The Magic Key to Decorating

Use What You Have Decorating taught us everything we know about home design, way before we got hooked on HGTV. Classic Freedom Kelly found the book and reveled in its clear rules and basic structure. Organic Freedom Katie got a hold of it and was like, “Oh so that’s what was wrong with my living room configuration!” It’s home design 101 and it’s brilliant.

We’ve visited many many homes and the number one broken design rule is badly hung artwork that doesn’t fit the space. Usually pictures are often too small for the space, but more often than not, artwork is hung too high. That’s right. They should be eye level to you standing up in hallways, but in sitting rooms they should be ideally anchored to a piece of furniture otherwise they look goofy floating on the wall like that.

The other, most important design thing is to make sure you have a u-shaped conversation area in your living room  — learning this was a “How could I have not known?” moment. It’s insane what having this configuration will do for your social gatherings. We reconfigured one client’s living room and found that her friends, who used to just congregate to the kitchen, sat down and started talking in her living room. The U is catnip for conversation!

Another lovely thing about this book is you can take what you already have and transform your place in an afternoon. Perfect for these recessionary times. And it should seriously appeal to all types. It’s a practical and inexpensive alternative to hiring a designer, (Funs, Classics) and for you creative and inventive types, it’s good to know the rules so you can build on them (Organics, Smarts.)

Originally published November 10, 2010