your kitchen or bathroom expert will have an instant idea of what you are looking for and what to avoid and so can quickly make suggestions as to what they have available.

Bear in mind that what looks good in an advertisement may not be practical for your home due to the space and existing lighting and electrical points. Want to save money? then try and make as few major changes as possible to the physical positioning of electrical points, taps and drainage.

Lighting and space will play a big part too. The images that you collect may look amazing but you need to be realistic. The images shown on advertisements usually feature large rooms with open to the skies type lighting, so how will this translate to your small room with a tiny window?

Get your kitchen designer or bathroom planner to produce two or three 3-D plans for you, each with a different theme or set of furnishings or layout. When you see one you like, it is at this point you can choose colour schemes and tiling that match the style that you have chosen. Then you just have to pay for it all!