Avoiding Design Disasters

by Helen Houston

While rearranging the furniture in any room of your home is always a fun way to refresh your space, there are a plethora of layout missteps that can be made along the way. We typically subscribe to the idea that there are no strict rules in interior design—after all, personalization is what makes a space special. But according to a few experts, there are a few common faux pas that can make your home feel a bit off.

In this article, I review “layout lapses” and recommendations to remedy them to make your home look its best.

Choosing the Wrong Rug Size

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Choosing the wrong rug size is a common problem for living room layouts. You hear it time and again from all designers: Don’t buy too small for your room. If you’re floating your furniture, make sure both the front and back legs of your sofa fit on the rug, with space left around the perimeter. If your sofa is against a wall, make sure the front legs of all your furniture are placed on the rug.

About 90 percent of the rugs used under beds are much too small for the bed that they're under. If you have a queen bed, an 8x10-foot rug underneath is recommended. A 9x12-foot rug is the choice for a king bed. It's also important to measure your room's size and address its shape when choosing rugs. Lay the rug perpendicular to the length of the bed—no more than one foot away from the nightstands. There should be plenty of soft, cozy rug for you to step onto from the second you get out of bed and all throughout your walk to the other side when you're repositioning pillows and blankets.

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When choosing a rug for your dining room, make sure all chairs can fully sit on the rug, even when pulled out a bit. Having too small of a rug can make your dining set look not proportionate. Plus, it can get in the way when scooting the chairs in and out.

Forgetting All Angles

In older homes specifically, living rooms were often designed with equally important views of the front and back yard on one wall and a fireplace on another. Unsure of what to do with this, many families will focus their furniture layout on just one of those walls, ignoring the other direction. Balance the room out by choosing sectional sofas. An L-shaped sectional can quickly frame the two opposite sides of the room, focusing the seating towards a dual focal point that features both the fireplace and the view to the outdoors.

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Thoughtless Window Treatments

Window treatments often become an afterthought when designing a living room. They can make or break the ambiance of the space. It's important to remember that window treatments provide more than privacy; they enhance the design of a space not only by adding texture but also by creating a focal point or a statement surrounding the windows. In the meantime, starting with neutral window treatments can really warm and soften up the room.

Another common layout mistake is the placement of curtains in relation to window size. To open up your space and to frame your windows to look their best, hang your curtain rods several inches above the top of the window. You'll also want to extend the edges of the hardware out past the window edges. When your curtains are fully open, they'll let in the maximum amount of natural light.

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Lacking Adequate Lighting

Nothing spoils the ambiance of a space faster than bad lighting. It’s crucial to be strategic about how you employ various light fixtures throughout your home. While beautiful pendants over your island and sink look amazing, it is good to incorporate recessed and under-cabinet lighting to give the kitchen proper light when you are cooking or prepping food. Hide strips of LED lights underneath upper cabinets or over the sink for an easy switch-on when you need a boost of extra light.

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Too harsh lighting or not enough lighting can completely ruin the mood and look of the space. It's important to spread lighting around your room: Table lamps, picture lights, and floor lamps are great ways to add soft lighting throughout the area.

Placing Furniture Against Walls

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A common layout mistake that people make with their living room is having all the furniture pushed up against the walls. While there are certain furniture pieces that need to be near the wall, floating your sofa or accent chairs more towards the center of the room will help the space feel more inviting. Your sofa can create another wall in the room, which can give the illusion that your space is larger. Make sure you are choosing the correct size of furniture as well to give the room ample space for walking and everyday use.

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Creating Design Imbalance

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If your living room has symmetrical elements—like windows on either side of a wall, a fireplace in the center, or A-frame ceilings—arrange your furniture accordingly for a sleek look. Two matching sofas are placed parallel to the windows, while a coffee table lines up with the fireplace in the center. A pendant chandelier can complement cathedral ceilings, and two comfortable accent chairs add balance while keeping the design dynamic.

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Forgetting Space for Dish Towels

Kitchen islands now commonly house the kitchen sink. But this doesn't bode well for the dish towel that has no wall space or upper cabinetry for a hook—no one wants to walk around the kitchen with dripping hands or lay the towel down on the counter. The fix is even easier than you may think. Simply place a hook or bar on the interior of your sink cabinet to hang a dish towel, which keeps it both accessible and out of the way.

Not Styling by Shape

If your bedroom layout is built with specific architectural details—like angled or cathedral ceilings—it's also important to take the room's permanent design into account. For example, in spaces with angled ceilings, it can feel awkward to have the bed placed along one of the side walls. Choose a spot for your bed either against the main angled wall or directly opposite it for a balanced finish.

Not Making Use of Walls

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Using a pair of bulky lamps on each side of the bed is also considered a layout faux pas. Make use of valuable wall space by adding sconces as an alternative to lamps. There are terrific choices out right now—even plug-ins when hardwiring isn’t an option. If you're a fan of reading in bed or keeping extra glasses of water on your bedside table, you'll be surprised by how much of a difference the bit of extra space can make.

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Making Rooms Seem Smaller

Another designer trick for small bathrooms is to extend visual height when usable space is already maximized. Rather than hanging all of your décor at eye level, try to incorporate decorative items, tall curtains, or lighting fixtures higher up. The effect draws the eye up toward the ceiling, making the room feel larger than it actually is. If you have large windows in your bathroom, keeping the blinds and curtains open as often as possible also helps to extend the space further by drawing attention outdoors. It's helpful to downsize additional items you don't need. Toss out the half-used bottles of hairspray or shampoo that you'll never use again, and use the newfound cabinet space to organize any extra items cluttering your countertops.

Too Many Throw Pillows

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If your living room is covered in throw pillows, it might be time to scale it back a bit. All too often, the sofa is cluttered with oversized or too many pillows. When accessorizing a sofa, I recommend sticking to just three pillows in three different styles to help create visual interest without overpowering the other décor elements in the room.

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Eschewing Convenience

Homeowners will often place towel bars, rings, and hooks where they look best, rather than in a spot that's convenient when using the space. Luckily, towel bars, etc., are simple and easy to add, remove, or move. So once you've lived in the space long enough to know where you need your towels most, you can make quick changes to fix this problem.

Overdoing the Furniture

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Having too much furniture in your dining room can be a major layout mistake. Keep the room minimal but exciting by using dynamic art, a table, chairs, and a fun light fixture. We can get away with much less in a dining room, including the outdated china hutch to store linens and tableware.

It's very common to underestimate how much space there needs to be for traffic around a dining table. To avoid this issue, consider the width of your dining set when all the chairs are pulled out from the table—not when they are pushed in. When it's time to entertain, you'll find that the extra space around the table makes it much easier to serve dishes, clean up, and for guests to get up and down from the table as needed.

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TV Screen Focal Points

If you design your entire living room around the location of your television, it’s time to switch things up. The TV should never be the focal point of a room. Instead, try layering the TV around a natural focal point, like a gorgeous view or architectural fireplace, and arrange the furniture around that. This way, you’re still able to watch TV, but the layout is much more focused on the windows and allows for a great conversation setup if you're entertaining.

No Natural Greenery

A little foliage can go a long way in a living room. Greenery adds warmth and an organic feel to your décor. It can also be used to fill in empty areas of a living room—place an oversized fern or myrtle on a pedestal to act as a filler in the corners of a room.V

Helen Houston is a certified real estate staging and redesign professional. Helen is the president/owner of Staging Spaces and Redesign and can be reached at helen@stagingspaces.biz or (702) 346-0246.