10 Interior Design Mistakes You're Making | How to Arrange Your Furniture

welcome back to my channel I'm Rebecca Robson and guess what We are continuing on with our series called 10 design mistakes you're making in your own home and maybe you know it and maybe you don't but after this video you're definitely going to know I'm going to give a special thanks to my viewers because a lot of you sent me photos you knew I was going to do this series on 10 mistakes and here I have them photos that you guys have sent me of your own homes and can I tell you it is so much fun for me just to watch and see what your homes look like and also for being great Sports because you knew going through this that I was going to be pointing out mistakes and you want to know why do you want to know not because you want to get your feelings heard of course not you want to know because you want to make it better and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today let's narrow it down to some of the main things that I'm seeing as a furniture placement issue sometimes is that your furniture is all against the walls now sometimes you have a really small place and it has to be but if your room is larger you don't need to put it on the walls you can float it another thing is you don't have any kind of conversational area everything is sort of facing the shrine the throne what's that the television and that is a problem when it comes to furniture placement and one very common mistake that I saw a lot in the photos that were submitted is not creating a focal point or a center point on a wall with which to place your furniture as I show you these photos and we go through them together I think you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about [Music] Melissa's got a gorgeous home do you not agree I mean this is beautiful it has extremely high ceilings and it is a relatively narrow room so what you have is a very long narrow very tall room what does that do it makes you feel like you're with a a really tall skinny man I mean I have nothing against that I'm just saying do you see how she has her furniture lined up against the wall that is a problem in my opinion so why is that well there's the fireplace and there's the television so everyone is looking at the television if she's just going to work with the furniture she has she could take these two chairs here you put a black chair here oh it worked and a black chair here right now you've created a conversational area it's a u-shape we call it but look how it fills in the space in this room and it doesn't look like a bowling alley quite frankly and I can tell you another option for Melissa and that would be do a black one here do a chair here and a chair here you're creating an L shape to the room and then I would get an additional chair and put it over here this direction and angle it now she's completed her conversation area and I think that would be very nice and make a big difference but keeping it all on one line against the wall is not your best option look at this this thing has gorgeous built-ins all in it there's a fireplace in the corner it's a large size room interesting that you step down to get into the room it's like a lowered floor but look at all this paneling and molding even on the ceiling I think this is gorgeous beautiful Windows beautiful room but there's a problem with it you guys Oscar and Suzanne you need more furniture maybe you know that but when I looked at this I saw two sets of wing back chairs and it just feels very like this Grand room with this underwhelming furniture I think this room is deserving of much more furniture something like a sectional sofa either probably here like this something that fills that space in there and then you could do the two chairs here and here something like that so that this feels like the walls the built-ins the windows the ceiling all connect with the furniture that's placed in the room at this point this feels more like a hotel lobby chair for two chairs for two and nothing else so that would be my recommendation for you guys in your case it's not that you need Less Furniture it's that you need more [Music] let's talk about Francesca's living room we talked about this last time when we were doing area rugs but this is a very easy and quick fix other than getting a bigger area red what she's done is she's got her sofa sitting against the wall and yet look how big this room is it's huge I would take all of what's here and I would just scoot it over just a little farther look how much further over she could go right here she could take this whole room that direction all the furniture the rug everything over here and she'd still have a very ample walkway but taking it off of the wall and floating the furniture is very luxurious thing to do and it looks amazing so I'd highly recommend you do that and then get yourself a coffee table too much fabric too much fabric you need some Hardscape in the center all right that'll make a big difference and I hope that that is helpful for you Francesca [Music] this is actually a very nice room she's got some stately Furniture in the leather sofas she's got a pair of chairs so that all works out great here's what I think they need to do right here do you see this window and then the drywall on either side well for one thing window treatments would be nice but if this sofa was moved over and placed dead center moved everything away from the fireplace 24 inches and that will look so much better you'll have a first impression that'll be symmetrical and of course move this sofa over here right look at that now it's directly underneath of the window then add some window treatments this looks terrible you just gotta imagine if this was actually you know pretty so there's another common mistake that people make and she has it in her room as well let's take a look at the next picture do you see how far away the sofa is from the coffee table and the sofa