Interior design mistakes can be easy to make, particularly when one tries to finish off their space in no time at all. From purchasing sets of coordinated furnishings to hanging artwork at improper heights, minor design details can turn an interior into something bland, ill-fitting, and impersonal. Fortunately, many of these errors are easily remedied.
1. Buying the Whole Matching Furniture Set
This is a classic example. You enter a furniture store and come across a matching set comprising a sofa, a loveseat, and a coffee table. It seems like a perfect choice, safe, effortless, and almost too easy. Truth be told, this is a trap.
Matching sets are a death blow to any personality. It will make you look like a hotel. Sure, it’ll look nice, but you’ll also look uninteresting. This is because homes should have layers. They should comprise a mix of a chair your grandmother gifted you and another item you picked up from a market stall. When shopping for furniture, buy items that you truly enjoy, and not just something meant to complement another.
2. Hanging Your Art Way Too High
I have no idea where this practice came from, but everyone does it. Hang up a picture, stand back, and suddenly it’s hanging way up there as if you were preparing to decorate a room for giants.
When you hang art too high, it creates an awkward separation from everything else. It just… hangs there out of place. The solution is embarrassingly simple just lower it. Ideally, the middle of your frame should be around eye height, approximately 57 to 60 inches above the ground. This applies especially if you’re placing it above the sofa; leave around 6 to 8 inches of space between the top of the sofa and the bottom of the frame.
3. Chasing Every Single Trend at Once
It’s fun to play around with trends. Yes, that’s understandable. There’s definitely a difference between having a personality and jamming everything from the year 2024 into your space in hopes that it’ll work.
Does your space have bouclé sofas, arch mirrors, LED neon lights, living-edge shelves, and dried pampas grass? Then yes, congratulations, you just created a nightmare of visual clutter and probably of some very fast-deprecated trends. It’s best to pick the one or two elements you truly love and make your whole aesthetic revolve around them.
4. A Common Decorating Mistake: Buying a Rug That’s Way Too Small
This is painful since rugs tend to be costly; however, somehow, people always manage to choose the wrong sizes. A small rug that is floating in the middle of your spacious room and surrounded by furniture is basically saying that all you need to do is put up a welcome mat in your living room.
The right size is when your rug covers some portion of your main furniture pieces so that their front legs rest on it. Your rug needs to be the backbone of your whole room.
5. One Overhead Light and Nothing Else
One ceiling fixture is enough for a hospital but not for a home because the harsh light strips all colors and warmth out of the room and leaves an impression of something bleak and unfriendly.
You don’t have to renovate your whole house to make it warmer – just get a floor lamp in the corner, put a small table lamp on one of the side tables or even light up a candle. All this can transform a place into your personal sanctuary without spending a fortune.
Conclusion
Listen, not one of these interior design mistakes is irreversible. Most can be remedied without spending a dime – a simple re-hanging, exchange, or even returning to the furniture store is all that is needed. Good homes are not defined by lavish budgets, but rather by paying attention to the finer details.