6 Common Mistakes Homeowners Make with their Furniture
There are a number of factors that go into a well decorated room to make your home inviting and interesting. You can choose the correct colors for your walls, have a great focal point for your room, but if your furniture is off with the looks and placement in the room, your space will not look well put togther.
Furniture needs to be carefully selected and placed taking the room’s elements, focal point and design style in mind. Violating any of these principles using furniture incorrectly can break a well planned design and make the room dysfunctional and feel off.
Can you spot the styling mistakes in our room below?
This picture is an actual picture from a listing for a coastal house for sale on a popular waterfront property. This living room above should be stunning, but its not! Let’s find out why this room is NOT stunning and what should the homeowner do to fix it!
1. Lack of Harmony
Harmony in a room is when the elements of the room, like furniture, accessories, colors and fixed elements like flooring, cabinets, tiles etc work well together to create a room that visually looks appealing and works well together.
Selecting the right furniture for the room is one step in create a harmonious room. The furniture needs to reflect the style of the home, and the homeowners interior design style.
- The first mistake the homeowner is making is, their stunning view, is not the focal point of the room. The furniture is not arranged properly to show off the view. Instead, large outdated clunky chairs are blocking the window and not drawing your eye towards the water. The lamp on the chest is right in the middle of the gorgeous window obstructing the view. They could have used tall lamp stands flanking either side of the window if they needed additional lighting.
- The dated floral loveseat is blocking the entrance between the living room and the kitchen | dining areas.
- The furniture style the homeowner used is a mix of casual leather chairs with matching dated sofas. The floral couches and leather chairs do not compliment one another. The floral chairs are a dated formal look, whereas the leather chairs are a completely different design style.
- The furniture should give a coastal and fun feel to this extraordinary view.
Photo: The Lily Pad Cottage
In our stunning home above, The Lily Pad Cottage created this stunning living room by following the design principles. Their design style is coastal, using this gorgeous view as the focal point, the starting point which everything else is based from.
Notice that the furniture is all lower backed furniture so that nothing obstructs your view when sitting down. The size of the furniture is perfect for this space with lots of room to walk around and look outside.
This room also has a SECOND focal point, the fireplace. Notice how the sectional faces the fireplace so that you can enjoy the fire as well. The homeowner could also have flipped the couch and chairs around to have the back of the couch where the blue chairs and and place the blue accent chairs where the back of the couch is now.
The accent pieces that the homeowner used are very appropriate for the space of the room and the home’s interior design style.
What are Interior Design Styles & How Do I Pick One for my Home?
There are many different styles of interior design for your home, ranging from transitional or traditional, from contemporary & mid-century to boho and eclectic, just to name a few. Design styles can become popular for a few years only to fall out of favor just as quickly as they gained popularity.
Knowing what your style is, is important to help you not only create a home that you love and reflects your style and personality, but it will help create a home that is harmonious and flows from one room to another throughout the house.
Read: What are Interior Design Styles and how do I pick one for my home?
2. Lack of Emphasis in a Room
Every room needs a focal point. The focal point is the star of the room. It sets the design mood for the room. It gives the eye a place to land when you first walk into the room. When a room doesn’t have any focal point, it lacks focus and your eye doesn’t know where to land.
Some focal points are natural as part of the home’s architecture like a stunning fireplace in our picture above. Windows, high vaulted ceilings or a drop dead gorgeous view are also natural focal points. Those become your starting point when deciding what time of furniture, and the size of furniture that you should place in your room.
What happens when you don’t have an architectural focal point? Create a Focal Point in Your Room
If you have no natural architectural feature, you can create a focal point with an accent wall, stunning artwork or a drop dead chandelier. These are easy ways to create a focal point in a room. In our photo above, there is a stunning view, but its hard to see through the slim windows. The picture above the bed creates a calming look where you can build your room design from the artwork as your inspirational piece and focal point. Notice how the homeowner draws from the nature outside and extends this feel into the bedroom for a calm and relaxing look and feel.
Read: 5 Ways to Make a Focal Point in a Room
3. Furniture is matchy matchy
Some homeowners go to the big box stores and buy the 3 seater sofa, the love seat AND the matching chair. To top it off, they will buy the coffee table and matching end tables that are on display with the couch set. These pieces of furniture are all very nice, but when they’re ALL the same and you’re using them ALL together, your room looks more like an ad for a big box store than your family or living room where you want it to reflect your family’s personality and lifestyle.
In our photo above, the room looks nice but ordinary. The homeowner could have bought a smaller couch or two overstuffed chairs in a different color to replace the back couch that is front of the kitchen. Notice how the couch is longer than the wall?? Your furniture should NEVER be longer than a wall.
You need to mix it up a little. Instead of having all the furniture in the same fabric and style, add some accent chairs in a different color or fabric. Add accent pieces like a coffee table, end tables, rug, throw cushions etc in different colors and textures.
Plan Your Room Design by Starting with a Mood Board
Buying all your furniture in the same style like a love seat, a three seater couch, the matching armchair plus the recommended coffee table & side tables makes your room look like an advertisement for a big box store. This gives your room zero personality and does not reflect your style and taste. There can be some great finds in big box stores without a designer price tag, but the secret in buying items from big box stores is to buy items that look like they came from a higher end furniture store, like a neutral 3 seater couch for example, and purchase accent chairs and tables from boutique stores that reflect your design personality.
