10 Reasons Your Home Looks Cheap | Interior Design Mistakes

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kristen and today I'm going to be sharing with you 10 reasons your home might be looking cheap. Now I am guilty of making some of these design mistakes in the past. You might be making them too and not even realize. So I'm going to be sharing with you some designer tips and tricks on ways that you can kind of improve your home, make some minor changes to make it look that much more high-end. Before we get started, make sure you guys give this video a big thumbs up and hit that like button and make sure you guys are subscribed to my channel so you don't miss the upcoming videos. Right after I finish filming, something very exciting is happening and I'm going to be sharing all about it on my channel so make sure you stay tuned and make sure you're subscribed. I'm going to jump right into something I know probably all of you have in your home. Let me know down below if you don't have one of these, but if you have boob lights around your home, it's giving off a cheap vibe and builders put them in all the time. It's a very affordable light fixture, practical, all of those things. Does it give off a high-end look? No. Boob lights just give off this kind of dated 80s, 90s look and it's just out. It's not in at all. So if you can make a little upgrade to your home by switching out those lights for something a little bit more statement, a little bit more modern, something that stands out as a design feature, that will take your home to the next level. Your new light fixtures do not have to cost a lot. You can get a ton of great affordable options on Amazon, Home Depot, Wayfair. This is something everyone can do in their home, whether you're a renter or a homeowner. Switching out a light does not damage anything. It's not a major change, but it really goes a long way. Let me know down below in the comments if you have boob lights around your home. What's your take on them? Do you love them? Do you want to get rid of them? Let me know. Okay, here's something we are probably all guilty of. I know I am because I'm staring at it right now. That is exposed cords. Oh, if you have a mounted TV with a bunch of cords hanging down, if your desk has a million cords coming down from it, your space is looking cheap. There are some things that you can do to hide your cords. There are cord concealers that are actually paintable, so you can run all your cords down a wall and paint that concealer the same color as your wall. That way it's more hidden, a little bit more seamless, and looks so much more orderly. You can also completely hide your cords by putting them behind the drywall. This is something a little bit more custom to do. I wouldn't call it renter friendly, because you're putting holes in the wall to string your cords through and pull out the bottom so that they're completely hidden from eye level. If you have that option to do that, I highly recommend it. It goes a very long way, but if not, you can get cord concealers, you can run them down your wall, you can run them down corners, hide them in wall trim. There are so many ways to kind of conceal the look of them and make your home look tidy, cleaner, and more high-end. Now let's shift over into furniture. You guys know I love IKEA. I'm always looking for amazing pieces there to share with you guys, but one mistake that you can be making is getting too many things from IKEA. If you have an IKEA sofa, an IKEA coffee table, an IKEA console, an IKEA media unit, everything is from IKEA, your home is going to look cheap. It's going to look like the IKEA showroom, even though some of those spaces are very beautiful. Everyone knows the IKEA pieces and it just gives off a very cheap vibe. I love to choose pieces from IKEA to mix in with my other furniture pieces, like the far love sofa. That is one of my favorite IKEA sofas. It looks high-end. If you mix it in with your other furniture pieces from other stores, your space will look that much more high-end. So look around at your space. If you have maybe more than three IKEA furniture pieces all in one room, your space might be looking a little cheap. Now the same thing goes for matching furniture sets. If you walk into an Ashley's, The Brick, Lazy Boy, and you pick out a matching furniture set, your home is going to look cheap. The way to get a designer high-end look is to mix furniture pieces, mix color, texture, pattern, and create a very diverse, unique, and structured look to your space. This can even go as far as getting a sofa with a mixed, matched ottoman. A lot of sectional sofas come with a matching ottoman sometimes. Sometimes they don't even come with it, they just offer it to you and people say yes. I say say no and choose a different one that will bring in a new texture, a new color, a new style. It will make your space look so much more high-end by just making that one minor change. If you have matching furniture sets in your home, you can take one furniture piece from one space, move it to another, and that room no longer has a matching set in it. You can improve the look of your home very easily without spending a dime. All right, now let's jump into wall