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Getting the Room Right: Part II
Great spaces show how to avoid the Top 10 decorating mistakes
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It's fun to look through all of the wonderful, professionally designed rooms here on Houzz — including those in this ideabook — for great ideas and inspiration. The designers make it look easy, don't they? But if you look at the Houzz Design Dilemmas section, you know that people often have a hard time getting it right and bump into mistakes all the time.
To help you get it right, I've compiled a personal list of the top 10 decorating mistakes people make. See Part 1 here, along with photos showing how Houzz designers have successfully handled these decorating issues.
If some of these design mistakes are familiar — oh, yes, I'm not exempt; I've learned some of this the hard way — then I hope you find this ideabook helpful.
To help you get it right, I've compiled a personal list of the top 10 decorating mistakes people make. See Part 1 here, along with photos showing how Houzz designers have successfully handled these decorating issues.
If some of these design mistakes are familiar — oh, yes, I'm not exempt; I've learned some of this the hard way — then I hope you find this ideabook helpful.
This home is a great example of a beautiful color palette that harmonizes with the exterior and flows throughout the home. The colors are warm and vivid, holding their own against the stunning view of the ocean and landscape.
Notice how all of the colors come from the painting, and that the yellow and terracotta are of the same intensity. The square support column outside the room is the main color of the home's exterior — almost exactly the same as the wall color in this room.
This avoids Mistake No. 6: Lack of color or poor color palette
I frequently see homes that are a sea of beige and brown with no variation in tone, pattern or texture. Snooze! You don't have to paint your walls a bright color, but for heaven's sake; add a little color through art or accessories. Those are both low-risk ways to avoid the boredom of beige.
Art is a great starting point for a color palette. If you find some art you love, use that as your guide for adding colors to the room.
Notice how all of the colors come from the painting, and that the yellow and terracotta are of the same intensity. The square support column outside the room is the main color of the home's exterior — almost exactly the same as the wall color in this room.
This avoids Mistake No. 6: Lack of color or poor color palette
I frequently see homes that are a sea of beige and brown with no variation in tone, pattern or texture. Snooze! You don't have to paint your walls a bright color, but for heaven's sake; add a little color through art or accessories. Those are both low-risk ways to avoid the boredom of beige.
Art is a great starting point for a color palette. If you find some art you love, use that as your guide for adding colors to the room.
The bedroom of the same home shows how you can use the same color palette in another room to get a different look. Terracotta and yellow are the main colors again, but this time, the white is on the walls and ceiling instead of the carpeted floor.
The wood floor in this room isn't technically terracotta, but it is a very similar color. The art also picks up the mix of colors and adds blue, which is in complete harmony with the ocean view.
The wood floor in this room isn't technically terracotta, but it is a very similar color. The art also picks up the mix of colors and adds blue, which is in complete harmony with the ocean view.
The yellow and blue of the dining room might seem like a surprise if you had only seen the living room shown previously, but the exterior of the home is terracotta and blue and it plays off of the ocean view beautifully.
This avoids Mistake No. 7: Poor color flow from room to room
I've been in homes where it seems every wall is an "accent wall" and each room has a different color scheme with no connection to any other room. A Cirque du Soleil stage set comes to mind! Excellent for the circus, but for your home, not so much. Bless their hearts for being brave enough to put color in their homes, but having a well-planned color palette that flows from room to room actually makes the home feel larger!
The three photos of this home show that each room can look quite different by varying the proportions of colors used from room to room and including colors in some rooms but not others while still having great color flow.
This avoids Mistake No. 7: Poor color flow from room to room
I've been in homes where it seems every wall is an "accent wall" and each room has a different color scheme with no connection to any other room. A Cirque du Soleil stage set comes to mind! Excellent for the circus, but for your home, not so much. Bless their hearts for being brave enough to put color in their homes, but having a well-planned color palette that flows from room to room actually makes the home feel larger!
The three photos of this home show that each room can look quite different by varying the proportions of colors used from room to room and including colors in some rooms but not others while still having great color flow.
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| Just like in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, everything in this lovely dining room is not too big and not too small, but just right. The art is exactly the right size for above the fireplace. The rug is large enough to allow the chairs to be pulled back without going over the edge and still not too large for the room. The dining chandelier is in correct proportion to the dining table as is the centerpiece.
