My very own interior design mistakes (and how to learn from them).
How many times do you hear a professional, qualified accountant hold up their hands and admit to screwing up? Yeah, never. Yet I hear hot-shot interior designers admit to mistakes all the time. Oliver Heath, Sophie Robinson, I mean even Kelly bloody Hoppen is on record admitting to getting the layout of her living room wrong! That’s because interior design is a tricky business. It’s not black or white or right or wrong. Design is that weird blend of art and science and gut feel. It’s impossible to get it right 100% of the time. So if you screw up be kind to yourself. You can know all the colour theory, colour psychology, orientation and pattern of light and still choose the wrong shade of grey.
So I’m gonna hang out a load of my dirty mistakes so you can hopefully learn from some of them. I’ll be sure to add to the list as I suddenly remember horror mistakes from my past or as I continue to make mistakes with my current and future renovations. But for now, here are some that have sprung to mind.
1. THINKING YOU’LL LEARN TO LIVE WITH SOMETHING.
Big mistake. Huge.
When I moved into my house I didn’t realise it was going to be my forever home (but it turned out it is). So although I didn’t love the orange oak floors I couldn’t be arsed to change them. The cost and the upheaval of changing flooring is huge because it’s so disruptive. It can mean new door architraves, skirting, or decorating, it’s a bit of a domino effect. So I just thought I would put up with them. But over six years I went from not loving them to loathing them. We then changed up the flooring (you can read about it here) once pretty much every room had been decorated, this is not the way to do it.
Lessons learned…
If you don’t like something now, you’ll probably hate it in a few years so change it if you can.
Don’t leave floors until the end of a renovation (obviously).
Make sure you know how long you intend to live in a house as this will guide you on how much you can afford to change.
2. NOT CHECKING THE PAINT COLOUR WORKS WITH THE FLOORING
This was a mistake from my very first flat. It was a new build so I wanted to change up the vile magnolia in the hallway. I perused the paint charts. Bought some testers (I wasn’t a complete moron then). Painted some small swatches at eye level on the wall (oh dear). Chose my favourite, bought the paint and merrily started painting. Wasn’t until I painted the lower part of the walls that I realised my lovely stony-coloured neutral looked minging against the pinky-beige carpet. They really jarred. It was such a rookie mistake. I didn’t know back then how tricky neutrals were to coordinate. Just because it’s a ‘neutral’ carpet doesn’t mean it will work with anything.
Lessons learned…
Don’t choose a colour in isolation, check it against other elements of the room.
Don’t paint testers in tiny patches on the wall (read how to use them correctly here).
3. NOT CONSIDERING THE KNOCK-ON-EFFECT
This was a few years later in my first proper house. I replaced the knackered carpet in the hallway with some engineered wood flooring. The flooring was gorgeous, it was expertly installed, and it looked amazing. What I had not considered was the difference in flooring height between the old carpet and the new wood. The new wood was much thicker and the knock-on effect was my front door no longer opened over the doormat, it just swept it to the side. This was so annoying! So I had a lovely new wood floor and not enough depth left for a mat to wipe my feet on when I came in the house. I was so pissed off with myself.
Lessons learned…
If you are changing something fundamental think logically through all the other things it could effect!
4. PAINTING MY CEILING BLACK
Okay, so it wasn’t black but it was a very, very dark green that was almost black. It was the same colour as the walls. The theory of painting your ceiling the same as your walls is that it’s enveloping and cocooning and it creates a really great effect. It’s particularly great for evening rooms or bedrooms that are just for sleeping. And it’s been a popular trend on insta for years and it seemed anyone who was anyone was doing it. The colour I went for was just too bloody dark. I created a cave. You can read about this disaster in more detail here.
Lessons learned…
Just because it looks great on insta doesn’t mean it will be practical in your home.
Farrow and Ball’s Studio Green at night is actually black.
It will take four coats of white to cover a black ceiling.
5. LAYING VINYL FLOORING ON AN UNEVEN FLOOR
I have wood effect vinyl flooring in my bathroom and it looks amazing. So of course I was confident using it on a kitchen renovation I did later. What I hadn’t appreciated was that the floor in my bathroom was perfectly straight and dead flat. This was not the case in the kitchen reno where two rooms had been knocked together that had different floor levels. It was latexed to smooth out the worst lumps and bumps and to make an attempt to level the floors. But the vinyl floor looks appalling. Because it is glued down it sticks to every dip in the floor. All it did was highlight every single flaw. Like when you wear a terrible foundation that sinks into your pores. It looked horrendous.
Lessons learned…
This is really just an experience. I know now vinyl is gonna look like cheap vinyl and not wood if the floor is uneven. So watch out for that!
6. THINKING YOUR BUILDER HAS LISTENED
During a kitchen/diner reno, I explicitly told my builder not to position the pendant lights over the dining room table until I had decided the exact position of the table. Which is pretty standard. So I come home from work one day and he’s hung the pendants. FFS. The table wasn’t even in the room, let alone the exact position! When I asked him why he just said “I thought you wanted them in the middle of the room”. Huh? No! When did I ever say I wanted them in the middle of the room? That is what I should have said. Instead, I just rolled my eyes and let it go.
I put up with the table being in the middle of the room whereas I really wanted it a foot to the left. I lived with it for a year then paid an electrician to move the lights and a plasterer to make good the ceiling so I could move it that foot to the left.
Lessons learned…
Just because you’ve said something doesn’t mean it’s been heard.
When a miscommunication happens don’t worry about being nice, challenge it.
Don’t think you’ll learn to live with it, it will piss you off until you change it.
7. NOT PLANNING A WHOLE HOME COLOUR SCHEME
In my current home, the bathroom was the first room I did. We didn’t actually have a working bathroom so the pressure was on. I chose the colour palette without being sure how I was going to decorate the rest of the house. Big mistake. I chose a green-based neutral for the bathroom which is gorgeous. But the rest of the home ended up being blues, greys and pinks and the bathroom is the one colour that doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the house. I can’t afford to change it because we have some really expensive fitted furniture in there that was sprayed to match the walls. So it’s all good if we just keep the door closed.
Lessons learned…
To create a cohesive colour palette across your whole home you need to plan it in advance. You can read how to do it here.
Don’t decorate rooms in isolation, they all need to work together.
8. USING COOL LIGHTING
Now I’m not declaring this as a definite mistake but I suspect I will be very soon. This is a very current issue. My kitchen diner reno is coming to an end and I won’t decide until everything is in place but I am not sure about the ‘cool’ lights I have gone for. It’s amazing for working under, I hate not being able to see properly when making dinner and cleaning. But because it’s a ‘living’ space as well it doesn’t feel very friendly. You would never get cool lighting in a romantic restaurant but neither would you ever get warm lighting in a working kitchen. I suspect I will be changing it because the room is more of a living/dining space with a kitchen in it, than the other way around.
Lessons learned..
Cool light doesn’t do anything to make you look younger or prettier.
But will warm light make my white walls look yellow? Watch this space….
I very easily came up with this list of mistakes and I haven’t even scratched the surface. And I’ll keep adding to this blog or do a round two when I remember or make some more howlers.
So remember people interior design is hard. It’s not just cushions and colour charts. There is so much to consider and so much that can go wrong. So go easy when you make a mistake, none of us are immune. Not even Kelly Hoppen!
I offer my interior design services across Southampton and Hampshire so if you enjoy my blogs and would like to get some real-life advice then give me a shout. And let me know in the comments what mistakes you have made, let’s share our experiences so we can learn from each other.
Sarah x