art. Sometimes wall art can be the reason your space looks cheap. If you are picking the very typical pieces from Ikea, from HomeSense, that we've all seen, we all know they are from there, then it's just instantly making your space look a little less high-end. So I highly recommend staying away from mass-produced artwork. I think HomeGoods and HomeSense has beautiful artwork. You kind of have to sift through it to find the more unique pieces. I specifically like their framed artwork there. Some of their framed pieces actually have beautiful fabric inside that's very unique or a beautiful print or photography. I would say those are great to choose. Same thing with Ikea. They're large canvases that have been around for, I think, too long that everyone has had, everyone has seen. They're very affordable for a large piece, but I think you can do something different to bring your space together. All right, another reason your home might be looking cheap is just simply your furniture placement in your bedroom. If your bed is pushed up against the wall in a corner, for some reason that's just giving off a cheap kind of dorm room vibe. If you center your bed with two nightstands on either side, create that symmetry, create that kind of hotel look, your space will look more high-end. Even if you're using the most affordable furniture pieces, making that one change will improve the space so much more. The same thing goes for your living room. If you have sofas and chairs and everything pushed up against the walls to create more space, it's making your space look cheap. I say when you can, bring your furniture off the walls, anchor your furniture on a rug, create some flow around the space, and create a really unique furniture layout that will instantly upgrade the look of your space without spending anything at all. Now when you're pushing your furniture around and creating those new furniture layouts, make sure that you anchor your furniture on the correct size rug. Rugs that are too small, rugs that are too big, rugs that are the wrong shape are going to make your space look cheap. Especially if your rug is too small and it's kind of just floating in the middle of your room and not anchoring anything. The point of the rug is to create comfort, to expand the look of your space, and anchor all of your furniture on top of it. If you can get at least the front two legs of your furniture pieces on that rug, you're safe and you most likely pick the right size. When it comes to dining room rugs, make sure that you can pull the chairs out all the and the chairs still stay on the rug. In a bedroom, make sure that your rug isn't just floating at the end of the bed. Anchor it underneath the bed. Make sure that it expands past your bed, lines up with or goes a little bit further than your nightstands, and that will be the right size rug for your space. If you love your rug and it is too small, always know that you can just add another rug underneath. You can create a layered look using a flat woven rug and laying your rug on top. That way kind of gives off a designer look. You can keep the rug that you love and you can make it look planned out and make it look like it's the right size. Now speaking of entryways, something that's just instantly making your home look cheap right when you walk through the door is your messy cluttered shoe rack. Shoe racks? Just, oh, I don't know. There's something that is not high-end about them. If you can get closed storage like a bench that has storage underneath or the amazing shoe cabinets that are super slim, don't take up a lot of space, but they hide your shoes away in, or your front closet. Trust me, this is something that will make a major change to your home. All right, this last thing I feel like is a little bit more geared to the younger crowd. If you have tapestries and twinkle lights in your home, it's going to look cheap. I know that's like a college vibe, hang a tapestry, hang the lights, they seem to come together all the time. I don't know. It's just not giving off a high-end look. Twinkle lights should never be inside unless it's Christmas and tapestries just kind of give a loose, oh, I don't know, not put together look. It's kind of a bohemian look, but you can definitely achieve that bohemian style in a different way. I would opt for more boho artwork and maybe candles and lamps, things that will add mood lighting and atmosphere in a different way. All right, so that's it for today's video. I hope you guys enjoyed watching, and I hope it gave you some ideas on how you can take your home from cheap to high-end with just some minor changes. Let me know down below in the comments which one of these design mistakes are you guilty of. Maybe there's multiple that you're guilty of, but let us know down below. I'm sure we can all relate. If you enjoyed watching and found this video helpful, make sure you give it a big thumbs up and hit that like button, and make sure you guys are subscribed to my channel so you don't miss the upcoming videos. Click that red subscribe button down below and make sure you guys have your notifications turned all the way on so you're first to see the next video. Love you guys so much, and I'll see you in my next one. Bye!