You Don't Have to Be a HGTV Star to Have a Fabulous Home

Home interior design shows are very popular today. With a whole channel devoted to the subject, you would like to think that the TV Interior Design Gods can do no wrong.

I’m really sorry to break the news to you. They aren’t always Gods to Interior Design and half the time they aren’t real designers. Shocker!

Drapery. Make sure you buy at least two times the width of the window. Two panels on a window is not going to cut it unless your window is very narrow. You want your drapery to look full, not like some sad teenage prom dress.

Walls. They have a knack for applying weird things to the walls or bad faux finishing. Oh, and be careful when you faux finish a wall. You really don’t want your family and friends making fun of you a year from now for sponge painting your wall in mauve and saying “The 80s called and want their walls back!”

Lighting. Don’t under light your space and make sure you layer the light. What I mean by that is, use different types of lighting, overhead, table lamps, floor lamps, task lighting and the so on. The rule of thumb is 100 watts per 50 square feet.

Flooring. Make sure you pick the right flooring for your space. You have to remember what the purpose of your room is first. Don’t have polished concrete floors in a kid’s room and don’t put some porous stone in your wet areas like a kitchen or bathroom.

Furniture. Building useless furniture is a common problem the TV Designers have. With their self imposed budget, they instantly think that they should make something out of MDF or plywood. You know, just like all that quality furniture you wish you could buy, but had enough sense to pass on.

Space. Oh, this is one of their sins they can’t stop. The just will not repent or give up on trying to stick too many pieces of furniture into one space. “Here is our living room and now you have two sofas, two chairs, three tables, 4 floor lamps and a partridge in a pear tree.” Yikes, people we need space. If you feel like you are in a movie theater and you’re crawling over people to move around, you got too much stuff. Edit it!

Slip covers. They love to slip cover junk. If it is a piece of junk, get rid of it. If your couch is old, not well built and you don’t really like it now, what makes the TV Designer think you will fall in love with it all over again because it looks like a elephant covered in a sheet?

The moral of my story is if you want to watch these design shows, remember these two things. TV Designers aren’t always good and do you think they would really put that decoupaged sofa in their house? 

Cheers!

~Michelle