Embarking on a decorating journey is one of life’s great pleasures. The prospect of a blank canvas—a room waiting to be filled with personality, comfort, and style—is undeniably thrilling. Yet, this excitement can quickly turn to frustration when the final result doesn’t quite match the vision in your head. More often than not, the culprit isn’t a lack of taste, but a few common, easily avoidable decorating missteps. By sidestepping these classic blunders, you can create a space that is not only beautiful but also a true reflection of you.
Mistake 1: The Showroom Syndrome
We’ve all seen it: the perfectly coordinated living room set in a furniture store catalog. The matching sofa, loveseat, armchair, coffee table, and end tables, all in the same wood finish and upholstery. While it seems like a safe, easy choice, buying an entire matching set is one of the fastest ways to create a room that lacks soul and personality. Your home ends up looking like a furniture showroom floor—staged, impersonal, and a bit dated. A home should look like it has been curated over time, not purchased in a single afternoon.
How to Fix It: Mix, Don’t Match
The secret to a dynamic, designer-look room is variety. Think in terms of complementary pieces rather than matching ones. If you have a sleek, modern leather sofa, pair it with vintage wooden end tables or a plush, textured armchair in a contrasting color. The key is to create harmony through a balanced mix of styles, textures, and eras. Incorporate pieces that have personal meaning—a side table inherited from a grandparent, a piece of art from your travels. This layering of different elements is what tells your story and makes a house feel like a home.
Mistake 2: The Tyranny of the Single Overhead Light
Lighting is one of the most powerful tools in a decorator’s arsenal, yet it’s often an afterthought. Many rooms are cursed with a single, harsh ceiling fixture (often unflatteringly called a “boob light”) as the sole source of illumination. This creates a flat, unwelcoming ambiance with stark shadows and none of the warm, inviting glow that makes a space feel cozy. Good lighting is about more than just being able to see; it’s about creating a mood.
How to Fix It: Layer Your Lighting
Professional designers think of lighting in three layers, and you should too. Start with ambient lighting, which is the overall illumination for the room. This can be your ceiling fixture, but consider swapping the standard one for a beautiful chandelier or a stylish flush-mount. Next, add task lighting for specific activities, like a floor lamp next to your favorite reading chair or under-cabinet lights in the kitchen. Finally, incorporate accent lighting to highlight architectural features or artwork, such as a picture light or an uplight behind a large plant. The combination of these sources gives you flexibility and creates depth and warmth.
Mistake 3: The Postage Stamp Rug
A rug can anchor a room, define a space, and add color, pattern, and texture. But a rug that is too small for the space is a classic decorating blunder. When a rug is floating in the middle of the room with all the furniture huddled around its edges, it visually shrinks the space and makes the layout feel disjointed and awkward. It looks like an afterthought rather than a foundational piece.
How to Fix It: Go Big or Go Home
When in doubt, choose the larger rug. The golden rule for a living room is that, at a minimum, the front legs of all major furniture pieces (sofa, chairs) should sit comfortably on the rug. This visually connects the pieces and makes the entire seating area feel unified and expansive. In a dining room, the rug should be large enough that when you pull the chairs out to sit down, they still remain entirely on the rug. For a bedroom, you want the rug to extend at least 18-24 inches from the sides and foot of the bed.
Always measure your space before you shop for furniture or rugs. Use painter’s tape on the floor to mark out the dimensions of a potential piece. This simple step can save you from the costly mistake of buying something that is completely out of scale for your room.
Mistake 4: Art That’s Hung Too High
Walking into a room where the artwork is floating high up on the walls, closer to the ceiling than to the furniture it’s meant to complement, is an incredibly common sight. We often have an instinct to hang things in the dead center of a wall, but this usually results in art that feels disconnected from the human scale of the room. It creates a visual gap and disrupts the flow of the space.
How to Fix It: Follow the Gallery Rule
The art world has a simple standard that works perfectly for the home: hang art so that its vertical center is at eye level. For most people, this is somewhere between 57 and 60 inches from the floor. This rule applies whether it’s a single large piece or the center of a gallery wall grouping. When hanging art above furniture like a sofa or a headboard, ensure the bottom of the frame is about 6 to 8 inches above the top of the furniture piece. This creates a cohesive visual statement.
Mistake 5: Neglecting Scale and Proportion
Scale refers to the size of an object in relation to the size of the room, while proportion refers to the size of objects in relation to each other. Getting this wrong can throw off the entire balance of a space. Think of a tiny loveseat lost in a massive great room with vaulted ceilings, or a hulking, overstuffed sectional crammed into a small den. When the scale is off, the room feels uncomfortable and “wrong,” even if you can’t quite put your finger on why.
One of the easiest ways to ensure your pieces work together is to choose items with varying heights. Avoid having all your furniture at the same low profile. A tall bookshelf, a floor lamp, or high-backed chairs can add vertical interest and create a more balanced and dynamic composition in the room.
How to Fix It: Plan and Visualize
Before making any major purchases, create a floor plan. It doesn’t have to be a professional rendering; a simple sketch with measurements will do. Pay attention to not just the length and width of furniture but also its visual weight. A delicate, leggy sofa will occupy less visual space than a heavy, skirted one, even if their footprints are similar. As mentioned before, using painter’s tape to outline furniture on the floor is a foolproof way to understand how a piece will truly fit and impact the flow of traffic in your room.
