I’m not one to say that there’s a definitive right or wrong way when it comes to decorating. But I think there are some common mistakes, that while not wrong, are keeping your home from feeling like you.
These are the kind of mistakes you don’t realize we’re making until you’re years down the road wondering how it is that your house still doesn’t feel like home.
The good news is all of these are easy to fix or avoid.
You’ll notice as I go through the mistakes that I’m speaking from personal experience. Yes, I’ve messed all of these up in the past. But now my home is living proof that you can turn it all around.
Start by correcting these three mistakes.
Mistake #1: You Play It “Safe” with Neutral Colors
Neutrals are important to any color scheme. Having a great default neutral paint color is essential for your whole house color palette.
But you might be stuck in a neutral rut if you think:
- Neutrals are the only “safe” color choice.
- Neutral colors go with everything.
- Neutrals are timeless and will last forever.
Neutrals don’t always go with everything and neutrals don’t always go with other neutrals. If you’ve ever tried to mix beige and gray in the same room, you’ve realized this.
And most neutrals aren’t actually neutral. They are a color just like any other. They may appear gray, beige, or greige, but they also have an undertone. That’s why sometimes you buy something that looks “true” gray at the store, but it looks blue when you get it home.
In many ways, choosing the right neutral colors can be more complex than choosing other colors.
If you love neutrals, then by all means use them. But if you’re only sticking with neutrals because you’re afraid to choose color and you think neutrals are the safe choice, it’s time to bring some color into your life. It might be just what your home is missing.
Takeaway: Choose a signature color to decorate with. Try your favorite color.
It’s a complete myth that painting your walls is the best way to introduce color into a room. It’s certainly effective, but there’s another way. Try adding your signature color through accessories. Look around your home for several items in your signature color and bring them all together in one room.
Trying color on for size with accessories is an easy way to warm up to using more color in your home. Once your confidence has grown with accessories, you can start to bring in color in bigger ways, like on furniture, art, and walls.
Next week I’m teaching a free workshop called How to Make a Cohesive Home: 4 Easy Changes You Can Make Before the Holidays. I’ll be sharing how to use color to connect your rooms. If you’re color shy, but want to use more color in your home, you won’t want to miss this.
Choose the time that works best for you:
Tuesday, October 18th at 2 PM Eastern
Thursday, October 20th at 11 AM Eastern
A recording of the class will be made available for a limited time after the live class, but only for those that register for the class now.
Mistake #2: Creating Spaces That Don’t Support Your Lifestyle
Too often we let the floor plan, and what’s normal or expected, dictate how we use our homes. On one hand, we end up with rooms that have no purpose, like the dining room that looks pretty but never gets used. Then on the other hand, we cram too much into one room and call it multi-purpose.
Excluding the basement, our home is a little over 3000 sq. ft, yet I expected my 100 Sq. ft laundry room to do it all. At 10 x 10 ft. it was too big to be just a laundry room. So it also started out as my home office, craft space, and sewing room. Then, since I was gone at work all day, I thought it could also be an arts and crafts room for the kids who were home with a nanny at the time.
Our laundry/office/craft room was a disaster. Not only was it too many activities for one space, but the activities were all too different from each other to co-exist in the same space. And while I fought to make that set up work for over a year, we had other rooms in our home (dining room, guest room, loft) that weren’t being used at all.
Takeaway: Make sure all the rooms in your home are pulling their weight. Make proper space to do all the things that are important to you and your family.
In the end, it doesn’t matter how pretty your home is, it will never feel like home if it doesn’t support your true passions in life.
When we finished our basement, there was a large room in the back with no windows. Our contractor told us to make it a home theater. We had initially thought that too, but we knew we weren’t home theater people.
Instead, we turned the space into a home gym that we use everyday and shows our kids how important it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s one of the best decisions we’ve ever made in our home.
Mistake #3: Picking Trendy Decor Instead of Meaningful Decor
It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to keep up with trends in your home. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is you fill your home with generic decor that doesn’t have any personal meaning, nevermind that it’s trendy.
People always ask me how to keep ahead of trends in their home, because no one wants to buy into a trend right before it becomes unpopular. But it’s unrealistic for anyone to keep on top of or ahead of every decorating trend.
The best thing to do is to choose decor that’s meaningful to you. Then it will never go out of style for you.
Takeaway: Fill your home with decor that tells your personal story.
I think personalizing your home is paramount. Don’t worry about what’s trendy. If you want to make your home decor timeless to you, then look for decor you love regardless of trends.
Pick decor that ties into your story and the story of your family. That can be as simple as displaying a favorite number, a treasured collection, or choosing a decorative symbol for one of your favorite activities, like hanging decorative oars on the wall if you like spending time at the lake.
Next week I’m teaching a free workshop called How to Make a Cohesive Home: 4 Easy Changes You Can Make Before the Holidays…
I’ll be sharing more ways to personalize your home. If you feel like your decor is a bit generic and you’re not sure how to make it more meaningful, you won’t want to miss this. Choose the time that works best for you:
Tuesday, October 18th at 2 PM Eastern
Thursday, October 20th at 11 AM Eastern
A recording of the class will be made available for a limited time after the live class, but only for those that register for the class now.