One of the biggest challenges homeowners have when they decorate a room is that they don’t start with a plan. They buy a stunning piece of artwork they see on their travels and put it on their wall. They like a beautiful wool rug they find for a steal at Home Sense so they lay it on the floor underneath Aunt Mary’s oversized hand-me-down couch that is a little frayed on the arms.
Furniture and accessories accumulate overtime as they an add item that they like and purchase, or add gifts from well meaning family & friends. It becomes a bit of this and a bit of that. The challenge for most of us is, this method ends up being a hodge podge of furniture and accessories. And when you step back and look at the room, it doesn’t look great. It feels off. Its not Instagram worthy.
When designing a new space, or even adding some elements to a space, its always a good idea to start off with a design plan, also called a design board or a mood board.
Related Read: Plan your room first by creating a design or a mood board
4. Too much or too little furniture in the room
I’ve been in hundreds of homes over the years and one of the biggest design mistakes homeowners make is that they have TOO MUCH FURNIUTRE in their room.
Homeowners that entertain alot or have big families tend to put way too much furniture in a room for the size of the room. We see this in our photo on the right where the furniture is blocking hallways and traffic patterns. It may suit their purposes of seating alot of people but the room looks stuffed full of furniture, and it makes the room look smaller than it actually is. There are alot of solutions to add furniture to a space for those big family gatherings.
On the other hand, too little furniture makes a room look sparse and uninviting like the picture on our right. Two accent chairs or a small love seat opposite the sofa would create more of a conversation piece and fill the room. Also, the room is lacking accessories, a coffee table, and an area rug which makes the space feel cold.
Sometimes homeowners are using furniture that is a hand-me-down or was used in a different home or space and is still in good shape. Just because your furniture is in good shape means doesn’t meant that you should be using it in the room! Choosing the right furniture will help solve your seating problems and make your living or family room be warm and inviting.
5. Blocking traffic flow or a design element with furniture
In our home above, furniture is blocking the focal point of the room which is a big no no in design. You NEVER want to block your focal point or design feature.
In our picture, right, the homeowners have actually blocked the entrance to their family room with their oversized dining room furniture. lol.
The obvious solution is, of course, is to purchase a dining room table & chairs that allows one to walk around the furniture into the next room.
You should leave 24″ – 36″ walkway in a major traffic flow area clear of any furniture for people to walk through one room to another. It is NEVER a good idea to block traffic flow. Different furniture and furniture layouts are better options than blocking traffic flow!
Choosing the right type and size of furniture for your room is crucial in creating a space that is not only functional, but one that you will enjoy and love with friends and family.
6. Ignoring Scale & Proportion in a room
The height and size of the furniture must not only co-ordinate with each other, it must complement the elements of the room for a cohesive look. In our picture above, the height of the couch is obviously out of proportion with the rest of the room. It is not only oversized for the size of the room, it blocks the flow of conversation from anyone sitting at the bay window, and it blocks the light from the window.
A question I frequently get asked is, if you can place furniture in front of a window, which you can. However, you want to make sure the height of the sofa or chairs, are low, and not blocking sunlight.
In the picture left, this room is violating multiple design principles. The low leather couch against the railing sandwiched between the two high back chairs, are out of proportion and makes the room feel unbalanced.
There are also too many different design styles to the furniture and one of the chairs is blocking the fireplace – the focal point in the room. The furniture is a miss match of different styles and sizes because its lacking a design style.
Photo: HGTV
This room styled above by HGTV is perfect, of course. The focal point is the fireplace and the furniture is placed accordingly around the fireplace. The sectional is situated perfectly so you can either watch the fireplace & TV or talk to your guests on the either side of the room depending on where you sit on the sectional.
The two accent chairs are in a different fabric and color from the couch giving interest to the room. The chairs are situated in front of the walkout doors but are low enough that they don’t block the sunlight coming in from the windows and are far enough in front that give a person enough room to walk out to the patio outside.
Notice the picture on the wall to the far left? It ties all the different colors of the furniture in the room together nicely.
The sofa table behind the sectional gives a place to put thing down when needed. It also stores two gorgeous ottomans that can be pulled out for additional seating when you have a larger crowd. The ceiling light’s and colors compliment the style of the room but doesn’t detract from the star of the room, the fireplace.
This room works successfully because the designer executed all the design and color principles perfectly giving
Breaking any of the above principles as it applies to your furniture, will leave your room feeling off balanced and unsettled. Putting these principles into shape will give you a relaxing and cohesive space where you, your family and friends will enjoy for years to come.
Read 5 designer tips for a well styled room
DO YOU NEED HELP?
Check out my Color & Room Makeovers e-design consult here
I help busy homeowners, just like you, to style their house to make it a stunning retreat, where they can live and enjoy their home. I help homeowners, make money beyond their wildest expectations from the sale of their house by guiding them when they’re getting their house ready to sell.
Hi! I’m Debi Collinson. Designer. Color Consultant & Real Estate Investor.
I grew up looking at blue prints, going on construction sites and helping my dad, an Engineer|General Contractor and Co-Owner of a Design|Build|Engineering firm pick out paint colors for his buildings. Since 2006, I have been styling & staging hundreds of homes to make them look like they belong in a magazine page whether the client is styling to stay or staging to sell. I moved my business online in 2020.
In my spare time, LOL, I buy “fixer uppers” to fix up & either sell for a healthy profit or to rent. I’m currently looking for my 10th “fixer upper.” Sign up to receive my e-mails of how to make your home stunning, how to sell your house for top dollar AND how to become financially independent one fixer upper at a time!
