Decorating is a deciding problem more than a taste problem. Most people know roughly what they like and still freeze at the moment of choice: which colour, what goes where, why the room feels wrong despite everything in it being nice. Using Claude as an interior design advisor is useful precisely there, because the thing it is good at is reasoning out loud - naming the direction, explaining why a palette works, and telling you what is actually wrong with the layout.
Stella is the skill that does it properly. She is an interior design persona you load once into Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI chat, and the difference is specificity. "A warm neutral" is not advice. "Farrow & Ball Elephant's Breath, which reads as a warm grey with slightly pink undertones in a south-facing room and cooler in a north-facing one" is advice you can act on this afternoon.
Paint colours by brand and name with the undertone explained, furniture sized to your room's actual dimensions, the three-layer lighting fix, and rental-friendly options where you cannot change anything permanent.
View Stella →The difference between vague and useful
Ask a bare chatbot for help with a north-facing living room and you get a paragraph about warm neutrals, natural textures and layering. All true, all useless, because none of it tells you what to buy or what to paint. The gap is specificity, and specificity is what a loaded skill enforces.
| Generic answer | Answer you can act on |
|---|---|
| "Go for a warm neutral." | A named colour from Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Dulux or Benjamin Moore, with the undertone explained and how it shifts in your room's light. |
| "Add a rug to define the space." | The rug size for your configuration, and whether the front legs of the sofa sit on it or all four do. |
| "Improve the lighting." | The three-layer system applied to your room: what ambient, task and accent each mean here, which fixtures, and what bulb temperature. |
| "Hang some art." | Centre height, spacing for a group, and what to do when the wall has a radiator or an awkward alcove under it. |
What it actually covers
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Style direction | Help articulating the aesthetic you are circling around - Scandinavian, Japandi, maximalist, industrial, coastal, mid-century - from examples or descriptions, plus a written brief you can take shopping or to a professional |
| Colour | Room-specific palettes with named paints, undertone explanations, how north versus south-facing light changes the same colour, accent guidance, and colour flow between adjoining rooms |
| Layout | Placement for flow and function, furniture sized against your room's real dimensions, zoning in open-plan spaces, and fixes for low ceilings, odd proportions and awkward alcoves |
| Furniture and materials | Durability against looks, budget and premium routes to the same effect, mixing eras without it reading as an accident, and where an investment piece is genuinely worth it |
| Lighting | Ambient, task and accent applied room by room, bulb temperature, fixture types, and the single-overhead-light problem that makes most rooms feel flat |
| Finishing | Rug sizing rules, artwork height and grouping, curtains against blinds against shutters, textile layering, shelf styling, plants, and rental-friendly versions of all of it |
The one fix that changes most rooms
If a room feels flat and slightly unwelcoming and you cannot say why, it is usually lit by one bulb in the middle of the ceiling. A single overhead source throws light down from one point, flattens everything, and puts the corners in shadow. The standard fix is three layers: ambient for the general level, task where you actually read or cook, accent to give the room depth at the edges. Two lamps and a dimmable bulb will change a room more than a new sofa, and cost about one per cent as much.
That is the kind of answer the skill gives by default - a named cause and a cheap fix - rather than suggesting you rethink the space.
The prompt to start with
You can test the behaviour before buying anything. Paste this and fill in the brackets:
Act as an interior design advisor. Before giving me any advice, ask me for anything you need that is missing below. Never answer with vague adjectives. My room: [size, which way the windows face, ceiling height] What is in it: [furniture, flooring, anything that cannot move] Constraints: [budget, rental or owned, radiators, alcoves, pets] What is wrong: [what I do not like, in my own words] When you answer: - Name specific paint colours by brand and shade, and say what the undertone does in my light. - Give furniture dimensions, not just types. - Separate what I can do this weekend from what needs money or a tradesperson. - Tell me the single change that will make the biggest difference, and why. - Say when something needs seeing in person rather than guessing.
That gets you most of the way. The skill adds the parts a prompt does not carry: the colour and undertone knowledge, the sizing rules, the lighting system, and the habit of asking about your constraints before recommending anything.
What to check before you commit
- Test the paint in your own room. Buy the sample pot. Paint a large square, look at it in morning light and at night. No description of an undertone survives contact with your actual windows.
- Do not trust a colour on a screen. Your monitor, your phone and the retailer's photography all disagree. The colour name is the useful part, not the swatch you are looking at.
- Measure before you buy. Sizing advice is only as good as the numbers you gave it. Measure the room and the piece, and tape the footprint out on the floor.
- Electrics and structure need a professional. Moving a light fitting, taking out a wall, anything touching wiring: that is a qualified tradesperson, not a chat.
- Check your tenancy before painting. If you rent, the rental-friendly options exist for a reason. Ask first.
Why a skill rather than a saved prompt
A room is never a single question. You ask about the living room, then a week later about the hallway it opens onto, then about whether the kitchen can take the same green. A loaded skill keeps the decisions you have already made, so the advice for the second room is consistent with the first instead of starting from nothing. Colour flow between adjoining spaces is a real design problem and it only exists across a conversation.
Who this is for
Anyone stuck partway through a room, renters who cannot change much, people furnishing a first place from scratch, and anyone about to spend real money and wanting a second opinion first. It runs in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot - anywhere you can paste a system prompt. The life admin collection holds 69 skills for the rest of the household, and the travel, food and home collection another 34.
Quite often the room does not need decorating, it needs emptying. Astrid handles the decluttering and the storage decisions that come before any of the design advice is worth acting on.
View Astrid →Related Skill Guides
Stella - Interior Design Advisor AI Skill
One file. Named paint colours with the undertone explained, furniture sized to your room, the lighting fix, and a straight answer about what to do first. Written advice, not room renders.
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