10 Reasons Why Your Home Looks Cheap and a Mess
Interior design can be enjoyable and rewarding—but it can also be costly. However, in an effort to save money, some homeowners cut a few too many corners, resulting in a less-than-pleasant outcome. The good news is that by avoiding some common cheap decorating options, you may decorate your home affordably and attractively.
Do you want to know if you’re making a mistake? We enlisted the help of prominent interior designers to learn about the most common stylistic blunders they encounter when walking into a home. It’s evident that minor details matter, from generic hardware to antiquated bathroom furnishings.
Here are the top ten styling errors that rapidly devalue your home—and how to avoid them.
1. Furniture that Doesn’t Fit
It’s rare to furnish a home from the ground up, and when you collect stuff over time, it’s easy to ignore one important factor: scale. When it comes to furniture or even mouldings, getting the scale wrong might make you feel like something is severely wrong. It has the ability to significantly reduce the cost of a place.
What you can do is pay close attention to the size and height of the current décor before adding a new piece of furniture to your home. Consider the scale of all the pieces in a room and how they connect to one another, from the size of the rug to the scale of the art to the scale of the furniture and the circulation around it.
2. Too Much “Modern” Décor
Trends are, by definition, intended to come and go. Filling a room with the latest modern decor may appear to be a smart idea, but in just a few months, that area can shift from trendy to gaudy. Sticking to more traditional styles will prevent you from changing full rooms’ worth of decor every few months to keep up with whatever fad is trending on Pinterest.
3. An Overloaded Entrance
Maintain your place as tidy and ordered as possible. It’s acceptable to use your doorway as a catch-all for miscellaneous items, but it’s easy for things to get out of hand.
Because it is the first thing visitors see when they enter your home, your foyer should be polished and stylish. To keep the area looking nice and functional, invest in a few pieces of functional furniture and one-of-a-kind artwork.
4. Art from the store
Everyone can tell when a piece of art is cheap, and it quickly makes a place appear less expensive. However, spending a lot of money isn’t always the answer. Instead, look for unusual pieces in flea markets or vintage stores, or use online custom-art services. There is a slew of great custom art services out there now that allow you to commission original art or have prints framed and mailed for a reasonable price.
Pay attention to the frame if you can’t stand to part with the artwork you’ve already acquired. Mismatched picture frames are one item that can make a room appear less expensive. Using a consistent frame material, such as silver or wood, and a few mattings appears more ‘finished’ and expensive.
5. Low-cost lighting
Adding a personal touch to a rental? Swapping out old light fixtures, which can instantly transform a room, is one of the most ignored aspects. Updating lighting fixtures is a low-cost option to improve the overall look of a room while also adding a sense of sophisticated elegance and comfort.
Lighting is the jewel of every interior space, thus it’s well worth the investment. Consider a plug-in sconce as an update that you can take with you if you decide to move.
6. Sofas that are overstuffed
One of the first things professionals notice when they walk into your home is a good sofa; it may quickly enhance the furnishings surrounding it. Especially if you have a family, invest in a decent sofa. In no time, an inexpensive sofa will show its age and will appear a lot older than it is. Be wary of oversized, generic sofas. If you have antique furniture in the shape of a marshmallow, it’s time to think about redesigning your living room.
If you haven’t yet purchased a sofa, choose a rich and long-lasting fabric. Layer throw pillows in one colour and several textures to accent an existing piece for an exquisite aesthetic. You can also place some velvet dining chairs beside the sofa to make it more luxurious.
7. Themes that have been overdone
In a pre-teen kid’s room, theme decorating works wonderfully. Then, instead of decorating themes, decorating styles should be used, which demands a different approach.
Having too much of a good thing is one of the quickest ways to cheapen any room. For optimum impact, indulge in subtle style expressions. If you want to show your love for the ocean, for example, distribute a few nautical found pieces about your home—but an oversupply may make it appear cheap.
8. Ceilings that resemble popcorn
Popcorn ceilings are an undesirable design choice from the 20th century’s sloppy homebuilding methods. The rough, lumpy texture is difficult to clean, fix, and, quite bluntly, it looks horrible. Remove popcorn ceilings from your home if possible. It’s a pain (and a mess), but once the popcorn is gone, your ceilings will have a much cleaner, sleeker appearance than before.
9. Clutter
It doesn’t matter how smart and sophisticated the decor and design of your home is if it’s constantly covered by a layer of clutter. Clutter clogs up the flow of a room more than anything and automatically makes any design choices seem less intentional. The good news is that clutter is a treatable issue.
10. Empty or generic gallery walls
Making a gallery wall is a terrific way to liven up your home’s empty walls. Just make sure you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve in the space before you start building your gallery wall. Filling the void on a wall with generic, mass-produced art isn’t a good idea.
It’s nearly preferable to have a blank wall than one covered in unoriginal and uninspiring artwork. If you want to build a gallery wall in your house, take your time and create a clear picture of what you want to achieve before choosing artwork.
If you find this article helpful for your home transformation, please help us share this to other readers as well!