from the coffee table I give her huge credit huge huge credit Carla for having these matching pieces of furniture here and having this painted you are on the way to symmetry on your fireplace wall but the problem is your coffee table is too small what you need to have is a coffee table that it ends up being about 14 inches away so I would get a coffee table that extends like this and like this and now this is serviceable from this sofa and serviceable from this sofa I think that would look a lot better any of you who I use in this this series I hope that you'll take these suggestions and you will apply them to your rooms and when you do that I need to see photos of how it looks when it's done and we can also put that back on YouTube as well so people can see you know what you took the ideas and you implemented them and wow what a difference my problem with this project is these curved Pieces Just Don't Fit she said she doesn't even like the sofa so I don't think she's going to be hurt by this so this is the one I would keep I would change this out for two chairs on either side now here's the bigger issue you just saw what I addressed with Carlette what was it her sofa wasn't in the center of the window so see this right here this whole sofa should be moved this direction so that the center of these two pieces here land in the center of this window I promise you uh if you do this Maureen this whole room is going to look so much better so move this over and then you have the ability to put window treatments on either side of this and make a beautiful focal point in your room right now Everything feels off but when it's right oh yeah it will feel perfect it will feel right it'll feel good the very thing that you're struggling with right now can be over just by moving your sofa over gotcha got it [Music] and Mina's living room she's got lots of furniture she has three Sofas in one living room I give her credit for having a matching pair on either side but the whole thing is off placed off of the the feel of the room so take a look at the mirror that she's used here and then two pieces of Art this is not in the center of the room is it that would be the center of the room if we're gonna if I'm going to show you how this looks over this direction about to here and all of this would move over you'd end up with maybe a foot to 14 inches of space behind this wall and 14 inches of space behind this wall but it would allow you to put your art and your mirror centered of the room and that alone I'm not kidding it makes a big difference as you can see going through those photos a lot of times I'm talking about centering things on a focal point making the most of it I'm also talking about symmetry I did a video specifically on symmetry very recently but what do you do when you don't have symmetry you're trying to create a single chair it's not a pair how do you place your furniture in such a way that it makes sense and it looks good in a room I thought I'd show you this little corner here what would a single chair vignette look like if it was done properly I think when you have a single chair you always want to have a table next to it if you can if you have the room always place the table next to it why is that when you sit down in a chair like this what do you want next to you you want a table a place you can put your glasses or a glass of wine or a cup of coffee a place where you can sit and rest also a lamp sometimes the lamp will be sitting on a table but this is a small table in this case I used a floor lamp then flanking it either with one or two different plants adding that element of green really makes a difference in a room I placed an area rug underneath of it this is one of those cases where you will see me take an area rug and lay it Kitty want this right it's angled because that's the way the chair is sitting and it's a small area rug and I don't usually promote those either but in this case it's just the right amount of room for the chair to sit on and there to be some space around it so I think a single chair setting like this is always a good choice [Music] all right I'm excited about this next one this was submitted by Chris [Music] off of her entryway you walk into a room she's calling A din my guess is it was meant to be a formal dining room but they do have a dining room table in there and a chest but they also have this open leggy table I like the table it's cool looks like they're using it as sort of a desk kind of thing but as I flipped through her photos I got an even better perspective of this space beautiful kitchen nice open big that's what this room is can you believe that that is that but it is so here's my thought on this rather than have this table with these small pieces of furniture that just sort of go and look at this is a grand room tall the even the arched window and arched shutters are not are not nothing so let me show you what I think would be a great idea for her to make a bigger impact to make this room look amazing put two pieces of furniture on either side of this window this is called a jack Arch and an arch goes like this right at that corner and it goes down that's the height you want those Furniture pieces to be imagine how beautiful that would be I would try to find something in the same stain color as her cabinets here in the kitchen then I would put a p a piece of art here I'd get rid of these pieces here put a piece of art on either side and call it a day I think that would look so much better what do you guys think when I was looking through her photos at the very end I switched over and I saw this photo this shows the entry door that's beautiful door imagine if that had those wood cabinets on either side there don't get low ones by the way make sure they're tall enough look at this piece that is a honking piece of furniture this must go at least out of the entry I mean you could not even open this door if you wanted to not that you need to