10 Expensive Decorating Mistakes & How To Avoid Them 

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Instead of painting samples directly on the walls I buy several sheets of white poster board and paint a huge swatch on them to within an inch or two of the edge. Then I tack them up around the room. They can be moved around or removed without disrupting the decor in your room before you actually get around to finalizing the color and painting.

Watch out for sofas! Sometimes you measure the space and it fits perfectly, but you forget to measure a doorway or a sharp corner going down a hallway!

Be warned that if you paint a sample color on the wall or worse multiple swatches you will often see faint outlines of them. Especially if the wall is bathed in light and you view it from the side. So do not paint words especially. This is due to now there is a additional thickness of paint, often painted twice or three times. Painting over these areas will not make them disappear. Best to have a spare piece of sheet rock for this that has the same primer and paint on it that is already on your wall.

I’ve been really enjoying the energy and warmth in your recent style of presentation. It’s cool to see you experiment with different formats and styles in presenting your expertise!

Mate, I'm not into design and that stuff but I love your content, how you present facts in a practical no frills ways is golden. You are appreciated! Have a great festive season erbody!

Been badly burnt by the first mistake. I picked an expensive "light beige" paint, gave it to the painter and left for the day not realizing the "ORANGE HORROR" that would be waiting for me tomorrow.

Probably the biggest issue with selecting neutral paint colors is neglecting undertone. Lighting would just make the hue lighter or darker, but light will not affect the undertone. Putting a paint with pink undertones won’t look good if other colors in your space, such as tile or wood, have a yellow undertone.

Agree with the DIY know your limits......... Pulled out my old kitchen, drywalled and fitted new electrics, plumbing, units, oven, hob, flooring, tiles etc. Perfect....... but it took me five months! When it came to our bathroom, i was less confident of getting a good drywall finish on wall and ceiling as well as doing large tiles 60 cm x 30 cm. Toilet and sink would be fine but a new walk in shower to replace our bath.....? Called in the experts and they did a fantastic job..

We just redid our own wood floors in our new house. It was definitely cheaper to do it ourselves, even with the equipment rentals, and a professional probably would have told us to just replace the floors (even more expensive). But, man, was it a time suck. We’d thought it would only take us a month or so of working on it on weekends. Due to problems getting ahold of the equipment we needed, then the floors needing a lot more outright repair than initially thought, then us not being able to find replacement boards for the repairs and having to figure out a solution, it ended up being a 10 week project… including us having to use vacation time to finish it up. We weren’t able to do any of our other planned pre-move in repairs because of how much time this took.

I always find it really interesting that manufacturers make matching furniture but interior decorators say don't buy it! 😅

Samples from Samplize are great and I found it made a huge difference to my ability to choose paint.

Thank you so much for the work you do…I love your videos! I appreciate you mentioning that renovation is hard on Mother Earth❤

Same thing with carpet. Before they cut the carpet off the roll ask the supplier to show you the carpet on the roll in the sun light. I wanted a dark grey/charcoal coloured carpet but when it was pulled into direct sunlight it displayed as a very dark green. If it had been layed then I saw the sunlight on it, I would have been horrified and it would have been a very expensive mistake that I would have had to live with for years.

In measuring, don’t forget to measure and note the depth and height of the space as well as the width. Several years ago I ordered custom sized bookcases and computer hutch. I had measured the width and had the sizes adjusted to perfectly fit one wall of a bedroom for a built in look. What I didn’t think about was the depth because the existing bookcases fit depth wise and the hutch was to be in the middle with a break front. Unfortunately the new bookcases were deeper than the old one and came in front of the closet door molding. Worse there was crown molding at the top and the units weren’t tall enough for the crown to extend above the closet door. If I had placed them where intended I would not have been able to open the closet door. They’ve been used in other rooms of my house but despite the ability to have them custom sized I was never able to use them where intended because of not carefully taking ALL measurements into account.

So true about dye lots. Years ago I crocheted an all hot pink Afghan for my mother-in-law and ended up with the last foot of it a slightly lighter pink. 🥴

A friend of mine purchased a home once where the previous homeowner had pulled off all the crown molding and high solid wood baseboard in some of the rooms, to "modernize" it... Tragic.

