Design disasters can wreck a room. (Photo: iStockphoto)
Recently, I wrote about the design lessons to take from the putative design stars. This week? It’s all about the red flags, warnings and downright mess-ups.
Without further ado: The Design Stars’ mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Ditch design by committee
Episode 2: The Kitchens
Design is not a democracy, and the dreaded kitchen challenge shows us why: The nominal winning team, who threw three colors, four different motifs (Italian, Morroccan and Zen), too many wicker baskets, a tin backsplash, and too many lamps into one helpless kitchen.
That whole lotta look, of course, is a result of too many designers in the kitchen. Five, to be precise -- all of whom wanted to put their stamp on the room. Therefore, a big mess.
So take heed: When you’re redoing a room, one person’s design style has to win. Sure, the kids can choose a few photos for the living room, but you choose the frames for them. That way, the room has a cohesive look and doesn’t fall victim to trying to be everything to everyone, and therefore doesn’t really please anyone. It’ll take negotiations, of course, but it’ll be worth it.
Placemats and knick knacks are not luxurious
Episode 6: Kid’s Rooms and Episode 4: Garage Transformations
“You have to think conceptually about what people mean when they say princess, and what they mean is luxury," judge Genevieve Gorder told Jason. "And hanging placemats as a headboard is not luxury."
True that.
Luxury is something most homeowners want but something most of us can’t spend to get. So we cut corners, go with the lower-end (that still seems high end to us), make due with the things we can afford. And then we’re disappointed when our rooms don’t look like the pages of Elle Décor or whichever publication you covet. So the slapdown the contestants got for the lackluster Hamptons-not-so-chic garage challenge and the not-so-pretty-princess look in the kids room challenge are probably design failures we’ve all experienced.
The lesson I learned was that luxury equals big: Big statement walls, lots of fabric for drapes, big statement wall art. Picayune accents may be more affordable, but less impressive. So save up for the statement pieces you want. Go to the swap meet and look for something big to fill the space. Buy lots of fabric at the fabric store and hang the curtains from floor to ceiling instead of just above the window. Make it big and luxe.
And don’t, under any circumstances, use placemats as a headboard — unless, maybe, they’re attached to a big headboard and overlapped in a big statement.
Keep costs under control
Episode 7: Yard Challenge
So you knew this one was coming: You can’t spend $11,000 of a $25,000 budget on a poorly placed gazebo/pergola without landing on this list.
But Dan’s great mistake isn’t unheard of, is it? We all start design projects with a budget in mind. A contractor once told me that you should expect your project to cost twice as much and take three times as long as you’re quoted. Dan didn’t do that. He wasn’t keeping the interest of the whole project at heart. He was focusing, instead, on his little piece of the project. Like the mistakes in the kitchen challenge, he was looking out for himself and not the overall look.
So look at the things you covet: Do they break the bank? What’s the cost-benefit analysis? If you get the giant pergola, it may mean, as it would have for the designers, that they couldn’t buy any fabrics or furniture for the yard. Is that a deal you’re willing to make? The other lesson is to read your contracts: Can you return it? Can you exchange it? Is there a 30-day satisfaction period? These are all things you need to know in case you make that big mistake.
Check your ego at the design door
Episode 5: Homes of the Brave and Episode 2: Kitchen Challenge
If you’re going to save money by doing it yourself, you’re always taking a risk — something the contestants on Design Star well illustrated in two key challenges. In one — the kitchen challenge — the losing team (“Team Heart,” which still makes me gag) decides to ignore past precedent and install a tile backsplash. No other team in the four seasons of the show has completed a tile backsplash. But Team Heart was also Team Arrogant to think that the rules of time and space didn’t apply to them.
The same goes for Nathan, the front-runner who saw his star crash and burn when he decided that to prove himself, he’d custom design a piece of furniture for the living room of a military family. That would have been fine if he’d had five days and a team of workers to help him. But he was so blinded by ambition that he insisted — insisted! — that he could get it done. What it meant for both teams and both challenges was that other very important things didn’t get done: In the living room challenge, it meant that the desk for the family computer didn’t get built. In the kitchen challenge it meant that cabinet doors weren’t installed, things didn’t get cleaned up and that nothing was staged. (Sure, some of that was Tashica’s breathtaking lack of focus and skill, but still.)
So when you take on your next DIY challenge, keep these lessons in humility in mind: Pride goes before a failed home project just as surely as it does before a fall. And unlike Design Star, you’ll have to live with the failed project and the animosity from your loved ones when your failed project leads to their inconvenienced days.—Heather Boerner