It’s easy to be what I call a “trendgetter.” I have been one, especially early on in learning about my style and more design techniques. Whereas a trendsetter is someone who leads the way in design, the “trendgetter” will peruse the aisles of big box home goods stores and let them decide what your style is.
Don’t be tempted to buy the fake foliage. Leave the bag of all-in-one bedding behind. Put down that overpriced, undersized end table. Here are a few easy considerations that you can use to set your decor apart and not fall prey to the drab and overused trends.
Plants
Fake foliage can be used for a specific reason, like if you’re decorating Hell’s waiting room, but live foliage is always the way to go. You might say you struggle to keep plants alive, but you’ll be fine if you can turn on a faucet and fill a watering can every week or two. I suggest looking up the type of houseplant you want, ensuring that you have the appropriate lighting, get good soil, and keep up with the watering schedule it requires.
Fig trees, dracaena plants, and snake plants are good starter plants. They thrive in different types of light and don’t require a tremendous amount of watering. While I don’t purchase a lot from IKEA, their houseplants sell at fantastic prices, and can transform any space. Houseplants can also have other benefits like improved air quality, increased moisture in the air, and many studies show improved mental health.
Bedding
Many home goods stores will have an entire wall of pre-packaged, all-in-one bedding sets. It’s tempting, I know. Often at a reasonable price, these bedding bags usually include throw pillows, duvet covers, pillowcases, bedspreads, etc. Typically they have less than comfortable comforters, are not high in quality, and don’t last a long time. The often busy patterns have an even shorter shelf life.
Now, that said, sometimes you stumble upon a higher-quality brand with subtle patterns, neutral color schemes, and better materials. If you must put something together in a pinch, OK, fine.
When it comes to bedding, I always lean toward soft white sheets, and often a white or neutral comforter or duvet set. Boring? No. Use lots of throw pillows to add texture and color, change them out seasonally, and layer other blankets with complementary tones.
Furniture
Often, our favorite big box stores will sell furniture that has a high price for low quality and rarely the right size. If you’ve read some of my other design tips, a room is meant to be filled with furniture that has a presence. I’m not a size queen, but undersized end tables with a built-in charger, flimsy console tables that sit too low, and small couches or chairs often draw attention to a room being small, rather than making a room have a sense of purpose.
My rule of thumb? If the furniture can fit in a Honda Fit, I may have to rethink it.
Now, I’ve decorated small apartments where the function was important, not all of the pieces with a smaller footprint are egregious errors, but don’t lead your decision-making with “It’ll never fit.” As they say, anything can be a chair if you try hard enough!
But in all seriousness, when I’m looking for a new piece of furniture, I lay tape on the ground to get a sense of what makes sense for the space, and measure that space, and now I have a guide for my shopping adventures.
Don’t forget height. In large rooms, height can work to make the room feel larger, more grand. In small rooms, it can serve to make the room feel intimate and warm. Lastly, I often lean on local antique dealers to find furniture. You can often find fantastic, high-quality pieces with a similar, if not better, price tag than the big box stores.
If you have a green thumb, great cozy bedding, or a fun furniture find, we want to see it! Send pictures to me on Instagram and maybe you’ll be featured in a future article.
Send pictures to @jedwarddesign on Instagram and maybe you’ll be featured in a future article.