And if you look at the back of the room, you can see that the mirror is just the right size for the wall area and sideboard and that the grouping of candle holders are large enough to be the only accessory on the sideboard. This avoids Mistake No. 8: Incorrect scale and proportion The most common places where I see scale and proportion out of whack include: 1. Art that is too small for the wall on which it is placed: Try to cover 2/3 of the available area. 2. Bedside lamps that are too small for the side tables: The bottom of the shade should be about even with or just above your shoulder when seated in bed. 3. Sofas that are way too big for the room: No simple rule of thumb here. If you are having an impossible time placing the sofa, it is likely too large. 4. Accessories that are just too little: Just like the phrase "Go big or go home," a few large accessories will always look better than a cluster of tiny objects. 5. Area rugs that are either too large or too small: There are many ideabooks written on the various considerations here. Tip: To help you get scale and proportion right, print out several large photos of all your rooms and write down dimensions of existing furnishings and room sizes. Take them with you and shop where there are designers to help you get sizes right. Again, I emphasize providing large photos of your rooms or spaces. Nothing is more useless to a designer than a tiny picture on your cell phone. |
| I just can't say enough about the beauty and the wonder of built-in cabinetry. This bedroom cabinetry has 15 — count 'em — 15 drawers in which to hide your pants, shirts and what-have-yous. The display space above gives an opportunity to admire a collection. Beautiful!
This avoids Mistake No. 9: Inadequate or unattractive storage solutions I run into poor storage most often in bedrooms and home offices. Do you have a giant armoire plus a couple of dressers lined up along the wall in your bedroom? I run across this scenario often. One dresser or armoire won't handle the storage needs, so another and another is purchased and lined up like they are in a firing squad. Whenever two or three storage pieces of furniture are lined up in a row on one wall, the room looks crowded and oppressive, even when the furniture pieces are good quality and nice looking. Rather than buying several storage pieces, put your money into a well-designed built-in for the best use of storage space. Custom closet storage is also better than cramming several dressers in a room. |
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| Here is another bedroom with beautiful built-in cabinetry. Incorporating window seats and building in around the windows was a wonderful idea. They have a single armoire to the left and the remaining storage needs are taken care of by the built-ins. So much nicer than extra dressers would have been. |
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| If you have an office lined with a conglomeration of plastic drawers and tubs holding everything and still have stacks sitting on the floor, look at this slick cabinetry made of plywood. Storage solutions don't have to be high-end to hold everything you need and look great. |
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| This last space seems to embody everything I've been talking about so far. The window treatments are impeccable. Furnishings are well proportioned, comfortable, durable and are arranged to promote socializing. The color palette and lighting are beautiful. So how does a space get everything right? This space was clearly very well planned out.
This avoids Mistake No. 10: Lack of planning Have you ever done something and then had to undo that something in order to do something else you should have done before? That sentence will make perfect sense to you if you didn't plan your home project well. One of the first things I have my clients do is sit down and write out a list of all of their wishes and desires for their home. Many clients don't execute all of their decorating or remodeling plans at a single stroke for many reasons. The list is prioritized by sense of urgency and budget, but we also evaluate everything to be sure projects follow along in the optimal order. For example: If you plan to paint the interior walls and ceiling, and you also want to add lighting fixtures in the ceilings or walls, you should do all of the electrical work first. Otherwise, you may find yourself having to cut open a wall or ceiling to run wiring and then having to repair drywall and paint all over again. Coming up with a master plan gives you your best shot at good design. It prevents you from making costly mistakes and from boxing yourself in because of decisions that were made without regard to future projects. This concludes my top 10 common decorating mistakes. Check out Part 1 from earlier this week for help on the other five stumbling blocks to good design. How about your experience? Is there another mistake that you think belongs in the top 10? More: How to Get Your Window Treatment Right How to Get the Pendant Light Right How to Layer Patterns Right How to Get Your Area Rug Right |
Ideabook updated on Aug. 25, 2011.
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nluker -- I'm not saying you shouldn't love the accessories you have, but the actual job of accessories is not only to be attractive in their own right, but to support the rest of your art and furnishings and make them look better. So one of the things that they are literally supposed to do is to tie in colors, add balance, and be the jewelry for the room. When I accessorize a client's home, I don't pick out accessories one by one and have the client approve each thing by itself. That would drag on forever, and really, how excited can they get about a candle holder or a bowl? I go out and buy all of the accessories for the room and then come set the room at a single visit. Here's why: quite a bit of the time it is the arrangement of shapes, colors and textures that creates the beauty and interest -- not so much a single object within that group being so amazing all by itself. Since a room never really has that pulled-together look without accessories, you might want to consider going ahead and accessorizing with items that are not expensive, but that "do the job" and at least make the room look finished. Then over the years, as you find art objects or accessory items that you are absolutely crazy about -- you can gradually substitute objects until eventually each thing there is something you use or love.