5 Tips I Learned from an HGTV Interior Designer

hey and welcome back i'm so excited about today's video i'm going to share five incredible tips that i learned from an interior designer from an hgtv show if you're new to my channel i have a show on hgtv an organizing show called hot mess house both season one and season two you can stream right now on discovery plus that's a shameless plug but i worked with an incredibly talented interior designer named abby and what i love most about abby is her ability to really bring in what the homeowners love work with the things they have whether it's a sofa that they love or artwork and design the room around that space she is not about painting everything white she has bold colors and she's really listening to what the homeowner wants so when we had to redo our basement because our fireplace broke i reached out to abby for help our basement family room has had some little updates over the years we got a new to us sofa and replaced the orange one that was down here we put a desk down here for joe because he works from home since covid and i mean i'm all about cheap i never want to spend a lot of money on a space so i've only spent a few hundred dollars but when our fireplace broke we found out that it wasn't to code and we couldn't just put a new insert in the entire wall had to come down i was panicking this is expensive now i have to restone it and we had to rip up a part of the carpet to get to the fireplace which means we had to put in new flooring so when i reached out to abby and asked her for advice her first advice was hilarious because her first tip to me was cass you need to declutter which is very funny but she's right she just pointed out that i had too much going on in the space this space is a workout room for us it's an office it's where we watch family movies it's also a spare bedroom when guests come over it's a lot of things but i had a lot of extra things that also didn't need to be in the space like a giant lizard tank that i moved up into milo's room in a boxing bag that we never used and just a lot of accessories that i just didn't know where else to put them so i shoved them down here abby's 100 right decluttering is free but it also makes a huge impact on your space so before you start redecorating you've got to relocate and declutter abby's next tip was to really keep things neutral that are staying here even if we move that means the flooring should be neutral the stone should be neutral the paint colors should be neutral but her idea of neutral and my idea of neutral were very different i wanted to do gray i wanted to do gray walls gray stone gray floor and she said cass you already have gray furniture you have a gray tv stand you don't want your room fifty shades of gray i had a grey carpet her advice to me was a little shocking she actually said that a lot of gray is on its way out abby says warm neutrals are what is in style right now and if i did all gray it would feel really dated in just a few years she suggested instead when we're redoing the floor to go with something that has almost a red warm brown undertone so it matches our staircase but also it can balance all the cools in this room so we found some beautiful vinyl plank flooring it was so inexpensive less than two dollars a square foot and we ripped up the old carpet underneath the carpet was even uglier old carpet so we had to rip up the carpet twice which was a lot of work but i'm so glad it's so worth it i love this floor and it's so easy to keep clean [Music] i knew on the fireplace i wanted a really chunky mantel joe glued some inexpensive wood together to make it look like a beam because a beam mantle was like three hundred dollars so joe made me one for just forty dollars and we stained it a warm color and then white washed it afterwards to really make it again match the gray but also have those warm tones so we're balancing it and the stone i am so in love with i don't know if abby's going to like this stone or not i didn't get her advice on this stone but i brought in the warm like she said this stone has a lot of beige in it it has a lot of brown undertones and gray so it's really mixing those two together something i never would have thought that i could do without abby's advice so if you are all 50 shades of grey in your house take abby's advice and don't be afraid to add some warm neutrals in to really balance it abby says the number one decorating mistake that people make are having area rugs that are too small in every space i've seen her design she actually layers area rugs on top of each other which i didn't even know was a thing and it always looks fabulous but i think she's right i definitely was guilty upstairs of having what she calls a floating rug and that's when an area rug doesn't touch all the pieces of furniture in the room it looks like a little postage stamp just floating in the middle of the room so she suggested that i get a new rug to replace the gray one that was big enough that it touched all of the furniture that i had so it created a little seating area not only can it give color to the space too she suggested that i go with this faded navy and cream area rug from wayfair i absolutely love it and she's right it definitely makes the space feel cohesive and grounded abby says the second biggest decorating mistake that people make is hanging their artwork too high so closer to the ceiling than it should be and that artwork should be at eye level i did already know this tip but what she told me that i didn't think of was instead of buying art for the space she loves using a family photo as the focal point she suggested that i find my favorite family photo and blow it up to poster size and frame it so i have this family photo that i love it has a lot of pinks in it and i was so surprised to blow this up to a poster size was just twenty dollars at my local copy and print shop and i found a huge poster frame from michaels for just 24. because it's plastic it's made for posters it's really inexpensive but it looks high-end now i know exactly what colors of accessories to buy and it's all based on this inexpensive family photo [Music] every time i worked with abby to design a space