If you are reading this, you may be considering moving, buying, renting, or even building a new home from scratch. Regardless, we are here to help! We are interior designers so we KNOW that what we are going to share below is super common and we’re here to let you know what you absolutely should avoid doing in your new space. We get it, not everyone has the eye for design or the budget to make every single one of these tips below happen, however, we would advise you to WAIT and delay purchasing something for the sake of “getting it done”. I’ve personally owned two homes and I always want to “make things happen” as quickly as possible because I can’t help myself, I love design! But I’ve realized through my personal and professional experiences that it’s best to get things done right the first time which will save me (and you!) a lot of money and stress in the long run. Remember, your home should be your sanctuary, and it should bring you peace and comfort. We promise you all of the tips we share below will make a dramatic difference in your home! Here we go!
1. Furniture against the wall
I want to call this tip out specifically when it comes to living room furniture. We’ve all seen the sofa against the wall and in some cases, it may make sense. Small spaces can be hard to work with, but often we feel inclined to face the back of the sofa up against the wall because we have seen that be the norm in a lot of homes. We recommend avoiding this (if you can) to help the room feel more spacious and let the room breathe. This arrangement can make a giant space in the middle and usually leaves the seating too far apart for comfortable conversation. Instead, we recommend pulling the sofa 3”-6” away from the wall or even further if the room allows it. I’ll have to write another blog post about different living room layouts to consider depending on your space!
2. Hanging Your Curtains Too Low and/or Too Narrow
Hanging your curtains high helps draw the eye up and makes the walls appear taller. Curtains also help to frame the windows and dress up any room! Make sure you are buying the right length and width of your curtains according to your window size. As a rule of thumb, add 6”-12” inches to the window panel width so that you have extra to hang on the sides of the window. The rod should hang 4”-6” on the sides of the window, this will make the window appear bigger and concentrate the sunlight on the insides of the curtain. When I say 6”-12” inches extra in width, it depends on how fluffy you want them to appear. In addition to adding extra width to the curtains, we also recommend hanging your curtains at least 6” higher than the window frame, however, if you have more room to go higher, please do! The higher the grander the room will feel.
3. Repurposing Your Previous Furniture/Heirlooms for The Sake Of “Making It Work”
We get it, lots of us inherit family heirlooms such as furniture or antique décor pieces. If you’re intentional about the way you design the room or pick the furnishings to go with your heirlooms it is absolutely ok! However, if you want to throw it in a room after you already have another look going on, please don’t do it! It will look like an afterthought and will throw off the room. Think of ways maybe you can reupholster the furniture, paint or even change up the hardware. If it really doesn’t work in the room, see if you can repurpose for another room in the house or put it in storage until you have a good use for it. Your furniture should be functional in addition to working with the space.
Now when it comes to repurposing your furniture from your previous home, please think twice, if not three times about it before using it again. Most often, you’re upgrading your space to a bigger size so that sofa, as an example, you had may not work due to the size or even the color scheme you had going on before. This is why #6 below is so important! More on that soon. As humans, we naturally like change so your style before may not be your style now and will be a problem when you move into your new space.
4. Choosing The Paint Before Knowing What Furnishings Will Go in The Room
Again, if you know what is going into the room this is 100% ok. However, if you’re trying to pick a paint color before having a clue about what furniture and materials you want to put in the room please don’t paint! Personally, the last thing we choose when we design is the paint because we want to make sure that the paint we chose coordinates well with the furnishings and has the right undertones we want. If you want to design around a paint color you love, you can. In this section, I am really talking about avoiding making either the furnishings or the paint selection an afterthought. As long as you are intentional and coordinate between the paint and the furnishings, you’re going to be ok! The paint sets the mood for the room, so you want the paint and furniture to be intentional.
5. Not Investing in Enough Lighting
Just like paint, lighting is equally as important when we set the mood for a space. A lot of homes built 10 years ago just do not provide enough lighting. They either don’t have recessed lighting, have builder-grade lighting, or are set up to have floor lamps only (you know the one where you have to use the switch to turn on the floor lamp? Ugh!). Lighting is just as important as sunlight in your home. If you don’t have enough sunlight the home will feel dark, cold, and can honestly feel depressing. Think of ways you can incorporate and control different lighting. There is recessed lighting (really doesn’t cost too much), chandeliers, floor lamps, table lamps, pendants, and task lights! Lighting sets the mood of a room so be intentional about the light you use considering the function of the spaces.
6. Picking Furnishings That Aren’t Timeless
When picking out furniture for our clients, timeless is always on our minds. We believe in timeless design so that you don’t get bored of your home and need to keep up with the latest “trend”. Remember the farmhouse trend? We sure do! That is definitely a dead trend. Our design philosophy revolves around neutral-colored furniture and bringing color into the accessories and artwork. It is easy to change up pillows, artwork, and small décor pieces from time to time to change things up, however, it would be very expensive to change up your sofa, dining chairs, dining table, etc. Think of furnishing your home as a long-term investment. Your furniture should be versatile no matter the look and style you’re going for. That’s why timeless is such an important word in our vocabulary!
7. Thinking Everything Has to Match
There really aren’t many rules in design, honestly, everything goes. But if you want to take your design to the next level, mixing and matching your hardware colors for example is ok and we definitely support it! Just because you have gold hardware currently doesn’t mean you also need to also do a gold faucet or shower fixtures. Change it up! Generally, we like to use warm metals with warm undertones and cool metals with cool undertones. Black is a nice in-between metal that you can incorporate with either gold or silver.
8. Using The Wrong Size Area Rug
We see this mistake a lot! We probably need to write a whole other blog post about rug sizes, but we’ll explain the gist here for now. If you go too small with a rug, it will make the room feel smaller without a doubt. Also, if you go too big and all the furnishings are small the room will feel imbalanced and look disproportionate. It’s all about scale! For living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms, generally it’s best to figure out what sizes go best with the furniture you’re placing in the room and take into consideration how big or small the room is. We know rugs can be expensive but think of rugs as an investment in your home. Choosing the right size rug can dramatically impact the room and generally will help to fill up just the right amount of empty space.
9. Focal Focus
Every room in your home should have a focal focus. Where do you want the eye to naturally draw to as soon as someone enters the room? That should be your focal focus! Whether it’s an accent wall, artwork, or even a lighting fixture, figure out what you want to make a statement in the room and let that be the focus! Often, we see rooms that have no focal focus so the room just “floats” and doesn’t generally have enough interest to keep your attention there. Try using wallpaper, paneling, built-ins, or different paint color to draw your eye to a specific space in the room.
If you want to see more of our work, follow us on our Instagram @threesistersinteriors and check out more of our other design tips posts! Comment below with your favorite design mistake to avoid or if you have any others you want to share!