Decorating your home should be fun. But we can turn what should be an enjoyable process into a complicated, frustrating, expensive adventure. When I say “we,” I’m starting with me. Some of my best decorating lessons have come from my less-than-stellar experiences, along with those of my clients. The good news? A few simple changes in how you approach decorating can boost your joy and limit your expense.
Five Tips To Make Decorating Easier
Tip #1: Stop Trying to Make Everything Match
If, somewhere along the way, you got the idea that everything in your room needs to match, to quote one of my favorite movies: Snap out of it! Your living room does not need to look like everything arrived on the same delivery truck.
I call my decorating philosophy Matching Adjacent. The idea is simple: things don’t have to match to work beautifully together. They just need a connective something. Different types of wood with similar undertones. Furniture of different styles with shared shapes or proportions. Or accessories of different colors but with a common texture or finish.
Instead of spending weeks searching for an exact match, look for pieces that complement one another. You’ll have more options, less frustration, and probably a much more interesting room.
Tip #2: Know When to Walk Away, Not Buy
A good bargain can be irresistible. Believe me, I know! And you certainly don’t need to know where every little accessory is going to live before you buy it. If you have the storage space and the price is right, those little treasures can be wonderful additions to your decorating inventory. Larger purchases, however, require a tough trait, especially for thrift store hunters: self-control.
Years ago, I found a four-foot-square leather ottoman at a thrift store for $12.99. It was a fantastic bargain, and I knew exactly where I wanted to use it. One small (actually, large) problem: it didn’t fit in our car. Undeterred, with a host of bungee cords and driving very slowly, I arrived home with my treasure strapped to the roof of the car.
Worth the trouble? Absolutely! But I knew I had a place for that ottoman before I went through the hassle of getting it home. There’s nothing wrong with a spontaneous purchase. Just remember a bargain isn’t a bargain if you spend the next five years tripping over it in the garage.
Tip #3: Make the Leap and Change Things Up
Most of us have furniture that’s been with us for years. Maybe it’s grandma’s side chair or the pair of end tables your parents gave you when you bought your first house. They were perfectly good then and still are today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they still fit your decorating style.
Sometimes we get so accustomed to seeing something in a particular room that we stop considering our options. Would it look wonderful in a guest bedroom instead? How about refinished or repainted. Status quo can be comforting but also boring. Sometimes you don’t necessarily need stuff, you just need to look at the old stuff differently.
And who knows? Grandma might have been sick and tired of that floral upholstery herself.
Tip #4: Start Fresh Versus Adding More
Ever decided to freshen up your mantel or bookshelf, so you buy a few accessories and try to squeeze them in among everything already there? You move the candlesticks a bit, slide the picture frame to the left, and somehow find room for another vase. Before long, you’ve got a bigger but not necessarily better-looking arrangement.
There’s a much easier approach. Take everything off and start with a blank slate. Then you can decide what you really want to put back, what might work better somewhere else, and what can go into storage for another day.
I did this in my own home just yesterday. On the built-in shelf on my stairway landing the same large vase had been sitting for years. I’d painted it several times to change its appearance, but this time I wanted something completely different. I took it down and retrieved a tall glass vase and two thrifted candleholders from my decorating stash. Same shelf, new look, zero spend.
That’s one of the wonderful things about keeping a collection of accessories you love. You just need to resist the urge to display everything you love at one time.
Tip #5: Decorate for Real Life
Homes used to have living rooms nobody ever lived in. With the “good furniture” reserved for company, no one dared bring food or drinks into these rooms-slash-showrooms. Fortunately, most of us moved away from that kind of decorating, but we still occasionally fall in love with items that don’t make sense for the way we live.
Take that gorgeous coffee table with the sharp corners. It’s perfect until your toddler starts walking, then for the next bunch of years you attach ugly rubber bumpers to every corner to protect little heads. While we can agree that the latter instinct is good parenting, the original purchase instinct was definitely sus. Same is true for the beautiful cream-colored area rug that looks fabulous until the kids and dogs come racing in from the backyard.
We need to remember the critically important wisdom, form follows function. Your home should work for the life you’re living right now, which may be different from the life you’ll be living five years from now. Toddlers grow up. Kids leave home. Our routines and priorities change. The furniture and accessories that make sense today may not be what you want or need in the future.
You don’t have to sacrifice beauty for practicality. You just need to find the right balance for the season of life you’re in, so your home can change right along with it.
Make Decorating Easier on Yourself
To bottom-line it: use these tips to enjoy designing for your current life. Keep it simple and flexible, and don’t forget to think outside the big white box. After all, decorating is supposed to be fun.
Now, what will you do next to love where you live?
Be sure to visit The Redesign Habit to share your redesign stories or reach out with your questions. We’d love to hear what you’re working on.
For more great stories and ideas please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
