All of you. Getting your home up to a standard you can be proud of takes a lot of time and money. This doesn’t mean you should feel bad or throw up your hands and give up, but just know that I too have unfinished rooms or rooms I’m not happy with, and I do this for a living with a team and access to resources and partnerships. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s neither easy nor cheap, and it’s much easier to put it out when you’re living in it and have a million other fires to put out or bigger fish to fry. forever. Listen, with how much things are costing these days and how hard everyone is trying to hang out and have fun on the weekends, I’m impressed if anyone has even a little bit of a room. So when these readers sent in their rooms that they wanted to fix, I was thrilled to see if any of my styling advice could help. I did this quick and dirty, with ideas to try and not make any major purchases or changes (but there are enough suggestions if you want to take it much further). Many thanks to the courageous and interested readers for sending us their rooms. I feel honored to be able to help 🙂
almost finished tv room
From reader: There are two rooms in my house in which I am trapped. I would love your help and ideas! Keen to keep the budget to a minimum and not have to work too much! One is TV comfortable. I like the sofa and I don’t think the room is bad, but something is missing/off, and it doesn’t look harmonious at all. I can’t figure out the reason – wonder if it’s the shelf and that corner?
My quick response: The paint color and sofa are great, warm and happy (I love that red sofa). And what you have here isn’t “wrong”, but you can make the following changes to see if you like it better:
- Upgrade to a larger ottoman or coffee table. Not only will this be more comfortable and functional, but the room in between will feel less empty.
- Pull the rug from under the couch toward the TV another 4 inches (so there’s less of a gap between the rug and the credenza), which will make the room feel larger and less cluttered.
- Move the fig tree to the corner where the high shelf is. Sculpted organic shapes will take up more space, but will be less busy (and soften the window lines). If you can’t leave it there because it needs more light, put a standing lamp there instead of that piece of art (which is great). The shelf is what catches my eye, but the little things on it look cluttered and cluttered in an otherwise beautiful, serene room.
- Lower the big, beautiful painting by 3 inches.
- If you want to go all casual, paint the ceiling (and maybe all the trim) the same peach color.
A “little different” living room
From reader: I really need help with this large middle room in our house. It has lots of character, great light, lots of space – just feels bare and “closed”. There’s too much traffic and too much chaos with three kids at home. Thanks for your consideration!
My quick response: You have so many great things happening! It seems comfortable and easy for people. If you feel this way, you might think about these thoughts:
- Try a large sofa in front of the fireplace, with two chairs on either side and a larger matching chair at an angle. There’s probably a reason you didn’t do this (maybe it’s too big and there isn’t enough walkway?). But I’d try it again, even if it’s closer to the fireplace.
- This current iteration feels unbalanced because it is too large and is only on one side of the fireplace. Turn the large chair so that its back faces the door, allowing it to pass through the space in front of the sofa. This can create a more attractive (yet balanced) conversation area (think how we have our blue velvet Soho Home chair at an angle to our sofa). You might want to give that chair to a friend – either a side table, a standing lamp, or an ottoman.
- Lay your rug on a large sisal rug (or just get a large rug). The size of the sofa and chair really call for a larger rug to ground them. If you’re going to replace the rug, buy one that’s at least 9×12 and ideally a soft color or pattern (solid, striped, or Persian-style, depending on the style of your home). I love chris love julias loloi collection. Super classic and versatile.
- If the coffee table seems too small (round ones often are), give it a small round ottoman as a friend to make it look bigger (like nesting friends).
- Hang pictures above the shelf instead of bending them 🙂
- Add a beautiful throw behind the sofa to break up the long brown mass that people will see when entering the room.
Love those built-ins and the fireplace (and the mirror and chairs). Very beautiful!
“Underdesigned” guest room
From reader: This is our small, minimalist-designed guest room in our mid-century home. We love this house, but due to my design fatigue this room has never been completed. I love the new bed we added, and my own paintings scattered around. The blue dresser was a very charming thing I painted for my son’s nursery ten years ago. This provides very good lighting, but feels incomplete. Do I paint the ceiling? The color drenches the whole thing in hot pink? help!!!
My quick response: I’m the queen of “just bring leftover furniture into the guest bedroom”, so I’m assuming this isn’t your first priority (it shouldn’t be!). That being said, I think there’s a lot of potential in this room if you’re willing to sweat a little and change a few things.
- Okay, you know what I’m going to say – COLORFUL!! If you do a dark color, so do window trim and baseboards, but if it’s a light color, it’s okay to keep white. I really love pink in the bedding (and I love our pink guest room), so you could do something tonal, which I think looks great and keeps the room feeling bigger while still being cozy.
- Replace gray curtains with a cream or tonal color that matches whatever you’re painting on the walls. Since the window is so large (to make it feel full and proportional) I would take two panels per side. If you’re up for it, raise the curtain rod and get longer curtains (to make the room feel longer). Check out this post for my rules🙂
- Remove the rug from the very bottom of the bed, which will reduce the amount of wood flooring in front of it. I would pull it about 10″ away from the closet wall.
- Add a headboard to ground the main wall. You don’t have to replace the entire bed, but a simple fabric headboard will make it feel more dressed up (they can often be screwed into the bed frame or simply set on the floor).
- I think if you add a headboard, the three small pieces of art won’t look so lost on the wall (but they’re still too small). I wonder if you could frame them for more presence? Otherwise, they may need to move to a smaller room or to a smaller wall for more presence.
- I love that painting next to the chair!! Very beautiful!!
- I think the dresser works in the corner, just hang the art so it’s not sitting on the dresser, and add a lamp and a small stack of books.
It was very fun. In an ideal world, I could teleport to each house and do it individually, just rearrange and tweak the furniture, re-style, but until some billionaire tech guy invents that booth, it’ll have to do. Thank you to everyone who submitted your rooms!
Opening Image Credit: Photo by Keltin Green | From: A day makeover for my friend – a teen basement with a colorful gallery wall that they already had
