Home designer revamped housing by following pointers (5,7)

'pointers' is the definition.
(fingers used to point at things)

'home designer revamped housing by following' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'home' could be 'in' ('he's home' can mean 'he's in') and 'in' is found in the answer.
'by' could be 'x' (multiplication sign) and 'x' is found within the answer.
'following' could be 'f' (used when citing page numbers etc) and 'f' is located in the answer.
an anagram of 'designer' is 'deingers' which is located in the left over letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?