Funny about not wanting matching furniture... I have a lot of hand-me-downs and it makes me feel second-class and buying a matching set has been my desire.

I always buy a small sample of the paint I want. Actually I usually buy multiple samples of multiple options. Then I get pieces of 24-in by 36-in oak tag and paint them, labeling each one. Then I can take my paint samples and try it out on different walls in the room since the light will hit differently at different angles. That's enabled me to never regret a paint choice.

I'm definitely feeling the "not planning ahead phase" i was in love with my gray flooring then later realized i should have done something more natural and lighter. Now im thinking how to distract from the flooring, like rugs, art etc.

I always like white wall colour & woody furniture. When last time i moved in new home, i spent very less money, no expensive furniture or decorations, and i got a lot of compliments 😊

Thank you for talking about keeping something old and not letting it be sacrificed to the landfill. 👍

No advice needed, a good eye is enough😊

Exceelent advice! We've all see rooms or even the exterior of houses where someone relied on a paint chip!

I thought I can paint my space and after painting one wall I realized Nope! Now I’m forced to hire a professional painter to fix my work and finish my home.. lesson learned!

We have matching black furniture in our bedroom that still looks great after several years. I did change out the knobs.

My designer paid for herself when I remodeled my kitchen and master bathroom. Avoided expensive mistakes and design came together better than I ever could have done on my own. Consider at least a consultation with a designer.

Excellent advice

Good advice !!

Love all the fun tiles they make for backsplashes, but went with a light grey subway tile; timeless and also was CHEAP!

Nice video. What’s the floor lamp you have in the background?

For paint, if you like a colour, go to one shade more grey than your pick. The larger volume of the colour, will be overpowering at room scale.

Great advice, complement, don’t match

Outstanding video! Most of all, I agree 1000% on preserving architecturally significant and well-never-see-again details, materials, and construction. Though architecturally insignificant by most measure, my modest New England 50’s era expanded ranch has a poured concrete foundation, plaster walls, electric thermal storage heating (I have my own transformer), is clad in thick and dense old-growth forest cedar shingles, which today can’t be found at any price, and isn’t in an HOA. While electrical and other important system regulations have definitely improved over time, many materials to support the upgrades are imported UL counterfeits and otherwise bad quality. Many other changes in housing construction have been short-sighted and lack craftsmanship of every kind - from thin-veneered ‘wood products’ to ‘wood-themed’ laminate flooring, authenticity seems a thing of the past. Naïve buyers often mistake ‘fresh’ for superior construction, just to get their foot in the door. It will be interesting to see how today’s new homes fare over the next 50 years. About paint, I always spend a couple of weeks figuring out what paints and colors to use on my home. Once I narrow my choices down to 6 or so (usually different shades and hues in the same color band), I buy ~2-pint-size sample cans (paint store swatches are notional, at best). The ~$100 investment is much cheaper than making a regrettable final paint color. I paint large corrugated cardboard pieces with two coats of each paint and let them dry. Over the next week, I note their coverage and study each panel against my walls/siding in different natural (cloudy vs sunny day, early morning vs late day) and fixture lighting. I study them in combination to assess trim vs wall colors. I scratch my fingernails to see their ‘hardiness,’ and note what they look like when wet. I speak from experience, the most notable was when my young daughter asked if I could paint her bedroom walls a striking color. We negotiated, decided one so colored wall would suffice, and that she had to assist painting. I didn’t think to test the paint beforehand. We prepped the wall with a high quality primer. The first paint we used, a ‘highly recommended’ brand, the coverage after two coats was awful, and dripped horribly as each coat dried. It was as if it was a watercolor formulation! It was clear, any further coat would do the same. FWIW, the can had been properly shaken in the store, and we mixed further with paint sticks before applying. So I switched brands and repainted another two coats. The result was fabulous, and looks as good today as it did 25 years ago. My second most notable paint experience was when I was choosing our paints after a major down-to-the-studs kitchen remodel. Our kitchen had northern exposure, so had very little direct sunlight. We’d installed gorgeous custom natural finish cherry hardwood cabinets (we actually used Vila’s “This Old House” series kitchen remodel craftsmen) and knew they would darken over time. I wanted a neutral yet light sophisticated wall paint color that would gracefully age with and not upstage the cabinets as their finish richened. After studying several paint samples in the room’s natural and artificial light, I chose a complimentary grey with the tiniest hint of pink. Yes, pink! It was perfect.

