Typically the most fun and exciting part of your renovating adventure, interior design is a unique way to give your home the look and feel you’ve been dreaming of. Whether your inspiration comes from the “Home” section in Target, Lowe’s, or your curated Pinterest board, it can be easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of a renovation and lose sight of what works and what won’t in your space. We’ve tried to make the renovation process a little easier by compiling some of the most common mistakes homeowners make, and how to avoid them.
- The scale of items in a room. Often, the size of your room can be the last thought on your mind when you find the perfect coordinated set of chairs, side tables, or a combination of both. However, buying too large or too small of pieces for whatever sized room can make it feel disjointed and appear uncomfortable. Keep in mind the realistic dimensions of your space, with and without your ideal pieces put in place (and make sure you measure the dimensions of the room and the furniture before you make any decisions). For smaller spaces, consider lighter and more delicate pieces of furniture, large spaces can have larger pieces of furniture. If a combination of both is interesting to you, play with space and use it to your advantage!
Lighting. Too much or too little will make it much harder for people to feel invited in your space. If the whole room is lit up by just one appliance from Lowe’s, consider getting a dimmer for the light. And if there is hardly any light in the room at all, it may be time to consider more pieces that could make the room a little more functional. Try adding a fun lamp, some twinkle lights, or adding overhead or recessed lighting to the room if your remodel is extensive enough to allow for that.
- Pushing all of the furniture up and against the walls. Your first consideration here might be, “the more space, the better” in your room. But using the size of items and making the room feel surrounded by the furniture can make it feel uncomfortable, small, and disjointed. Playing with the location of furniture, some pieces being away from the wall and facing each other, can be just a few ways that you avoid making your space feel cramped.
- Placing too much in one room. One of the largest problems homeowners run into during the design process, and one of the hardest to avoid may be finding just the right amount of pieces to include in your interior design process. Keep the size of the room and the scale of your objects in mind, and remember that subtracting can be even more useful than adding new items to the room. Allow the furniture to work for you as much as possible.
- Matching pieces and sets of furniture. It’s definitely attractive to think of finding all of your necessary furniture in one place when designing a room. However, too much of the same texture, fabric, or color could do more to make the room boring as opposed to making central pieces pop and pulling in the eyes of visitors. Accent pieces and complementary pieces will be your best friend as you’re shopping, and help with reducing the amount of clutter in your room.
Matching pieces and sets of furnitureThe process of designing a new addition or a room that hasn’t been worked on in a while is exciting, but make sure to keep realistic standards for what you need and what you want in mind. It’s always easy to go overboard, get lost in the process, and forget the vision you had in mind initially. That’s where a majority of homeowners find themselves by the end of the design process. With just a little help, we hope you can have fun and create the space of your dreams, while avoiding the easy problems that come along the way.
