Living Room Design Mistakes (And How to Fix Them!)

You can actually see that some or accents don't compliment each other , but I I but it's ok if you don't have an eye for that , it's actually safe if you ask for a second opinion or maybe a third or even 1/4 or go ahead , ask for a lot of opinions .

Actually , the best way to know is when something catches your attention , but it's not actually nice but kind of distracting for an in depth lesson about this .

Please check this video .

I know it's just on how to pick through pillows that will look good together , but it will teach you about color coordination .

So your mixing and matching will look cohesive and not an eye sore .

And 01 more thing , furniture that's too large for the room .

I'm not saying that you can't buy large furniture anymore because you have a small living room .

They are just situations that need it like your home lack storage .

This doesn't really communicate kind of a singular message .

It doesn't feel like everything works .

Why is it that I like everything individually in the story and it looks good and it just doesn't work when I get at home .

That is because I think you're not really focusing on creating a cohesive space .

If you saw my video last week , you know all about this .

So the gist of it is this if you repeat colors and patterns and shape and texture and design style and different elements in your space , you create what's called rhythm and it sort of guides you through your living room to make it feel cohesive and make it feel like everything belongs together .

So I explained everything in depth in that video .

But basically , what you need to do is focus more on how all these different elements are going to play off each other , how they're going to work with the fixed elements that you already have so that you're not just kind of throwing things in together and hope it works .

But instead you have a strategy on bringing everything together because it's united by either color or design style or size or shape or texture .

All a whole bunch of different things that you can do that helps everything sort of work together .

So it is reasonable to buy a big chest of drawers or towering cabinets .

The trick is not to have them all in the same room because it's going to make your space tight .

You have to find the right balance and you have to out the room properly if you have a large family , but a small room , a group of one seater or two seater sofas can make better use of the space than a sectional one .

But there are also three seater and L shaped sofas that are small scale than the average size .

Those are the sofas that you have to find , make sure you also pair them with the right sizes of a coffee inside table or else your space will be overwhelming and now we're done with the uglies .

Do let us know in the comments below if we miss out on something .

Alright , hope you have learned something from today's video that you can actually apply in your home .

But please don't forget to like , comment , subscribe or turn on the bell for you to always stay updated .

Once again , I'm Phoebe .

Inspiring your home .

Bye .

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Same everything .

It actually looks like a show again .

It actually looks like a little little .

Let's use it 1000 times and you just can't do that in order to create a really interesting and nuanced space , you need to create different variations of that color or several colors that basically create a really interesting color palette .

And that brings me to mistake number three that I see .

And that is that your furniture is too matchy , matchy again , sort of like 0.2 .

But this is oftentimes I'm talking more about design style here .

This is what happens when you just go to a big box store and you just say , you know , wrap it up and throw it in the truck like I'm done , I'm just gonna take whatever is at the store and you're gonna bring it home and you're just gonna kind of take it home from an Ashley furniture and just roll it into your living room and although it may look cohesive , it's going to be boring , it's not gonna look interesting .

It's just so matchy , matchy that it lacks personality and it doesn't feel like it's yours .

It feels like an Ashley furniture and that's not really a look that you're going for if you kind of want to elevate your space and make it a little bit more interesting and unique and sort of show your personality because I guarantee you , you watching this in your own way , you are interesting .

You have something to say you have some style and you want to express yourself through your home .

That's probably a big reason why you clicked on this video and you watch my channel .

And so going in and buying Matchy Matchy furniture is just not going to accomplish that for you .

So stick to ways that you can create a cohesive space while still making an interesting space , which means picking things that are unified but not necessarily super matchy matchy .

So , you know , actually , right now I think is doing this really well is Studio mcgee .

If you've heard of Studio mcgee , it's kind of interesting if you look at a lot of their photos .

I've noticed something that they do over and over again , which is interesting that I think they do quite well .

And that is that they don't do match matchy furniture .

They usually oftentimes , especially in larger spaces is they will have two couches , they will usually have one couch that's really sort of straight and plain and then they will have a little bit more of a funky interesting couch next to it .

So they might be a little bit different in design style but usually unified by say , like a really sort of neutral color palette .

And that's sort of a way that they can kind of create a more interesting space than if they had just done the same couch times too .

I think they're kind of a really good example right now that is accessible to most people because I think a lot of people really like that style that they do at studio mcgee where you can create something that is interesting and varied without being super cookie cutter , but still feel really cohesive like it all belongs together .

Ok .

Fourth up on my list of living room mistakes is your rug is too small .

There's really only a couple of options here .

Ok .

There is the first option which is probably going to be what the majority of you do .

And that is putting the front two legs of your sofa and your side chairs on top of the rug .

