The Most Common Interior Design Mistakes To Avoid
Interior design is a complex art form that takes all the aspects of room and its décor into account. You must think about each individual piece’s appeal, as well as how it interacts with other parts of the room. Color, shape, size, texture, pattern, overall style, and function all factor into your decisions on what to include in a space and where. For this reason, it becomes easy to consider several elements in your home meticulously and yet miss out on others. Understand the most common interior design mistakes to avoid so you don’t unintentionally fall into them as you’re attempting to bring together your idyllic home.
Making Impulsive Additions To a Room
As you’re scanning through collections online or visiting stores, you may randomly purchase pieces without thinking about how they’ll fit in with your interior. Sometimes, things may catch your eye and cause you to make an impulse buy. While these pieces may be attractive on their own, it’s entirely possible they’ll stick out in a disagreeable way among the other components of your room. You can tame your tendency to act on a whim by drawing up a plan on what you need and want before shopping. Determine the dimensions of the room(s) you’re decorating, the dimensions that the furnishings need to have, and where you’ll place them. Having a sense of the color scheme and style you desire is also a wise idea. Then, you can pass up on items inconsistent with your plan.
Failing To Consider the Proportions of Pieces
The relative proportions of your furniture and decorations can decide the difference between a captivating room and an awkward one. Therefore, you must remain mindful of their sizes. When all your furnishings and accessories are so similar in scale they’re no longer distinctive, your room can risk going one of two ways. With too many smaller-sized pieces, the space can quickly appear cluttered. Imagine pouring children’s toys across the floor. Though it may have a bit more order, a room can appear similar to this kind of mess when it contains an abundance of little pieces. Anyone who looks at it will feel restless as their eyes are unable to settle on a focal point. On the other hand, a space with too-large furniture pieces will appear, and feel, congested and uncomfortable. Instead, having variation with small and large pieces will bring visual balance, interest, and physical functionality to your arrangements.
Solely Relying on Overhead Lighting
Most rooms include overhead lighting, which may seem sufficient at first—but they won’t lead to a good look. By themselves, ceiling lights can feel harsh and may create unfavorable shadows that detract from your décor. Introduce other sources of light by layering them throughout a room to counteract this. Mixing standing lamps, tabletop lamps, pendant fixtures, and recess lighting will bring dynamic, evenly spread illumination. Not all these options may be applicable for every room, though, so consider context as well. An adjustable lamp may be perfect for a desk while pendant lights feel more at home in a kitchen or dining room.
Randomly Dispersing Accessories Alone
If you want to include many accessories in your home, a common interior design mistake to avoid is randomly dispersing them alone across a room. You must be especially careful to avoid this with small decorations. Having miniature figures, potted plants, and other similar items scattered and isolated can make them feel out of place. A more effective method for arranging them is to group a few together in a designated spot. This can offset their diminutive size and make their placement intentional. It’s innately pleasing gathering items this way. In fact, interior decorators apply this idea through a technique called the rule of three. With this, they put together three distinct pieces in a section of the room to make them feel fuller, balanced, and complex. An example of using the rule of three is setting three vases of differing heights next to one another.
Pushing All Furnishings Against the Walls
Whether due to a belief about creating spaciousness or an unconscious inclination, people often push all their furnishings against the walls. However, instead of aiding the room’s appearance, this can make it seem impersonal or incomplete. Don’t be afraid of showing the backsides of your sofa or chairs. Rather, center such major furnishings around certain areas in the room to accommodate your activities. In a living room, you could select the portion of the space you want to draw attention to and set down a large rug. Most likely, this will be near the wall where your entertainment center sits. From there, you can arrange you seats around that rug. Doing this can also prove useful when you need to segment a larger space, such as an open floor plan where there are no walls between your kitchen, dining room, and living room.
Painting Before Selecting Fabrics
It seems natural to begin painting walls and other fixtures before anything else, since furniture and accessories can get in the way of the work. The issue with this is that you may end up becoming constrained by your initial wall paint color choice. A better approach is to select fabrics first. These may include bedsheets, soft window coverings, blankets, throw pillow covers, rugs, and upholstery fabric. Often, fabrics will include more than one hue and will also feature patterns or imagery. You can pick fabrics you’re completely satisfied with and decide on a paint color that’ll match or complement them. Depending on the level of energy in the fabric designs, you can also better determine whether to go bold or modest with your paint choices. When your fabrics are already busy, it may be better to opt for a neutral supporting tone on the walls and/or cabinets. It may also be that your fabric gives off a certain mood you want to match with your paint. For example, if you pick a cozy plaid fabric for blankets and pillows, you may select a singular color from that pattern for your paint to enhance the fabric’s warm atmosphere.
