You’ve surely visited a home whose design made you think “geez, what were they thinking?”. Excessively bright colors, weirdly combined wallpapers, modern tiles in a classic bathroom – the list of offences can go on and on. It’s easy to dismiss any of those just by saying that when it comes to home decor and design, it’s all a matter of taste. Well, it certainly might, but there are things that won’t work, not even in a million years.

You don’t want to become the owner of that house everyone’s laughing at, so you’d better put some thought in your home’s design – especially if you’re about to remodel! Here are some mistakes you definitely should avoid if you want your home to be both beautiful and stylish.

Don’t over mix design styles

Mixing home styles is all the rage now, with ultramodern touches meeting with classic elements throughout the house. Yet, you should definitely consider if that’s the style you want to live in for years to come. As happens with all trends, this mixture may look astonishing today but it could certainly loose its charm next year, leaving you stuck with a design that feels obsolete and dated.

The best thing you can do to avoid this is to pick a genre and stick to it. How to decide? Let your overall style decide. If your house has a colonial style, don’t go drastically modern in your rooms. What you want is a home that feels coherent as a whole and a room design that actually fits the layout and what anyone can expect just by looking it from the outside. This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative! But don’t overdoit, since doing that will ruin your whole home’s atmosphere.

Don’t overshadow that thing that makes your home special

Unusual homes are usually the more beautiful homes. So, if you’re living in one, do yourself a favor and embrace the things that make your house unique. That tiled floor, wood trim, the majestic fireplace or that sunken floor – they can (and should) be the center of the room on which they are on.

Covering a hardwood floor with a carpet or remodeling your home just to get rid of wood trim can prove to be a colossal mistake, because you’re hiding that what makes your home different from others. Instead of doing that, think of that unusual element as the star of the room and design the rest around it. If you do that, your home will definitely wow your guests and will make you feel like you’re living in a one-of-a-kind home.

Don’t overlook the importance of lighting

You may be thinking “who overlooks lighting?”. It may come as a surprise but let us tell you that a lot of people do. In fact, many people believe that putting one big light in the center of all the rooms or add lots of them throughout the home is the ideal choice. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. A great lighting that makes your home cozier and more useful takes more than that.

Sure, you can put one big light and make a room brighter, but that shouldn’t be your only goal. More light is great for certain rooms like the kitchen or the bathroom, where you need it to actually get things done in there. But living rooms or bedrooms that are too bright are really awful, since they get in the way of what you need in them. You should aim for a more comfortable atmosphere there, and you can get it with the right lighting (like table and floor lamps or overhead lights). So, create a “lighting strategy” for each room in advance and design accordingly – you’ll see that your house will feel more like a home and less like a store.

Don’t go bold with painting just because

We all love colors. The right colors can liven up any room and make them special and spectacular. But a poor color choice in your painting can do a lot of harm: it can make it hard for you to get matching furniture, make your room feel smaller or make you feel the room is overly decorated. You don’t want any of that so, if you haven’t made up your mind on which color you should use on a specific room, play it safe.

And what’s safest than a white room? White painting can match with any other color, it’s bright and optimistic, it can make your furniture and decor shine with their own light and even make your home look bigger. As if all that wasn’t enough, white painting is timeless, so you won’t regret in the future nor you will be forced to painting the room all over again simply because you went trendy. We won’t argue that white is certainly less unique than, say, an orange wall. But given that you have other elements you can use to make your rooms special, choosing white paint is probably the smartest move you can make.

Why should you follow these tips when remodeling your home? Because they will save you from a lot of design troubles in the future, make your home shine and prevent you from making costly mistakes. Naturally, you can be bolder than this and go crazy with your design but remember, those daring choices might come to bite you back in the future. You’ve been warned!