it looks like you go through this one but this is just like too much too soon way too big way too deep just uh-uh but look there's it goes you see this well right next to that the door look at that so that piece of furniture is squeezed into there that is a case of too much this is from Barbara and you know what she titled her submission too much Furniture so she knows okay so let's talk about this I think you could easily sit three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen Seventeen people that's what I have to say about that it's like what so yeah honestly this is a gorgeous room it has like this open ceiling which I think is fabulous it you know it has a pan that goes all the way around that drops around the edges but in the center this has got like I guess they're skylights I'm thinking and she's got Wayne's caught in here beautiful Furniture pieces really it's very traditional but this right here this Barbara is your money shot that's what we call it in the industry that's the money shot right there that right there is your focal point I would rather see you put a sofa like say this sofa and two chairs together like sofa here chair here chair here make a u-shape and then put your ottoman right in front of the fireplace now you've got half of the seating and you can just live like that all the time if you wanted to because that's what I think you should do then you could take these two other sofas and you could place them sitting across from each other on the other side and create like a little settee area but honestly this right here that is what you want to focus on and play up till the cows come home as my mother would say let me just say here right now if you want to see the world from my perspective I must remind you about the design sessions it is a digital Content Library of over a hundred hours available to people who join the design sessions so become a member today and you will begin to see life and your home through my eyes there's a link in the description box below this is Donna's uh great room and she's got a dining room right next to it and a coffee table I like the fact that she's repeated a matter here in her finishes she has a cabinet over here with the television I'm assuming that's the only place it can go but what I had a problem with on this wall she's got this long entry wall look at that when you first walk in there's like nothing and then oh piece of furniture I'm going to recommend that instead of having this open sofa table look that she should change it to something more of a cabinet something that's got a little more height to it and a little more girth and then I'm going to ask and suggest that she move this to the center of this wall even when this door is open she still has room she could move that down and maybe instead of a mirror there if you want to make an impact in the room and you want it to look like it's decorated add a piece of art above the the piece of furniture that you put there this is just too small too wimpy and I think an entryway table lamp would look great on that piece depending on what you end up with in the event that you have a room in your home that you're not fully satisfied with go ahead and send me photos of your project whatever room you have and give me kind of a brief description I need photos from really every wall so I know what I'm going to be giving you advice on if you need a little bit of help go ahead and submit and maybe you will be featured in an upcoming video on this topic [Music] before we close out here I just want to say I have a treat for you it's one thing to look at photos and for me to say yeah just move this here do that there but if you could see the difference between a room that has all the right pieces they just need to be adjusted and moved maybe it would better illustrate my point well guess what I just did that at a hotel I stayed at recently here in Tulsa so let's take a look [Music] [Applause] I'm just about ready I'm packed up ready to leave the Tulsa Club Hotel and I thought you know what before I actually walk out of here I want to do a quick demonstration for you because I think it'll help you understand what I'm talking about when I talk about getting the balance right in your furniture placement so let me show you what I did here when I first got here I noticed a few things there is no place I'd have to lean all the way over there to put a glass down and this is meant to be a drink table I have to lean all the way over there to put a drink and I can't reach to put my feet up I can barely reach so what I see is a problem here is the furniture is too far apart number one to be comfortable and also it's not balanced in the right location [Music] that the drink table is in the center and the two chairs are as much as I can as close as I can get here's a sofa table and this appears to me to be in the center of this but the sofa is not oh who would have thought that the sofa would be lighter weight than those chairs you have the ability to reach out and put a drink down I hope that was super helpful for you okay I will be back here next Thursday at two o'clock Central to bring you the next video in the series of the 10 mistakes that a lot of people are making in their home maybe even you all right I'll see you guys next Thursday at two o'clock Central bye

Channel: Rebecca Robeson

Views: 527,560

Keywords: interior design, interior decorating, decorating, home decor, interior design tips, interior design ideas, rebecca robeson, kinwoven, decorating tips, cohesive home, decorating ideas, design style, house tour, home makeover, decorating tricks, home hacks, beautiful home, home inspiration, home how to, interior design online course, interior design mistakes, living room layout, living room makeover, family room, furniture arranging, how to arrange furniture, bedroom layout

Id: Fmrn7lSqCcM

Length: 20min 16sec (1216 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023