4 Common & Surprising Things That Make Your Home Look Cheap

If you want an aesthetically pleasing space that makes you feel good and productive and caters to your needs, then pay attention to these key things that make your home look cheap.

From inexpensive accessories to poor furniture choices, these four big decorating mistakes can cheapen your space, but all of them are easy fixes. Here, I'll share my practical tips and insights on how to avoid these issues in order to elevate the appearance of your living space. Let's dive right in.

1. Placement of a bed

Let's talk about placing a bed in front of the window. I understand that all interior spaces are different, and placing your bed elsewhere might not always be ideal. If you have a choice and are currently making this mistake, you might want to fix it.

Placing your bed in front of the window blocks the flow of light into your space. Natural light has excellent health benefits, such as uplifting your mood, and if you have plants within your bedroom, it would be best to have the most amount of natural light because it will also benefit the plants.

Another reason placing your bed in front of the window might not be ideal is the interference with curtains. How will it be easy for you to open and close your curtains? A bed against the curtains might make opening and closing them very difficult.

You also shouldn't place your bed close to the window because the amount of light that enters your room from the window can affect your sleep. If you're a very light sleeper and sensitive to light, then sleeping next to the window will not be great.

Lastly, placing your bed close to the window takes away all the decorating opportunities presented when you can put your bed against a wall.

If you have no choice but to place your bed next to the window, there are several ways that you can make it work. You can use a low headboard which will allow the maximum amount of light to pass through it, or you can opt for a headboard that is made out of materials that allow the passage of light, like rattan, wicker, or wood with gaps so that light can pass through it.

2. Placing furniture against the walls

Many people believe that you create more space by placing all your furniture against the walls. Especially in the living room, people tend to push their sofas to one end, chairs to one end, and the TV to one end, leaving a big space in the middle.

You don't want to push your furniture against the walls because this creates a lot of negative space. This negative space is not great, especially in a living room, because it makes the space look empty, and it also doesn't foster conversation.

What you want to do instead is to push everything together. I don't mean that it has to be too close together, but it does have to be close together enough that it fosters conversation. The furniture looks like it belongs together, rather than scattered.

3. Rug sizes

Common sense might say that you need a small rug in a small room, and in a big room, you need a big rug. Another reason might be that you need a rug to cover the area where your coffee table is sitting. Unfortunately, that just makes your space look small and cheap.

This is because your brain will constrict the size of the space to the visual boundaries created by the rug that's making your space feel smaller than it actually is. If you're in a bigger space, it will look like everything outside of the rug is irrelevant, and only what lies on it is relevant.

Remember that a rug plays a decorative and functional purpose in the living room. It centers and grounds your entire interior decor design. Therefore you want it to fit well, and you want it to be sized well.

4. Paint color

If your building is north-facing, it most likely receives natural light with a bluish undertone. If the light that you have has a bluish undertone, you have to balance that by adding some warmth to the light. Using a color with a bluish undertone is not going to help you do that. It will just exaggerate that bluish undertone.

On the other hand, if you have a southern-facing room, it will most likely receive light with a warmish undertone, meaning you have to counteract that warmness with a bluish color or a color with a bluish undertone or a cool undertone. So these are some of the considerations that you have to take before you paint a room a particular color.

It is not that color in itself is wrong, but it is the environment within which the color is incorporated. Suppose you paint all of your walls white. Take note whether the white you select should have a bluish undertone or a warm undertone, or rather a cool undertone or a warm undertone.

Another factor that you have to consider before you paint a room a certain color is what mood you are trying to achieve.

If you're trying to create energy within the space, you're going to want to look at warmer colors like red, orange, and yellow. If you want a more relaxing, calm space, then you're going to look at the cooler side of the color wheel to colors such as blue, green, and violet.

Things that make your home look cheap

If you want a high-end look to your home, avoid the decorating mistakes above. What do you consider things that make your home look cheap? Share your thoughts in the comments below.