Interior designer Harriet Kingdon from HLK Interiors has shared her top tips on how to decorate your home as she mentioned four design mistakes people often get wrong in their homes
For many, having a beautifully styled home that truly represents who they are matters enormously. This might be through their choice of wall colours, or the furnishings and decorations they pick out for their home. However, this can prove to be more challenging than it initially appears, as the job of decorating your home can quickly become more overwhelming than you’d originally anticipated.
To help, interior designer Harriet Kingdon, the founder of HLK Interiors, has revealed her top advice on how to style your home. Working with the principle that a beautifully styled home should be within reach for everyone Harriet turned to TikTok to reveal the four blunders people frequently make when styling their homes.
“I’ve been an interior designer for three years and these four things still surprise me,” she wrote at the beginning of the video.
She then used the video’s caption to detail the various mistakes, before sharing the simple methods you can use to correct them.
1. Keeping entrance halls plain and white
The first ‘mistake’ her list is the space that creates the first impression of your home – the entrance hall. Since most entrance halls tend to be rather narrow, it can be challenging to understand how to style them, which might lead to people simply keeping them bare, much to Harriet’s disappointment.
Rather, she suggests experimenting with hues and making the most of the various elements of the space that you could enhance with colour or texture to make it more captivating.
“It’s the first impression of your home! Paint the doors, skirting, or even the ceiling to make it interesting,” she advised.
2. Plain bedrooms
Next on her list, Harriet complained about the trend of leaving bedrooms plain and without any decorations.
“Sorry, but plain bedding and no artwork is just boring. You spend half your life in there, make it feel like you,” she said.
A simple solution to this issue could be to invest in an intriguing bedding set, or adding decorative pillows and throws to your bed to make it more appealing. Similarly, you could also add photos or artwork to the walls to make them less bare.
3. Gallery walls ‘done wrong’
If you choose to decorate your walls with paintings and photos, gallery walls have recently become a trendy way to do it. For this, all you do is select various artworks and hang them together on the same wall.
However, Harriet recommend that you should double check where you choose to hang the artworks so as not to spoil the effect.
“Artwork hung too high or too far apart kills the effect,” she said. “Keep it at eye level and tight together for impact.”
4. Not using dimmable lighting
Lastly, many people might not realise just how crucial the right kind of lighting is for your home. While a bright ceiling light is good for when you need to clean the room, it often becomes too harsh and ‘spoils the mood’ when you want a cosy evening in.
Harriet expressed her surprise that many people still don’t have dimmable lights in their homes, which could easily solve this issue.
“So many homes still don’t use dimmable lighting.. Mood matters! Not every moment calls for a full blast of brightness,” she said.
