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The most obvious style mistakes are not made by those who dare to use very bright colours or fill their shelves with dubious-looking knick-knacks.
Instead, in my view as a London-based interior designer with 376,000 Instagram followers, it’s the tentative grasping at a popular style trend that so often screams “tacky!”
Thanks to social media, we are continually bombarded with ideas for “Scandinavian,” “boho,” “rustic chic,” “grand,” “coastal,” or “mid-century modern” style, and it can be very difficult to find and personalize our own natural sense of style.
But there is no authenticity in blindly following others, nor is there any good taste in trying too hard or faithfully copying a trend.
These are just a few of my pet peeves that could make your home look cheap and tacky…
The staircase wall covered with photographs
The key to making a stylish photo wall is to simplify the process – narrow down your options!
Nothing says “how can we fill this space?” more clearly than a wall full of random photos meandering up the stairs. I know it’s something interior designers sometimes suggest, but the effect can look cheap if you quickly grab a variety of photos and stuff them into mismatched frames.
First lesson in style: you don’t need to fill an empty wall. It’s okay to let the space breathe.
But if you really want to show off your vacation photos or family memories, the key to making a stylish-looking photo wall is to keep things simple. Limit your choice to a small selection of special photos, either black and white or full color, but never a mix of both. Then, buy matching frames and arrange the photos in a simple, eye-pleasing way.
A monstrous-sized television
It’s a bit tacky to arrange the chairs so that everyone is ALWAYS facing the screen.
If you’re lucky enough to have a room dedicated solely to watching TV, you can of course arrange the seating to maximize viewing pleasure. But if your main space is meant to function as a socializing area, a place for the kids to do their homework, and a space where you can relax, read or play board games, catch up on emails, and also watch TV, it’s a bit tacky to arrange the chairs so that everyone is ALWAYS facing the screen. That ugly black TV will completely dominate the room.
It’s much better to arrange furniture so that the room can best serve its primary function. If it’s an entertainment space that also houses a TV, then group seating into intimate clusters. If it’s a family room, move seating around to encourage communication – try placing two sofas facing each other (or a sofa facing two armchairs).
Word signs
Words are supposed to have meaning and power and should never be used to fill empty spaces.
If you have a neon sign that says “Eat, Pray, Love” or “Live, Laugh, Love” over your fireplace, or “Home is where the heart is” etched into a board on your mantel, then please take it down. Frankly, any kind of word art gives me the creeps.
Words are supposed to have meaning and power, and they should never be used to fill empty space on a wall. They are for talking or reading, not for looking at. The only place for words on a wall is in a public building, where they tell you where to go to an upper floor or to the bathroom.
Resist the temptation to buy a cheesy quote to hang on your wall if you expect it to confer any kind of prestige or style on you. These things exude unoriginality – you might as well hang a Britney Spears poster in a clip-on frame.
Wood effect ceramic flooring
This faux wood makes it look like you can’t decide whether to use wood or tile.
Wooden floors are great, ceramic tiles are great, and I appreciate the ingenuity of a wipe-clean wood-effect floor, but tiles that look like wood are a style I don’t like. Some things shouldn’t have a dual use, and wood is too beautiful to be ruined like this. This fake wood makes you look indecisive – you couldn’t decide whether to put wood or tiles, so you compromised. And that’s not stylish.
cheap indoor plants
Placing a cheap indoor plant on the sideboard does not add good taste.
I have noticed that men are particularly fond of buying a cheap houseplant from the local garden centre or on sale at IKEA and then deluding themselves into thinking that it makes them look stylish. Let me tell you, leaving a limp fern on the sideboard does not confer good taste. It is much better to spend your money on a vase of fresh flowers from time to time or invest in good quality houseplants and learn how to care for them.
Alternatively, you can stylishly embrace all the benefits of the outdoors with nature-inspired wallpapers (perhaps covered in branches or leaves) and using fabrics in olive, green and yellow tones.
The wall papered with the statement
I am not a fan of painting just one wall a deep, bold colour, or covering it with a chinoiserie or jungle wallpaper and leaving the other walls white. This unbalanced interior design smacks of vacillation. It seems as if you have felt pressured to jump on the bandwagon of some bold wallpaper as an exercise in ticking boxes from a style guide.
If you like bold colours or patterns, then be bold and paint or wallpaper the entire room, or stick to neutral tones and invest in an interesting sculpture or stylish cushions as a focal point.
A strikingly patterned wallpaper and colourful bedding are two of the things our experts should not consider.
Colourful bedding
All bedding worth its salt should be simple, white and plain. Only white. Never coloured or patterned, not even the duvet cover. A bright or floral duvet cover is stylistically weak, immature and wrong, like a bathroom set with avocados.
Starting with a simple, plain white linen fabric as a base allows you to playfully build up your bedroom’s color palette with a soft throw blanket or cushions.
Lots of cushions
The key to making them work stylistically is to invest in quality fabrics and textures that you love.
I love bed and couch cushions, but a lot of people hate them. The key to making them work stylistically is to invest in quality fabrics and textures that you love. Immediately throw out any loose cushions that come with your couch, and (this is the ultimate test of tacky and cheap) ditch any cushions that are so firm and filled with cheap foam that they can’t be fluffed and then cleverly “cut” with the edge of your hand.
A white room
The super clean “white on white” look is all over social media in part because it photographs well.
Walk into a room with white furniture, carpets, curtains, accessories and tapware and you know the owner has been influenced by Instagram. The super-clean “white on white” look is all over social media partly because it looks good in photos, but it’s highly impractical. Visitors get the feeling that they’re entering a hospital ward. And who wants to live like that?
- As told to Louise Atkinson
- @celineinteriordesign www.celineinteriordesign.com
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