So get out that tape measure and measure out the rug because you're going to be looking for something that isn't going to carpet to all different areas of the wall , but is going to be just enough for the front two furniture , legs of your chair and your sofa on top of that rug .

That is option one , option two , especially if you have a larger space .

So this is really only for those who have the really big and grand living room is you can do all the furniture legs on top .

Now , those rugs are usually expensive , but if you probably have a big grand living room , you could probably afford it .

But basically you can put all four legs of all the different side chairs and the couch on top of the rug .

That is the second option .

Probably the minority of you are probably going to be able to do that .

You know , if you're living in an apartment or a smaller home , you probably don't have the space to do a huge rug .

So most of you are probably going to have a rug that is just enough for those front two legs .

What is not happening ever is a rug that is so small that the coffee table barely covers it .

You know what I'm talking about ?

I'm gonna show you some silly photos because they are just that silly .

It looks really silly to have a really stupid little mini postage stamp of a rug sitting in the center of your room .

That's a bath mat .

Ok .

It's practically a bath mat .

Save it for the bathroom .

Do not put it in the center of your living room .

This is like a kind of non negotiable here .

There's not a whole lot of wiggle room .

So just basically go with a rug where you got those front two legs , it's gonna look great .

It's gonna look awesome and your rug is gonna fit perfectly in your living room every time .

Ok .

Number five on my list of living room mistakes is not enough breathing space around your furniture .

Ok .

So there's really two reasons for this , but let's go through the first one is that you want to make sure that everybody comfortably has enough space to get around the furniture pieces in your space .

If people feel like their chairs are jammed up against the wall , that's not comfortable .

If they feel like they can't squeeze between your sofa and the coffee table that's not comfortable .

And here's the good news , there's a lot of art and science to interior design .

This squarely to me fits in the category of science , which is you're building a living room for the human scale .

So humans don't really vary in size that much of course , in your living room , you want to take into account things like accessibility and mobility .

So really what you want to do is make sure you have adequate space around your different furniture pieces so that everybody can comfortably get around .

So you really want to take into account that some people don't have the mobility to be able to get around all your different places .

So not everybody is really able to kind of shimmy in to get into , you know , your side chair because they kind of have to get around an end table and maybe climb over the coffee table in order to get there .

Like no , that's not how you do it .

The second reason is also it's too cluttered to the eye .

If your space looks really clattered or your furniture pieces are too oversized or everything just feels like it's just too much and too heavy .

It kind of looks cluttered and it makes it not look fresh and inviting and welcoming .

So you want to create a beautiful peaceful living room actually enjoyable to be in .

And part of that is not having a whole bunch of clutter everywhere or pieces are oversized and you can't adequately get around .

Ok .

Number six on living room mistakes is not enough variation in your lighting .

Typically , what so many people do is they put the one Cingular light bulb in the center of the room and call it a day and they don't have really any variation in height on their lighting around their living room .

So do not rely on the one light .

What you're really looking for is an adequate amount of ambient task and accent lighting around your living room .

You're able to create a dynamic environment with lots of different lighting sources coming from different areas at different height levels so that it creates a space that is interesting and also functional as well because you know , you might sometimes need to turn on the light and that one light in the center of the room is not adequate if you're doing maybe a full renovation and you're trying to figure out what to do with your whole living room .

You know , focusing on things like recessed led strips so that you can sort of have this nice soft glow in your space can be really beautiful .

That's what I have in my living room here and I love , love , love it .

But if you're not doing a full renovation and you're just looking to sort of redecorate and add different lighting , focus on lighting at different height levels to create a more interesting and dynamic space .

So you might have a table lamp , you might have a floor lamp , you might have task lighting on either side of the couch , all these things can be really beautiful and it just varies the light .

It makes your space a lot more functional but also a lot more beautiful because in the end , remember that lighting plays a massive role in how we perceive things .

Ok .

Number seven on my list of living room design mistakes is your place is just boring , like , boring .

Like we don't like , it's just , you know , here's the thing .

I think people have boring living rooms .

And by the way , I would define a boring living room as something where it's just one note , it's really simple and boring but not , there's nothing interesting , there's nothing dynamic .

It's just like if you went to IKEA , you bought that plain gray sofa , you put a la coffee table in the middle and you got maybe a rug .

You know , I'm talking about like that college dorm kind of look , you're better than this .

You know , you can do something really interesting and creative that really is signature and reflects you and you know what I think rather than just be judgmental towards people that have boring living rooms , I'm gonna say this , I think it's a lot of it is either people don't prioritize style or design , which is fine , but it's probably not you because , you know , you clicked on this video so you obviously somewhat care .

I think it's because people are kind of afraid .

I think they're really scared to make mistakes because they're worried that , you know , they're not , their place is just gonna look weird or they're gonna pick the wrong things or they're gonna pick things that aren't in style or gonna spend some money on something that ultimately isn't gonna look very good .

