10 Home Decorating Don’ts

Here are some decorating mistakes and easy helpful ways to fix them.
1. Ignoring Scale:
Most every piece of furniture looks amazing in stores but most likely your room isn’t showroom size. Always measure your space before investing in furniture and decorate according to size.

Home department store

2. Recessed Lighting:
I think recessed lighting has been overly done and needs to stop. Great alternative, try table lamps, floor lamps and highlight artwork with picture lights. This will make the room light up better and everyone in the space. Don’t have it be your only source of light in the room!

Recessed lighting

3. Buying Matching Sets:
I have to admit that I am one to have done this in decorating but, I try mixing it up with other pieces of furniture so it doesn’t look to ‘matchy-matchy.’
So just because a store showcases a whole matching set it doesn’t mean you should buy the set. A great way to mix things up is choose a traditional sofa and mix it with modern color.

Matching furniture sets

4. Choosing paint Colors in the store:
First of all most stores have bad lighting. Try not picking a color based on the color you see in the store. Pick a few samples of small pint size you like and paint a small section of the wall. See how you like the color in the morning, mid-day and at night, if you like it then go back and buy more to complete the room.
Note: try buying paint that already has primer and paint, its a time saver.
Another thing to keep in mind is to write down the name of the samples of paint on the wall so you don’t mix up the samples.
This helps save the confusion if you have many samples.

Paint samples

5. Having an accent piece can take over a space:
Try not having too much of one thing, a little bit goes a long way. Here are some examples, animal prints are too much of a themed room. Some ways of toning it down is by adding a few pillows, throws, an area rug or one piece of furniture.

Animal print overdone

6. Not knowing when to quit:
Sometimes adding to much art and furniture in a room can make the space feel stuffy and claustrophobic. Think simplicity, try clearing out clutter and allow the room to breath.
7. Displaying greenery in small pots:
Think about plants making a statement. Having small planters cluttered together reminds me of the ’70s. A modern way of displaying plants is using a large indoor tree in a suitable pot, this will create more of a statement and update the space.

Many plants in small pots

8. To many Knickknacks:
A pet-peeve of mine is having a bunch of tchotchkes placed randomly around a space. Try editing your collection as much as possible for example, showcase a few pieces and rotate your display seasonally. Place some of your pieces in a cabinet, corner table and console table. Another great thing about rotating items is you won’t get sick of looking at them all the time.

Cluttered room

9. Hanging pictures and artwork too high / low:
This is a common mistake people do and this can be easily fixed.
A quick rule of thumb, if you have to bend your neck to look at art you know it’s hung up to high! When hanging art, remember, think eye level is typically a safe bet. Art hung too low that is placed over a piece of furniture for example, a table shouldn’t hang higher than 6 to 9 inches over the furniture. However, 3-5 inches can work if the pictures are small in scale.

Wall art hung to high

10. Fake plants & flowers:
Most faux flowers and plants aren’t very convincing of looking like the real thing. They just collect a lot of dust and simply look fake. A quick fix is buying indoor or outdoor plants that are low maintenance especially if your work requires you to travel.

Hope that helps! Remember we have all made design mistakes and it’s a learning experience.
The great thing about decorating is things can always be fixed!

O.h, And also I am almost finished with my wall art project I’ve been working on. I should be done this evening!

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