Genevieve Gorder Reveals The Biggest Design Mistakes Most People Make
Genevieve Gorder has no design regrets. "It's all part of the process," she swears. That's a pretty big feat, considering her background. "The thing about my career that most people don’t have as designers is that I can watch all of the things that I’ve done, because it’s all recorded somewhere," she points out. But the Trading Spaces star knows a mistake when she sees one.
We got to talking about which 2018 trends are too played out to bother with anymore (millennial pink, your time has come), but the truth is, the biggest design mistakes often have nothing to do with what's trending. Here are four decor faux pas that can ruin a room no matter what year it is.
Matching everything in the room
If your curtains, chairs, and couch look like they came in a set, you probably took a wrong turn somewhere. Instead of matching everything in the room, "it’s about complimenting," Genevieve says. She suggests thinking about what colors play well together. If that seems overwhelming, think of it this way: "We don’t want to date a carbon copy of ourselves―we want a person who’s complementary to what we give, just like everything in a room needs that other thing that helps it be better."
Forgetting about lighting
You might think choosing the right kind of lights, and their placement, is where most people make their big mistakes. But according to the newlywed, it's actually a much smaller detail that can ruin the look of a room. "Every light needs to be on a dimmer; it needs to be controllable with mood and time of day. It shouldn’t just be what you bought in the box on a switch," she explains.
Buying a too-small area rug
Of all the things people get wrong, Genevieve says overlooking proportion and scale is the most common. "You know when getting an area rug, for example, often times it’s much tinier than what it should be. They look like postage stamps, and that makes the room a lot smaller," she explains. Make sure your area rug is large enough that every piece of furniture can have its front legs on it-without everything all crammed together.
Shying away from color
When it comes to choosing a paint color, it's easy to go the safe route and stick to something neutral. But as Genevieve points out, we're choosing colors that we don't actually love. "No one says my favorite color is beige," she says. Though she admits neutrals are part of the palette we need to complete a room, we have to "build a family of colors to have a really happy, authentic space."
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