Decorating your home can be a difficult task if creativity and design aren’t your forte. There are a variety of ways decorating can go wrong in any room. While some bad design choices can be forgiven, these common decorating faux pas can really destroy the look of a room. Luckily, each of these decorating mishaps can easily be fixed. Here’s eight decorating mistakes you’re probably making – and what to do about it.
Focusing on the TV
We all love a good binge-watching session, but your living room has so many other uses besides enjoying your favorite shows. Instead of designing your room around your television, think about ways you can arrange your room that is stylish and thoughtful first. Then, look for a way to incorporate the TV into the design.
Picking the Wrong Paint Color
One of the worst mistakes you can make when decorating a room is to pick the wrong paint color, but there is an easy way to avoid this mistake all together. Instead of using a color swatch to decide on the color of your room, try testing a variety of shades on your walls before picking a color. This will give you a better idea of how the color will look in different lights throughout the day and give you a chance to match the wall color to the rest of the décor in the room.
If you are starting with a blank canvas and are not matching furniture, think about furniture color options. I’d even suggest going as far as online furniture shopping or going into a few showrooms to check out your color options. You’d hate to have to paint twice. Likewise, if you’re matching walls to furniture you already own, make sure that you can get a good view of your test paint on the wall next to your furniture. Do you like the combo?
Too Many Colors
While color sets your home’s tone, too many colors in your decor does not a beautiful rainbow make. In the world of design three is a magic number. Graphic designers know that more than 3 font types on a page can be overwhelming to the eye. Landscape designers will often suggest planting in groups of three. Same goes for interior designer. Two is too few when creating a grouping and four is too many. But three is just right. Designing a color scheme for a room is no different.
Too many colors in a room can be unsettling and can even detract from the purpose of the room. Bright and bold colors are invigorating and bring a unique pop of color to a room. However, too many big bold bursts of color can be overbearing. Try pairing a bold color with a neutral such as grey or white to create the perfect ying-yang.
Remember that wall color and furniture color count as two of three colors. Now, pick your accent color that works well with those two and you’ve got it made! You can use different shades of the same color to add depth to your design. But keep it simple sweetie. Too much color is too much!
Bare Windows
Natural light in a room can be an amazing thing, but that doesn’t mean you should leave your windows bare. Empty windows can make a room feel cold and uninviting, but lucky for you, window treatments are one of the easiest DIY decorating projects you can tackle. Whether you choose to hang a set of blinds on your bare windows or decide on some flowing drapes to adore the frames, adding window treatments is a simple way to improve a room’s style in an instant. window treatment trends to shed some new light on your space.
Unbalanced Furniture
Sometimes it’s difficult to determine which pieces of furniture work well together, so DIY home decorators often mismatch furniture, which makes a room feel unbalanced. To remedy this decorating mistake, be sure to balance larger piece of furniture with smaller accent pieces. In other words, even if you have a sofa with large armrests, you don’t need a big end table next to it. By balancing furniture sizes, you’ll keep the room from feeling overly crowded. On the flip side, too many small pieces of furniture can either look crowded or make you feel like a giant in a dainty doll house. The concept of balanced furniture will make the room much more dynamic and will help balance the eye as you walk into the space.
Rugs in the Wrong Size
Choosing a rug that is too small or too big for a room can instantly make a room look disproportional. To ensure a rug fits in any room, use masking tape to create an outline of where the rug will lay before purchasing it. For the best fit, make sure your rug connects to the feet of the furniture surrounding it. While a shag rug isn’t ideal for putting under the legs of the furniture, it should be placed where your feet can feel the furry warmth from the furniture.
Disorganization
So many of our homes are “decorated” with clutter, which can contribute to your daily stress as well as make your home look horrible. To make your home appear more organized, consider making use of pieces of storage that double as décor. Storage ottomans, baskets, and shelves are all great options for hidden storage in any room.
But we’re not just talking about “hiding” toys and blankets. Think about how you use each room. Where do you open your mail? Where do you plug in your electronics? Does your laptop generally stay in your office or do you bring it to the living room and work while watching romantic comedies after the kiddos are in bed? And here’s the big one… what do you do with all your kid’s school work, artwork, party invitations, etc? Paper clutter is one of the worst eye sores. But it can easily be tamed with purging and using a vertical organizer.
Too Much is Too Much
Just as too much color and unbalanced furniture can be too much for the eye, so is too much in general. In our first home, I wanted pictures of my babies everywhere I looked. I also wanted our wedding pictures, pictures of our immediate and extended families, plus decor! I had picture frames on our bookcase, a lovely collage on the wall, more pictures on our entertainment stand. Our fireplace mantel was decorated. I was determined to have a well decorated house that I had overdecorated. When we went to put our home on the market, what do you think the realtor said? Yup, family pictures needed to be taken down, our red accent wall should be repainted, and we should stage the house so other people could visualize seeing themselves live in the house.
I took down half the decor and the house just opened up. Our eyes were no longer overwhelmed with every inch of it decorated. My husband even commented, “I can’t believe how much bigger the house feels!”
Items included in this “too much is too much” category inludes: knick knacks, picture frames, kid toys (yes, there can actually be too many toys and not enough organization which is considered clutter), baskets, piles of things like paper and books and art projects. And while it’s hard to say goodbye to our “stuff”, I promise you that you’ll feel so much free-er and uncluttered by minimizing your decor.
Decorating doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. A few minor tweaks can make a big impact in a room.
