Worst Advice and Top Decorating Mistakes

Worst Advice by cheapchickim on Polyvore.com

Worst Advice:  "If you love something, buy it, because you will always find a place for it."  Okay, stand up and raise your hand if this has worked for you.  --You can sit down, now.--

My problem is I like too many things.  I put together a mock story board (above) of some of the things I like.  It would just make for a room that had a lot of random stuff in it.  Case in point:  One of the times I followed this advice I bought a table that looked like a Dalmatian.  (Okay, you can stop laughing, now!)  It was a parsons table with a curled tail on one side and a head attached to the top of the other side, with spots of course.  I couldn't fit that table in anywhere!  It finally ended up as my night stand, but eventually made its way to a garage sale.

More bad advice:  If you want to know what color(s) to do a room in, start by looking in your closet.  Okay, this just might work if I wanted a blue denim slipcover like Pottery Barn had a few years ago.  I wear A LOT of blues, but when it comes to decorating, I'm a GREEN person.

My top ten decorating mistakes:  
(One of the big blog girls did a post on this awhile back - I tried to find it to give her credit, let me know if you have the source.)

1.  Buying printed sofas.  Sofa #1 when we first got married was a plaid in browns, rusts and golds.  (Does anyone else remember those?, and I disliked it from the moment I saw it being taken out of the deliver truck.)  Next set of sofas, striped.  Think dark green, navy and burgundy.  I learned my lesson, my next purchase was a modest taupey herringbone.  (If I could conjure up an old photo, I'd share it with you.)

2.  Not buying good quality high-use furniture.  (See #1)  Nothing like sinking (not in a good way) into a sofa or sitting at a wobbly dinner table.

3.  Not painting a great room with high ceilings, because we couldn't afford it.  We could have rented a scaffolding and done it ourselves.  On the plus side, it made me decide to paint just "this-side" of the rainbow in my next houses.  (Below, that's what I'm talkin' about!)



4.  Getting caught in a print trap.  I loved the (below) wallpaper when I bought it, but never hung anything on the walls, because I wasn't sure what to do with them.


5.  Purchased new (expensive) pine furniture for my young daughter's bedroom.  Pine is a soft wood, so almost immediately, I had "etchings" on the top from the kids drawing on a piece of paper on the dresser - it just killed me.

Less egregious, but annoying just the same...

6.  A glass-topped dining table:  We had to have one when we moved to FL!

Its details are lovely, but we can't even fit our immediate family at this table, and to add a larger wooden top would cover the base.  One thought I had, order a round glass top to fit ten people, it might work.

7.  Using hold-backs as curtain rod brackets.  I must have had a good reason for doing this at the time is my only defense!

8.  Banding draperies somewhere in the middle.  I had ivory panels that were too short, but some really nice plaid fabric that went with it.  I didn't want to add it to the bottom because I didn't think I'd be able to really see it.  Result?  It looked like a just spliced some fabric in there, not good.  (I didn't think of adding it to the top.)

9.  Buying a jute area rug.  I think I got this from Pottery Barn, and there may be some better ones, but mine sheds and pulls like crazy--and it's underneath the dining table!

9.  Purchase a costly entry table, because I loved it.  More defense:  This was shortly before the advent/popularity of CL.  I'm pretty sure positive, I could have found something I was delighted with for much less money.

10.  Too many silk plants.

What about you?  Any decorating regrets?  I'll post about my top "hits" soon.