Top Mistakes People Make Before Hiring an Interior Design Firm

Like most jobs, interior design is much more complicated than it might seem at first. It takes a natural artistic eye, but it also takes training to know exactly how the furniture will fit the room, and how the room will fit into the home.

Many people who first attempted their own interior design end up at Chelsea Design, because they eventually realize that hiring a professional interior design firm is the only way to be happy with the look of their home. Many try their own design and make some common mistakes. What kind of mistakes?

Matching Everything: When everything matches, everything can look boring. Making everything match can give the room too much of a “catalog feel.” You want your rooms to look amazing, but you don’t want to give the impression that they look amazing only because a professional interior design firm stepped in.

Mistake number one is walking into a showroom and just picking the complete set. Instead, we’ll work with you to get the right combination of colors, materials, and styles that still go together but give the room interest and life.

Not Focusing On The Lighting: Most people think that, if a room has overhead lighting, that the room is finished. After all, you’ve got the natural light in the day and the overhead lighting during the night. But that ignores the opportunity to change the mood in the room. A dining room might need overhead lighting for when you’re doing a large puzzle with the kids, a chandelier for a fancy meal, and side lighting when it’s time to relax the mood and have after-dinner coffee.

Sticking With White On The Walls: White is the perfect neutral color so that it doesn’t distract from the rest of your decorating, right? Well, white has its place, but you have to think about the walls as part of your decorating, not as the backdrop for it. And the colors you choose have to look perfect with the rest of your decor, no matter what kind of light they’re in. Choosing color (for both the walls and the rest of the furniture) is one of the hardest parts of residential interior design.

Furniture Always Against the Walls: Many homeowners’ first furniture was a secondhand couch that they got in college. When they bought their first new couch, they were living in a small apartment. Because the spaces they were decorating were small, it was a necessity to put the furniture up against the wall.

Most homeowners who attempt their own design still fall victim to this idea even after they can spread out in a large house. Furniture doesn’t have to go up against the wall; even the right bookcase can stand on its own in the middle of a room.

Unlikeable Art: This can be a touchy subject. People can have, to put it simply, bad taste in art. Sometimes it’s retro, sometimes it’s not retro enough, sometimes it’s gaudy, and sometimes it’s offensive. BUT...it’s their style. And our responsibility to either work with it or offer a compromise that will still satisfy them. And finding an accompanying design can be very difficult!

Residential interior design isn’t easy, so it’s important to find someone who can help you move past the mistakes that most people make. Give your home the best by hiring an excellent interior design firm.