In my 30 years of decorating 15 different styles of houses, I’ve learned a lot by doing things WRONG. Bright side–I get to share what I learned with you so you can avoid making the same mistakes.
1. Painting your walls in the latest trend color
Painting your walls in the latest trend color without a PLAN, is the problem, not the trendy color itself.
I believe that any color can be timeless when done right. But trying to update a tired room with only paint will not give you the results you want. Although paint has a big impact on the mood of a room, it doesn’t have much impact on how we experience a room, how comfy it is and how it functions.
I painted our little snug room a somewhat trending green but I had a complete plan and direction for everything that was going in the room.
Sadly, I didn’t follow my own advice even though I knew better, and I had my painters use the leftover dark green paint to paint a little hallway, because I was tired and didn’t want to make another decision and of course, I ended up hating it.
2. Buying a sofa that isn’t timeless
Listen, we have all had sofas we don’t love and have to deal with for awhile.
And before you come at me, the goal is for you to love and use your sofa. If you do, you did it right. That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about saving for a sofa, wanting to upgrade to something beautiful and comfy and not understanding how to identify a sofa you won’t hate next week, or next year.
I learned this with my very first sofa purchase and vowed to NEVER pay for a sofa that I wouldn’t love the look of for years and years and years.
The trick to finding a sofa that is timeless is to get a sofa with a style that has history. If you look back at old decorating magazines from the 2000’s, or 1980’s or just about any modern time period you will see lots of sofa silhouettes or shapes that we use today. These sofa styles have been around a long time and keep coming back because they are timeless. There are lots more than the 6 styles I shared above, but if your sofa doesn’t have some roots in a specific style, it’s most likely because it’s a trend.
It’s not about spending a lot of money, it’s about knowing what to look for. Which brings me to my last point…
3. Wasting money by “saving money”
photo from Zillow of a high end home–disclaimer, sometimes they stage a home with smaller rugs to “show off” the floor but, I promise you this room echoes.
Sometimes our biggest decorating mistakes are tiny.
As in too small in scale.
We all want to be responsible with our budget and not spend more than is needed so we opt for smaller things that cost less. For example, a rug.
Ideally, your family room rug should have at least the front feet of the seating firmly resting on it. For big rooms like this, it’s not uncommon for even the back feet of the furniture to be on the rug.
The right size rug makes a room look bigger, makes the room feel cozier (goodbye echoes) and ultimately saves us money because it will visually fill a room. Right now this room feels weirdly empty. The right size rug would make it feel fuller, and cause us to feel like we don’t need to buy more stuff to fill the room.
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This is exactly the type of thing I teach every week in the Cozy Minimalist Community, I’d love to have you.