Home Decorating Mistakes
by Amanda on July 13, 2010
As this is mostly a photography blog, talking about houses and homes and all things decorating isn’t usually on the menu. However, one thing you should know about me, author of this here blog, is that I am a housey decor fiend. When most teenagers were reading Smash Hits and Dolly Magazine, I was checking out my mum’s Better Homes and Gardens and Country Homes mags and salivating over the latest kitchen designs and Italian pasta bowls. I think it’s all part of that Cancer Crab Domestic Goddess thing.
The Canadian and I are moving into a new apartment come September and I cannot express how excited I am. We have found a new place in a great part of Vancouver, surrounded by restaurants, cafes and transport, and all within walking distance of the beach.
I have been furiously pinning housey things to Pinterest and checking out furniture store after furniture store. Before we left Sydney, I had to really just deal with the fact that when we moved, we would have to start over. I hate the fact that we have to buy everything again but it is kind of fun. I also get a re-do and know what mistakes not to make!
So here are the mistakes I made and will not make again:
Mistakes Not To Make When Furnishing a House
1. Don’t buy a white couch unless you never plan on sitting on it.
2. Don’t buy “for now” furniture. “For now” furniture ends up costing you more in the long run because it will need replacing after about a year.
3. Don’t get a place with “on street parking”. This is pretty hard to avoid in Sydney as so many places only have on street parking. If you can avoid it, do! Having to drive around the block a dozen times before being able to park your car at your own house is a pain in the butt. It used to drive me insane.
4. Don’t buy just one chair/sofa/couch. It makes entertaining very hard when your guests have nowhere to sit or have to B.Y.O.C. (Bring Your Own Chair).
5. Nobody should ever live without a dining table for 4 years.
6. Don’t buy a sofa so small that it can’t be laid upon.
7. Don’t take hand me down furniture if you hate it. It will depress you.
8. Cheap vacuum cleaners are cheap vacuum cleaners.
9. If you like coffee, you should be able to drink coffee in your house.*
10. Square plates and bowls are very hard to stack in a dishwasher.
* My friends think I’m weird because I don’t drink “house coffee”. I only drink coffee in cafes and restaurants. I am going to be brave and invest in a good quality coffee maker because having to drive to Starbucks when I get a coffee craving is just silly.
Have you got any home decor/furniture mistakes that you wish you could correct? Anything that drives you crazy about your place?
At the moment I am feeling the hate for our “right by the side of the road” flat. It is *very* busy. Also, super cheap bookcases. If you are concerned about their stability before you put your books on it, you will never be happy with it.
got one here, too =) i’m visiting bf, and the apartment he rents while he’s staying here in france is in an apartment building from the sixties. the kitchen and bathroom have been redone with cheap cabinets, and it’s so difficult to clean because nothing seems to fit properly – there are just a lot of silly nooks and crannies behind and under everything…
but oh, congratulations to you and the hubby! sounds like a dream come true =) hope you’ll feel like showing it to us later!
if you’re after just one cup of ordinary coffee, invest in this:
http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress.htm
the coffee is delicious and the thing is ridiculously easy to clean afterwards (but it makes just one cup at a time)
Some of these points I’ve never thought of before. You are a wise decorating sage. ; )
amanda, you are classic! what a fab list, you are on it girl! i hope you’ll show us some photos from your new place when you get in there, sounds perfect. x
Phoe, that’s a good point about the bookcase! Oh and yes, our apt is up high but it is on a busy road. We’ve decided to put our bedroom on the side facing over the courtyard instead of the road.
BC, all these little things can make life harder can’t they? Thanks for the coffee rec! I’ll see if I can find one here.
I’ve bought a cheap little stovetop espresso maker but I will need something for my caps too. :)
Shanon haha! Maybe you are just smart to being with when setting up a home hehe
Pia hehe…you know I will! I just wish I had done something like that in my last apartment. I loved our Glebe place. This one certainly doesn’t have as much character.
I think for me, it takes years to decorate a place. I have to live in it and get a feel for it. I think a big mistake people make is buying furniture just to fill a place. There are some things I wish I could replace – like our big chunky couch, chair and ottoman that has no style. My style has evolved too, which causes problems. Because things I bought 11 years ago, I no longer care for. So now, what I do, is go to second-hand stores and look for timeless pieces and think about re-doing them. There is something about craftsmanship from years ago that is ageless and transcends generations.
happy new home designing! so exciting. my two notes of decor:
1. white dishes. you probably already have these but my love for earth tones kept me from doing so. food looks | photogrpahs on white.
2. purchase what you love. somehow, that helps everything “go together.”
thanks for the advice! : )
Oh, I loved interior design as a teenager too. I took the class twice in fact as an elective just because I loved it so much. :) I carried my favorite swatches around with me in fact.
Jen, that is so true.
That was one of the mistakes we made by buying the “for now” furniture. We’ve decided not to do that this time and just go without until we find the piece that is classic and will last. 2 of the items of furniture I do have to take with us are old pieces that have been reworked- my desk and bedside table.
Your tastes change over time too so yeah, it’s definitely something that takes time. It wouldn’t be any fun if it was all finished from the day you moved in!
