7 Decorating Tips That Only the Best Interior Designers Know ...

One of the best decorating tips by interior designer DD Allen is to first pick where you want your main sitting area to be in a room, and then decorate the rest of your items around that. Featured in House Beautiful magazine, this tip is one I think is simple and very useful! For instance, if you have an open floor plan like we do, you may find it difficult to fit a couch, love seat, recliner and a television in the room if the area is laid out awkwardly with the kitchen or other adjoining rooms. You don’t want your guests walking straight into your sofa, or leaving the kitchen and walking into a room face to face with the television. Instead, pick where you want your sitting area to be and focus on moving the other items around that so things will be cozy, accessible, and easy on the eyes.

For the love of decorating and design, please don’t paint your walls and leave them bare. You need to add some life to your walls and they’re the best place to decorate of all! Art or photos can make a room come alive. It doesn’t need to be pricey, but does need to be suited to your style. Black and white is always a win-win, and whatever you do, choose something that reflects you, not what you think is popular. I personally hate many forms of art, while other forms are right up my alley. Souvenirs from all your favorite travel spots can even be used as art, so get creative!

One top decorating tip by interior designer Richard Mishaan is not to center all your photos, especially small photos, on a larger wall. They can end up looking lost and very “cookie cutter-ish” on your walls. Instead, offset a few photos at varying heights to make the wall seem larger and fill it up. Also be sure to add lighting under the photos either with a lamp on a nearby table or in the corner, to enhance the room’s appeal.

Lamps are your friend when it comes to decorating, not overhead lights. Overhead lights are often fluorescent based, which can kill a room’s intimacy. Use more lamps and use more than one. Small lamps on tables and shelves are especially intimate, while larger lamps look great on nightstands or in a corner as a standing lamp. Lamps give a room depth and life at the same time, while overhead lights make things more intense.

Designer J. Randall Powers told House Beautiful magazine that one top designer tip is only to put white curtain lining with white curtains- period. This is great advice because white makes a statement and you don’t want other curtains on your windows with a bright white liner peaking out that screams, “Look at me!” Try to put matching colors with matching liners. White does not match anything but white so remember that next time you give your windows a little makeover!

Never push your walls, or rather, never push all your furniture up against them. This is one of the most reported decorating faux pas of all! Betsy Burnham told House Beautiful magazine that when you push furniture up against the walls, it makes things less intimate, yet when you move furniture away from the walls, even just a little bit, it creates a warmer feel and flow in the room. I have to agree that not many things look great pushed up against a wall, with the exception of pieces that might be extremely tall like entertainment centers, hutches or desks. The main point is to make sure your sofas, chairs and tables aren’t crowding the walls and instead, creating a nice form to the room by moving them out a few inches.

Here’s a neat trick that Richard Bories shared with House Beautiful: redo your doorknobs! Bories makes a great point by explaining that installing doorknobs at 34 inches from the ground up creates a much prettier proportion to the door by extending the top part of the door more. It adds a softer touch than a doorknob installed directly in the middle of the door’s height, which is at 36 inches. I noticed that the doorknobs in our house were already installed this way, but some older homes and antique style homes may not be. This is an easy adjustment you can make and will give your door a cheap, easy makeover. You can fill in the other hole with putty and paint over it.

Do you have a favorite decorating tip to share? I’d love to hear it! If you want to read more from House Beautiful about top designer tips, you can check out the article I read online; it's listed below. What’s your favorite designer tip?

Sources: housebeautiful.com