And , you know , in the end , I just think that a lot of it is going to be taking some risks and trying out things that you really like .

So look at different inspirational photos , look at Pinterest , look at Instagram , the things that I show on this channel and really figure out kind of what you like , what is sort of your signature style but is your personality ?

What colors do you really like ?

What design styles do you really enjoy if you have a boring living room , which we've all been there .

I think when you're really learning and starting out , that's something that can be a real challenge .

It's just really focusing in on some of these really basic parts of design , like creating something really cohesive , identifying a color palette that really speaks to you finding the right design style that works for .

You combine a couple of different design styles to create something that you think really for what you're looking for and just get started .

Ok .

Next up on my list of design mistakes is that your TV is too high and I'm not going to go into a huge amount of depth of this .

But you remember how I said earlier , how there's an art and science .

Well , this again is going to fit more in the science category .

Your TV should not be so high that it hurts your neck or it straightens your neck in order to be able to look at it .

I have seen some tvs that are absolutely comically outrageously high .

This is one of the problems sometimes with putting above your mantel or putting above your fireplace and it's not a huge room really reconsider putting that television over top , if it's too high , it looks silly .

It looks ridiculous .

It's kind of like the whole , like small rug thing .

You know what I mean ?

Like , it's just too high .

It looks weird .

What you should be focusing on is things that are at eye level or just above eye level , like get out that protractor .

I think we're talking what 10 , maybe 15 degrees is what you should be looking at from your eye level , from where you're sitting on the couch to looking up at your television .

If you're like this , looking up at your television , it's too high case closed .

Ok .

Tip number nine on mistakes that you're making in your living room is pushing all of your furniture up against the wall .

I've never talked to put this on my channel .

But I think what is really important for people to understand here is the purpose of a living room .

Why do we have a living room ?

It is largely a space for you to be able to comfortably have conversation with people , whether that's your family or if you're not sick in them by now after quarantine or friends when you maybe have friends again , you know , and this is a room where you can really kind of share with people's company and sort of have great conversation and that is not really conducive when all your furniture is like , pushed up against the wall and miles away .

Now , I think it's really important to know that I'm not saying don't put any furniture up against the wall .

Like , you know , my couch here is up against this wall .

Absolutely can make sense , especially in a smaller place .

If you're in an apartment , that might be just what you need to do and that can be totally fine .

And again , I think the logic here , I think people are scared of putting a furniture piece in the center of the room because they feel like people are going to stumble on over it or it's just not gonna work because it's going to be just floating in the middle of nowhere .

So if you just focus in on creating that conversation area , you're going to be fine .

But don't feel that you're going to have to push everything up against the wall .

That is a mistake .

Ok .

So number 10 on my list , this is something that I see all the time and that is people keeping things that they don't like .

I get this all the time .

People message me and they say , hey , I have this rug , I have this couch or this chair , I have this art and I don't like it .

How do I make it work ?

You know what it doesn't speak to me anymore .

It's my old style it's something that I had in my own apartment and it made sense for that apartment , but it doesn't make sense in this one or , you know , it fit in that apartment and it doesn't make sense because it doesn't fit in this apartment anymore because I moved whatever you're reasoning , it doesn't really matter because if you don't like it , it's not going to work .

Like I'm here to tell you that I'm here to give you permission .

I'm like Marie Kondo , like pick it up and say thank you pillows that I've had in my last apartment that made sense .

Thank you for all the comfort that you gave me .

Now it is time for you to go off onto Facebook marketplace for somebody else to enjoy because it's just not going to work .

It's not gonna work .

I'm here to tell you that I have tried .

I have tried to go .

No , just give me time .

I'll warm up to it .

No , you won't warm up to it .

If you don't like it , if it's no longer your style , if it doesn't fit with what you're doing , it doesn't fit physically in the space because it's too big , it's too small , whatever , then it's time to pass that on to somebody else .

Now , I am not promoting a culture of like constant consumerism where you just buy everything and then you know , you sell it or you throw it out in the garbage or whatever .

Obviously , that is not sustainable .

You want to be very conscious with the stuff that you are purchasing and bringing into your home .

I'm a big advocate for that on this channel .

But I am saying that if you don't like something and it's passed its time or you know , somebody else can enjoy it and that someone is not you , then I'm telling you there is nothing that is going to save it .

10 pieces that are amazing and beautiful that you love are not going to all of a sudden kind of make that extra one piece look any better if you don't like it and it doesn't work .

It's time for you to let it go and let it move on to somebody else .

That's it for me for today's video .

So I'm going to link here to the playlist of these mistakes videos .

I already have the one , the interior design mistakes video I made forever ago and now this one and I will keep adding to this as time goes on .

So I'll see you all in the next video .

Thanks .

Bye .