Reynard may I add one point on the paint color? I wanted a muted color which I finally picked. BUT bought it in high gloss, now the same color but very bright and NOT muted. Much more intense. Paint chips are all matte finish, but will look completely different in a gloss. Live and learn.

Mistake I made is buying dining chairs first. Now it’s almost impossible to get a dining table that looks right. 😢😂

Hi Reynard lowell Modern luxury design Home Is Good 🎉

Also, yeah, ours is an old Spanish bungalow house that was “remodeled” at some point (calling it a remodel feels generous, they did almost everything the cheap way, especially the electricity). Externally, it still has character, but on the inside, it’s a bunch of plain boxes with cream walls. The only “character” left is the ancient floor, the orangey wood doors on half the rooms, the classic door bell chime, and a single doorway that still has a Spanish-style arch.

What I enjoy doing is picking a "general paint color" to keep in mind and not settle on the final exact shade until I have the rest of the materials (tiles, woods, fabrics) I know I'm doing my living room a dark neutral-y red, with a medium cool taupe ceiling, but the precise paint colours will be picked later.

This is where I went wrong: I bought a beautiful mango wood day bed to use as a couch. Unfortunately I bought a mattress that is too high, so now I am floating mid-air whenever I sit on my couch, lol!! I have to reach too far down to place my drink on the coffee table. It is bringing different things together logistically that is difficult to me!

My husband & I couldn’t find furniture we liked when we furnished our home back in the late 90s. Only thing we found was a cherry Thomasville collection. We royally screwed up by buying the same collection’s pieces for the living room, office, & bedroom. 😮 We have 13 matching pieces! We deeply regret doing this. We still love most of the pieces, but our home is too matchy matchy. How do we get rid of most of the Thomasville pieces & start finding new replacement pieces that coordinate w the old pieces? Please help! Thank you for your practical videos. You do an excellent job.

Amazing video!

I choose my wall colour in relation to my persian carpets.

How can I approach you for designing my new home

Does anyone know what app is used just begrote the 5minute Mark?

Nah i think matching sets _can_ be fine, but it just cones down to the textures of those pieces. I'd even go so far as to say ive seen more examples of furniture not matching looking very much out of place than matching looking tacky cuz of a texture that absolutely should not be dominating a room ultimately dominating a room. Matching is simply put a very much practical choice at the end of the day for a lot of people. It was practical for me, thought this isnt to say i was cautious about doing it. I chose a set with two black wood night stands, a black wood bedframe with prominent cream upholstery, and a black wood tall chest of drawers. The black solid wood (I was really careful not to choose MDF) provides a lot of nice contrast with the room and the upholstery, and i have a lot of plants and carefully framed and matted art ive purchased from artists ive met through conventions and art shows; its a lot of digial sci fi fantasy art i actually really love and says a lot about who i am. The result is a room that receives a lot of compliments. More importantly though, it's a room I really love. I think i can take it even further if i add some accent lighting behind the bed frame. Point is, it's a matter of at least putting thought into the room that ultimately shows and gives personalities, that personality isn't just immediately evaporated all because a chest happens to match with a nightstand or two. The best design for _your_ place comes from following _your_ own instinct, even if it goes against pro designers' consensus from time to time. Caring about what trends dictate you do in your living space isn't worth getting your head into too much of a fuss over. Tl;Dr it's all subjective. You do you. Don't overthink. Be happy.

Hi! Raynard can i paint over wall paper? Even the ceiling has wall paper i'll wait for your answer thanks.

kamuka mo po si lassy sa showtime. 😊

What app is that you're using at 4:51 ?

"Elevated" = snobbish. Some of us want our homes to feel comfortable and peaceful to live in without shrieking to every visitor about what superior beings we think we are.

In regards to have matching furniture… What about when it comes to outdoor furniture. Would you have an outdoor lounge set and a matching outdoor dinning table set? Or would this be too much?

You can only get the kit if you have the base game installed already 😢

Yeah, get the paint sample and throw out packaging after... make more waste, dont worry!

I *just* made an expensive design mistake... 😭 If only I had seen this earlier... 🥹