Others made these home decor mistakes so you don't have to!

Lily Cichanowicz Lily Cichanowicz
The Hepworth Luxury Upholstered Bed, TurnPost TurnPost Eclectic style bedroom
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Decorating the home can be a great outlet for personal expression. Learning about the different schools of thought when it comes to interior design can also help you to expand your horizons. Developing a personal aesthetic style takes time and practice. It’s all about experimentation as well as trial and error. 

Still, there are typically some rules that should remain unbroken. It’s okay to rely on other people’s trial and error processes just as much as your own in order to avoid common decorating pitfalls. In order to help save yourself some time and energy, we’ve fashioned a list of decorating mistakes that others have made so you don’t have to. In the end, decorating is just as much about what you refrain from doing as it is about the styles you choose to apply.

Don't put everything you love in the living room

The living room is one of the most commonly used communal spaces in the home. It’s where you spend time with your family, entertain visitors, and relax on the weekends. Plus, the living room is rather easy to decorate compared to other rooms like the kitchen or the bathroom. In the living room, you have free rein to arrange the furniture however you like. In other spaces, electrical and plumbing considerations have to be made, which can put some constraints around what’s decoratively possible. 

While it is tempting to focus all your creative energies on the living room, we suggest you try to avoid falling into this trap. Placing all your favourite quirky decorations and colourful textiles into one room can cause it to feel a bit kooky and overwhelming. You’ll lose any strong sense of aesthetic unity as things begin to look as if they’re going in 100 directions at once. Instead, opt for a couple of key pieces to display in the living room, and hold the rest back for other areas of your home.

Be sure to choose furniture that works with other pieces

When decorating your home, we certainly recommend incorporating some truly unique pieces of furniture to give the room more visual intrigue. You just want to make sure that you still keep some practical considerations in mind. For one, you don’t want to clutter a space with pieces of furniture that simply aren’t working well together. Yet, this idea is subjective and even a bit vague. 

Let us explain. It’s certainly true that mixing and matching styles will elevate the style of the room, but you’ll want to mind size and proportion when doing so. Things don’t have to match but they ought to be in sync with one another. If your more unique pieces of furniture are out of proportion with the rest of the room you’ll be hindering the functionality of the entire space. Therefore, we recommend keeping the furniture in proportion even if it is unique and striking within the interior scheme, as we can see with this chair by Isabela Canaan Arquitetos e Associados.

Don't overdo it on the wallpaper

Wallpaper is elegant and lovely. It enhances the look of virtually any space when used correctly. If you’re wondering how exactly you could misuse wallpaper, one of the most common errors comes when a person overdoes it by using too much. Wallpaper typically features patterns and sometimes multiple colours. Therefore, it should be used sparingly. 

If the wallpaper is bold or visually stimulating, try saving it for a single wall rather than plastering it onto all four. This way it can positively influence the aesthetic of the room without making things feel too busy and claustrophobic. Not to mention the fact that wallpaper is expensive! Sticking to a feature wall will undoubtedly help you save some cash that you can put towards other aspects of your interior design.

Keep the climate in mind

Something that may seem less obvious when decorating the home is that climate matters. Interiors simply make more sense when we keep the climate in mind. Dressing a bedroom entirely in warm colours and flannel bed linens in an equatorial region of the world will simple feel stuffy even if it would work nicely in a place of a different latitude. Another example is that in a hot climate, it’s best to keep things spacious. You don’t want to choke a space by packing too much in. Instead, allow for a sense of breeziness and openness. 

Keep the materials in mind while decorating a home in a given climate. In hot and humid places, you’ll want a floor that is cool underfoot and that doesn’t absorb too much moisture. Honouring the regional aesthetics of your surroundings is also an excellent idea.

Don't think that everything has to match

When culminating the right look for your interior, it can be good to keep the following analogy in mind. Try imagining that decorating each room is like putting together the perfect outfit. You’ll want to select textiles, ornaments, and finishing details that complement each other as well as the space itself. In the case of piecing together the right outfit, you probably don’t want every aspect of the ensemble to look exactly the same. This same principle certainly goes for interior décor. 

The decorative scheme ought to be dynamic and indicative of the personal aesthetic style of the designer behind it. The important thing is not whether things match to a tee. Instead you should strive for a sense of unity between the different items you choose to include in the design. Take this room for example. Certainly multiple colours and textures are involved, but the overall colour palette ultimately connects them.

Avoid the temptation of one-stop shopping

Last, but certainly not least: avoid the temptation of one-stop shopping. If you don’t enjoy furniture shopping it can be easy to purchase things entirely in set. The result, however, will be a lifeless interior with no individuality. Instead, we strongly suggest holding out for a diversification of styles and pieces. 

Ideally, you’ll want to mix old and new articles of furniture and décor. Strive to shop at different stores and on different websites. Seek out different craftsmen and even make a point to mix the regions from where each item comes from. This way, each item will tell a story, and enrich the overall authenticity and personality of your home.

For more tips and tricks to keep in mind while decorating, learn how to avoid these common mistakes when furnishing. Happy decorating! 

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