Allyn, yes, I have all white as my dinner set. I think it’s good to have white as the base and then you can buy those other quirky pieces that are loud and handpainted as one offs.That’s great advice about purchasing what you love. I think a home def needs to be made up of things you love so it feels like a home. A home that looks like a catalogue will never work in my opinion.
Carrie, haha, you sound like me, although carrying swatches around was something I never did. I remember I used to collect the paint colour charts and had a whole drawer full of them.
Hi! I’m a new reader! Thank you for sharing this. I’m taking down notes :) Totally agree with 5. Nobody should ever live without a dining table for 4 years. I’ve been living without a dining table for more than 8 years :o
Great tips! I totally agree about investing in forever furniture. Even if you get tired of the color palette and want to redecorate, if your furniture is good enough quality, you can simply reupholster – good for your pocketbook and the environment.
Funny about the parking bit. My biggest regret with buying my city condo is that I insisted on a place with garage parking. A year later, my husband and I sold our only car and now go everywhere on our bikes or public transit, when necessary. If I could do it over again, I would get a less expensive place without parking. :)
Thanks for stopping by, sleepwalkingintokyo. Oh, 8 yrs! You learn to cope, don’t you? :)
Dottie, so true about the reupholstering and environment!
Murphy’s Law hey? Yeah, unfortunately I needed my car to get to work in Sydney. Our new place has a car space but we won’t have a car! Typical lol
Re #4: We have one couch and my guests sit like birds on a wire…it’s kind of funny in a very uncomfortable way.
Adding: Always have a guest bed or something that can work as a guest bed. If you don’t, everyone comes to visit and you give them your bed to be polite and end up spooning on the couch with your husband. Bad. V.V. bad!
I would also add, get neutral dishes that you can dress up with colorful or creative serving dishes/napkins/etc. My husband – a former chef – insisted on white and I have to admit it was an inspired choice.
Number 8 is soooo true. I have been through so many vaccuum cleaners in the past few years that I could afford several of the expensive good ones with all the money I’ve wasted.
The coffee maker is such a good idea. It was a long time before I got one but now I work at Starbucks and I’m a coffee addict. Plus, is there anything better than smelling fresh coffee in the morning?
Your post made me laugh out loud, some things sound very funny the way you describe it. Actually, I’m very happy with our home and furniture. The only thing I can think of is that I really should have been more consequent where it comes to kittens and scratching their nails on the sofa. Or the wallpaper and {everything else upholstered with fabric}. The thing is: their cute little faces are way too adorable, you can’t get angry with them… :-)
Thanks for sharing!
Yeah I guess we do have a lot of that “for now” furniture. There are some pretty ugly bookshelves here just because they were our teenage furniture, but it’s either that or nothing, right?
I deal with it because I need them. Heh, our dining table was free from some people I don’t know and I hate the chairs with every ounce of my passion! lol! They have backs that curve around like they want to personally hug each person that sits in them, but really, a hard piece of wood stabbing you in the back or arm or leg (if I’m standing on them) is not a hug! It hurts! I once tried to sit down in this chair, somehow slid the stabby-arm in one of my pants pockets and tore a giant hole in my pants when I sat down! ROFL!
We learnt to never buy a cheap, hard couch again. I will refrain from using the brand name, but it’s a big shop that is known around the world. Ahem. Four letters. And whilst they have some great cheaper pieces to modernise a place, the couch didn’t work for us at all.
At the beginning I asked everyone to not “drop” their weight into the couch. Then after a year it showed no signs of becoming soft or comfortable. I then begged people to “drop” their weight into it! And jumped on it myself in desperation. To no avail. We sat on the floor and got numb bums for another year until we decided enough was enough. Time to spend money on a good quality couch.
Now I smile when I see that our friends and us flop into the big couch to watch a movie or share holiday photo slideshows. And it’s the best for afternoon siestas. Best money ever spent.
Love this post! I agree with everything you’ve said, and have made many of those exact mistakes in my past too, we even have the same birdy mail sorter, I use mine for saucers!
Love your Blog! Fabulous Photo’s!
wow great post, and thank you, I was just looking at a white couch on craigslist and this post has stopped me from purchasing it!
I just found your blog from Dress, Design & Decor. I live in Vancouver as well (originally from Edmonton) and in the few years I’ve been here one of my favorite shops to go and look at quality pieces of old furniture is on west Broadway (3026 W Broadway) it’s called Stepback, you should check it out if you are ever down that way, they select very beautiful antique furniture as well as make custom pieces.
Gal, you really made me laughing out loud about this great post.
I bet you learned some really good lessons. But don’t be embarrassed – we all did and who wouldn’t admit that is just lying.
Now what concerns the white couch so I do not fully agree with you. I have had my white couch for almost 7 years now and it still looks very good.
Ok, it’s leather and not a cheapy one and I do take care for it very good as I actually do for everything I own because it is simple too expensive replacing stuff due to being careless.
Anyway, I wish you all the best for moving into your new home and you to feel homey in the new place very quick. Make sure to post a few pictures here so we all can see how you decorated your new apartment.
With Regards from Houston, TX to Vancouver
Paula Jo