i would show up on decorating day with her and just watch her magic happen so this is after the flooring was in after the furniture is placed sometimes there would be some artwork on the walls and it would look nice but it wouldn't look hgtv nice you know what i'm saying and i got to watch her in a matter of hours transform these spaces with accessories she is all about layering soft blankets and pillows and in a few different houses who already had gray furniture she actually added cream pillows which is something i was like can you add brown cream and gray i don't know but yes you can because abby did it and it looked fantastic so i did the same thing adding a lot of cream pillows to really neutralize the cool grays in the space the next thing i noticed that abby added to every single space was a lot of plants abby loves plants trees figs she had this olive tree that she just would bring to every single house but it looked fantastic and i noticed it didn't make the space feel cluttered it made the space feel brighter and fresher and clean and more inviting and so even though this was a basement i really wanted to add in some fake plants i don't have any light down here but adding plants just makes it feel so fresh so i'm taking a cue from you abby and adding lots of plants to the space and i love the way it looks little succulents on the table it's small thing that makes a really big difference [Music] i'm so grateful that i got to not only work on the hgtv show but work with abby and just see her in her element and learn from her i'm definitely no interior designer abby and i do not agree all the time she hates teal with a passion but she did introduce me to pink and so that's now my second favorite color when it comes to interior decorating but i just learned little things from her like getting a bigger area rug or making a space feel more neutral in less fifty shades of grey and i'm grateful for that and the surprising thing is how inexpensive it can be to get a consultation with an interior designer abby charges just three hundred dollars to help you with your space and there's probably a lot of interior designers that are a lot less expensive than you think that can help you with furniture placement or how to hang pictures i'm going to put a link down below to abby social and her website if you want to check her out but it is something that i recommend if you're really struggling sometimes it's great to get advice from somebody who's an expert and trust me it's a lot less expensive than you think so if you haven't already like this video and subscribe for more organizing decorating and diy videos each and every week i'll see you next time hey guys thanks for those of you who have stayed to the end of this video i thought this was a good time maybe i've shared this story with you but i'm going to share it again because it's super relevant my wall color down here a couple of years ago joe went away for the weekend to the masters and i thought while he's gone i'm going to completely repaint the basement every time joe goes away i do a diy project that's when i stained the entire kitchen black oops sorry joe that's when he went away for a conference any time he's got him like a sledgehammer to the wall we should have a door here it's part of our marriage it's a fun game we play which is joe's gone away surprise what has cast done so the last time you went away he hasn't gone away in a while i decided to paint the entire basement so i went to the hardware store and i looked at all the swatches and i found this gray color that i wanted to paint the basement because i thought it was too beige so i came home i took the curtains down i taped everything off i moved all the heavy furniture into the middle and put tarps over it all by myself girl power and i started painting and i started painting it was like one o'clock in the morning but i knew he was coming home the next day so coffee coffee and music my friends i painted the entire room and while i was painting it it was very dark but i was like it's hard to tell where i've started and where i've stopped it must just be because it's so dark in here and i just continued painting the in the entire room the next day i was like this looks the same but i'm gonna put on another coat i don't know why does it still look so beige and then i re-hung the curtains and put up all the artwork and joe was gonna come home and be surprised and then he came home and he said nothing and i said i painted the room and he says it looks exactly the same and i said no it's more gray joe you know nothing so i stomped into the other room and i looked at the can and then i found the can that was here from the last time i had painted three years ago and guess what they were both revere pewter oh my god not only did i spend 140 on paint and an entire weekend and i didn't sleep and i painted like a mad woman and i moved all the furniture and i took down the curtains i painted it the exact same color and it didn't even need it's not like it's like cash you freshened it up no it's fine there wasn't a scratch on the wall i painted it the exact same color for no freaking reason why i don't know because i'm crazy obviously i really like revere pewter which is a lovely shade of grey grey is a combination of gray and beige which abby would approve of because she doesn't like just solid gray i'm rambling now the point is i've hired painters ever since i'm like i have ptsd from this experience not only did i waste my time but now joe has this thing to hold over me till the day i die thanks so much for watching and i'll see you guys next time

Channel: Clutterbug

Views: 201,359

Keywords: clutterbug, interior design ideas, interior decorator, hgtv, hgtv design ideas, hgtv show, interior design tips, home decor, home decor 2022, home decor trends 2022, interior designer, house design, interior design, interior decorating, design tips, brian patrick flynn, design mistakes, kristen mcgowan, interior design mistakes, interior design 101, home decorating ideas, home decorating ideas living room, living room design, home decor on a budget, decorating on a budget

Id: GHPoPtl77nA

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022