Does your House Look Old?
Trends happen to the best of us, as they should. Everyone should enjoy the style of their current era, but we have the fortune of knowing what the styles of the past are all about. Unfortunately style isn’t eternal, and sometimes no matter how much money and time you invest in decorating your home (or how few trends you fall for), your interior decor becomes dated, and the look you once loved doesn’t work as well. Perfect example, look at the photos of you when you were a baby, look at the surroundings, especially if you were in a home when the picture was taken. Despite your best efforts, that brightly colored accent wall you painted in the ’90s just isn’t looking so fresh anymore, is it? This doesn’t mean you have bad taste or that your house is old; it’s just that this part of your home is starting to look a little dated. How can you update and keep it fresh?
It isn’t going to be cheap if you have to change flooring, paint, and furniture. The people that I know who keep things fresh do a lot of the work themselves. Some common themes are usually involving neutral colors and treated materials. Wood, tile, neutral carpet, simple paint jobs, and basic wall hanging usually stand the test of time. Easy and effective fixes can be simple also. Unless you seat 8 to 10 people at your dining table every week, your chairs probably don’t get much use. Steal two from the dining room, and use them to flank a console table in your entry, a dresser in your bedroom, or the sideboard in your living room. That gives it that classy and useful look.
Update your actual furniture. To lighten up a large piece of wood furniture, try painting a bright color on the inside, while using a neutral color on the outside. This also gives it a classier custom feel. Look around the house for things that share a common element. Maybe you have a lot of nicknacks or common picture frames. Group them together on a tabletop for an instant collection. Remember that odd numbers of items often look better together. Not so uniform either, different sizes of the same materials give it a scattered feel that draws attention away from straight lines and boring uniformity.
Pay attention to all rooms. When decorating, we often spend our time, money, and energy on the rooms that we assume will be appreciated by other people. But if you find that you spend more time in your office or even the bathroom, it should be decorated with the same attention and enthusiasm as your living room. Try taking an object you like or people compliment you on, even a painting, or book and move it to a place where you can appreciate it most. This works well with antiques or modern items that people notice anyway. Center the attention of a room around it. Open floor plans are all the rage, but some spaces call for a more intimate approach. Hang curtains in a doorway to close off a room or call attention to a small space with a big personality. You can easily open them and create a decoration instead a separation with just a couple ties.
Interior decorating is not my strength, but I have been in a million houses so I see the things that work. You learn as an agent to appeal to the masses. Great ideas come from model homes, as they are decorated by professionals. Going new model home viewing is a great way to see how they do it in the pros and they are all decorated with current trends in mind.