7 Design Mistakes You Can Avoid!

Interior Design can often be an overwhelming concept, and interior design mistakes are common. Especially when you are facing a brand new environment it can be hard to know where to begin! I want to empower you to create the environment of your dreams by illustrating some common interior design mistakes so that you can avoid them from the start!

When looking at creating a new space from scratch you may want someone to walk you through the process. If you are thinking about hiring a designer you should check out these posts too!

Whether you are starting over in a new space or something feels off in your current environment little tweaks and some foresight help to put you on the right path.

It is so easy to follow some of the main design “rules” without understanding the nuance of what makes a room up. It’s most often these little interior mistakes that can get past most people.
You deserve an environment that functions and supports you.

These home mistake “fix it” tips don’t take much effort from you, but they do make a huge difference in how you interact with your environment!

If you decide to keep making these design mistakes you can risk spending a lot of time and money in creating a room with things you love, but ruining the vibe with these mis-steps. Wondering why your space doesn’t completely work for you and I want to help you avoid that!

Design Mistake #1: Having one bulb to light your whole space

It’s really easy, especially if you have a space that is well lit during the day with natural light to neglect the lighting needs in your space! Make sure that even if you are lucky enough to have existing overhead lighting that you layer in different levels of light. A great way to succeed at this is to create different micro-environments in your room, and light them according to the tasks that you engage in. One hanging overhead pendant with one bulb is never enough. For example, you may have a sofa on one side of the room with end tables and lamps on a dimmer for evening drinks with friends, while also having a floor lamp by your favorite reading chair for your late night reads by the window. Having light sources closer to where you utilize it creates a more cozy environment and also is a lot more flattering for the complexion too! Putting everything on a dimmer is also a great way to introduce function into your lighting scheme, allowing you to change the mood as you wish!

Design Mistake #2: Too small of a rug

I call this poster stamp syndrome. As a designer this one mistake kills me the most, and in my opinion is the top interior design mistake! I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked into a client’s home to witness this. Nothing will cheapen the look of a beautiful room more than a mis-sized rug. If you learn one design rule from this post make it this one! Rugs are very important, when you think about it other than the walls and the flooring, they take up the greatest amount of square footage in your space. This mean that they really set the tone for what you are trying to accomplish in the space, and need to be taken seriously!

Some easy rules to follow, plus an infographic below!

• Rugs should be as large as possible (leaving about 12” at least of space to the walls)

• The rug should be big enough so that all for your seating furniture front legs rest on the rug at least, even better if the furniture sits completely on the rug!

• The rug must be longer on one side than the largest piece of furniture touching it, which means:

-10’ sofa: 9x12’, 10x14’ and up

-9’ sofa: 8x10’, 9x12’, 10x14’ and up

-8’ sofa: 6x9’, 8x10’, 9x12’, 10x14’ and up

-7’ sofa: 5x8’, 6x9’, 8x10’, 9x12’, 10x14’ and up

-6’ sofa: 5x8’, 6x9’, 8x10’, 9x12’, 10x14’ and up

• It’s better to buy an inexpensive rug in the right size than an expensive tiny rug

• If you have a too small rug that you want to use layer it on top of a neutral rug of the correct size.

• Don’t put a rug on top of wall to wall carpeting!

Design Mistake #3: Hanging drapery wrong

Drapery can really help finish off your room. Chances are if you have everything just right in your space, but still feel as though something is missing its probably your lack of window treatments. Window treatments can be very tricky. What will work and look the best depends on a lot of different factors such as, how you want the light to come in, when the light comes in, and how you want to use the space and when. I plan on diving deeper into this subject in the future to further explain when and where you should consider using different window treatments. In regards to drapery I find them to give the most visual impact and functionality across the board of basic window needs. However people often do not hang them correctly!

• Hang your rod as high and as wide as possible

• When pulled back your drapery panels should not cover the sides of your window and block the light. Which means that you need at least about 10” of rod past each side of the window frame. When panels cover the window they make the window appear smaller, the opposite of what you want (see image below).

• Drapery panels should just kiss the floor when hung , too short of panels look inexpensive and shorten your ceiling height visually

• Do not hang your rod directly on the window frame

Design Mistake #4: Putting furniture against all of the walls

This is what I jokingly refer to as outer space planning and it’s a common occurrence, and another one of the worst interior design mistakes. For some strange reason many people love to place all of their furniture on the outskirts of their room, anchored by walls, thinking that this is the way to layout their room. I’ve heard explanations from clients such as “This way makes the room look bigger and everything doesn’t get in the way” , while in the same breath asking “I just don’t know why this space doesn’t work for us”. Space planning is extremely important, it is the backbone of any beautiful room, even when most of my clients don’t even know what it is. It’s so important that the furniture in your room is placed at functional space intervals so that you can live! For example if you place your sofa against one wall and float your coffee table in the middle of the room four feet away on the floating rug, how are you supposed to reach your coffee in the morning?! Maybe your space calls for the sofa to float in the middle of the room instead, creating a more intimate functional space designed around how you would like to live. This pre-planning of a space is the key to good interior design, and if this skill eludes you you may want to seek out a friend who knows what they are doing! Here’s my design services explained if you are interested!

Design Mistake #5: Hanging artwork wrong

This is so common! I get it because there are a couple different rules depending on where you plan on hanging your pieces.

• When hanging a single piece of art on its own, not over any furniture, make sure the center of the piece hangs at 60” from the floor

• When hanging art over furniture the bottom edge of the art should sit about 6” above the piece

* When hanging art over a large piece of furniture like a console or a sofa the art should encompass at least 2/3rds of the furniture length so that it has the right visual scale

• But art shouldn’t be wider that the piece that it hangs above

• When hanging multiple pieces treat them as one, this means:

Two pieces stacked on top of one another should be hung with the 2 to 3” between them at 60” from the floor (the pieces should be the same size, if not always hang the smaller piece on top of the larger one)
Or three pieces of the same size over a sofa should again have 2 to 3” between them, 6” above the sofa, and the width of the three should be at least 2/3rds of the width of the sofa

• When hanging gallery walls its most important to keep the spacing even, 2 to 3” between larger pieces and 1.5 to 2.5” between smaller pieces

Design Mistake #6: Not measuring first!

Please please please do this. I don’t want any more calls from any friends crying to me that they ordered their third nightstand, it showed up, and didn’t fit! Did you measure…? You need to have an idea of what you are working with. You can stop a lot of heart and back break from happening when you plan ahead. When you measure first you end up not moving your oversized sectional to your new home just to realize it doesn’t fit through the door! Every single piece of furniture in a room interacts with the one next to it and if any are not the right scale for the space it will negatively affect the rest of the environment. Now I totally understand if someone just needs to make something work in regards to budget, but it is the worst when people have the money for a new heirloom piece and it doesn’t work because they didn’t measure the room! This ties back to the space planning we discussed and if you ever need any help I am here for you!

Design Mistake #7: Following trends instead of your heart

I know I told you rug size is the most important… but I got ahead of myself (because its my biggest pet peeve ever). Truly this is the most important design faux pas you can make. Listening to “the hoard” over your own inner guidance. If you go looking for them you will find as many design rules as you can stomach. However none of these matter if they don’t work for you. Your space should reflect who you are most importantly.

I really try to dig deep with my clients and uncover what makes them who they are using their deeper selves as the true inspiration for their new environment. It’s your inner self that will make or break the way a room feels to you and you must focus on that only when creating a space made for you. Feel free to ignore all the rules and all the trends in order to follow your heart to the environment of your dreams.

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Love,