I am actually crafty and have a good eye for style, but I’ve had some doozies when it comes to interior decorating. In the past, I came up with great color schemes and layouts, and then realized the floor plan or the accents of the room didn’t match. My interior decorating skills came by trial and error, which left me with more work and corrections. Although I love interior decorating, there are certain aspects that I should have left alone.
Country kitchen blunder
My house in Atlanta was far from beautiful. The kitchen walls were covered in country pink and blue hearts. I couldn’t wait to get the wall paper off the walls, but it had been on there for some time. I didn’t have the proper tools and left tufts of wall paper on the wall; which left it nice and bumpy for the paint.
The Hilton Head Island Condo
The white walls of the condo needed serious sprucing. After some thought, I decided a Southwestern color palette would make the downstairs look bright. What I realized was there were no separations from room to room and the walls had no “corners.” Each corner was rounded and I couldn’t even use this as a way to separate the color palette. This was something I should have taken note of before painting the walls. What’s worst than this? The paints I chose were glossy; making the dark Sierra nearly impossible to cover when we had the house repainted.
Patchwork on leather
I love leather furniture for several reasons. It’s easy to clean, and is perfect since our children are young. On the other hand, when our son tore the leather ottoman, I had to patch it. This definitely is not my area of expertise, and even with directions I fumbled it badly. I mixed the glue and the vinyl since they were the same color, and bought a patch that did not match our brown leather ottoman. It’s an atrocious sight, but the tear is patched.
Hand sanding a head board
The very first piece of furniture I refinished was a cheap head board I picked up for $150. It was an old wooden head board with an intricate floral pattern across the top. The pattern was beautiful, but meant I had to hand sand it. This was a grueling effort that took a long time to finish. Although it turned out fine my interior decorating fail was doing it in mid-July, Georgia heat. I did it in the carport, but the dust, lacquer fumes and the heat made me very sick even though it was outdoors.
An ill-fitting bed spread
A bed isn’t complete without a nice bed spread, blankets and pillows, but sometimes they are hard to find. Over the past several years I have bought blankets and spreads to place on our king size bed only to find that the measurements are wrong. After putting the comforter on the bed I learned that half of the mattress is seen from underneath. It’s not a complete interior decorating fail, but it is an eyesore.