Decorating your home is generally a nice, pleasant activity with all kinds of opportunities to be creative and have fun. Unfortunately, sometimes all that goes out the window and you’re left with all kinds of messes. Avoid the following, and you have the benefit of many lessons learned.

Failing to Notice Individual Pieces

RAILING
Image via Flickr by mark.hogan

Every time you refinish, redo upholstery, repaint or in any way alter an object, you will need to carefully document every piece of it. This means you need to know everything that a screw holds in place, so you don’t accidentally break the glass from a door insert or find your couch suddenly listing to one side. This tip alone will save you from replacing and having to haul away a lot of damaged items.

The Spiderweb Effect

Cords, cords everywhere. How many can your average guest trip on per day? If that’s a question with a real answer, you have a real decorating problem. It’s a room, not an obstacle course. First, get wires out of where people are likely to walk. Second, find a way to hide them by either stapling them behind furniture or matching the wire’s colors to your walls.

Photo Bombing Yourself

The general rule for photos is that your entire immediate family gets a space. However, photos should take up less than 1/3rd of table space and 1/8th of wall space, lest it become too cluttered. If it gets too cluttered, the faces get lost in the shuffle and nobody feels special.

Carpet That’s Bound to Get Wet

Carpet in a bathroom or kitchen space is a risky proposition, even if it’s a rug designed for the purpose. The worst offenders here are toilet skirts, which look disturbingly like bibs. While carpet is nice in some places, it isn’t designed to be everywhere. Particularly with the risk of mold and the difficulty of cleaning such carpet, allowing any carpet into a space where water is bound to be isn’t the best idea.

The Ghost Town Effect

Is your foyer or another space in your house past the point of being minimalist and into the realm of being vacant? If so, remember that decor should be an all-around concept. Many people decorate their homes by creating “clusters” with huge numbers of things, and have the space between these clusters remain completely empty. While some empty space is nice, an entire area left empty looks very off.

Parrot Bombing Yourself

A parrot bomb is when an individual uses far too many colors for a space. As a general rule, you’ll want to avoid using more than one very bright color per room unless it’s in very limited quantities. If you use too many total colors, you risk having them drown each other out and having a mess. If you use too many bright colors, it can literally become physically uncomfortable to people in the room. You can contrast this with simple window treatments like roller shades and other restraining elements.

The above were a few ways to avoid making your decor a nightmare. This won’t guarantee having a home full of magazine cover rooms, but it is a step in the right direction.