The Decorating Advice I Ignore Every Time
Interior design is full of rules, and some of them are genuinely useful. Others started life as sensible guidance before being repeated so often that they somehow became absolute truths. After a while, advice that was intended to help people make decisions starts sounding more like a set of instructions that must be followed at all costs.
The longer I work in interiors, the more sceptical I become of universal decorating advice. Not because the advice is necessarily wrong, but because homes are complicated. They have different layouts, different lighting conditions, different budgets and different people living in them. A rule that works beautifully in one house can create entirely new problems in another, which is why there are a handful of decorating principles I regularly ignore.
A rule that works beautifully in one house can create entirely new problems in another.
Always Paint Ceilings White
If I had a euro for every time somebody told me ceilings should always be white, I could probably buy a very nice tin of paint.
White ceilings can absolutely work. In many homes, they are the right choice. The problem is that they are often treated as the only choice, regardless of the room itself. A bright white ceiling can sometimes create more contrast than you actually want, particularly in a room filled with warmer colours and natural materials. Rather than disappearing into the background, it draws attention to itself and can leave the ceiling feeling disconnected from everything happening below it.
This is one reason colour-drenching has become so popular. Painting walls, woodwork and ceilings in the same colour creates a sense of continuity that many people find surprisingly calming.
Your eye is not constantly jumping between different surfaces, which often makes a room feel more cohesive. That does not mean every ceiling should be painted dark green or chocolate brown, but it does mean there is more than one way to approach the fifth wall.
Small Rooms Should Be Painted Light Colours
This is probably one of the most persistent decorating myths around.
The theory makes sense at first glance. Lighter colours reflect more light, which can help a room feel brighter. Somewhere along the way, however, that practical observation became a blanket rule suggesting dark colours should be avoided in smaller spaces altogether.
Some of the most successful small rooms I have seen were painted in deep, rich colours. A dark study can feel intimate and cocooning. A small bedroom can feel cosy rather than cramped. A powder room is often the perfect place to take a few decorating risks because nobody is spending eight hours a day in there analysing the wall colour.
Meanwhile, a pale colour chosen solely because a room is small can sometimes leave the space feeling a little flat. Size is only one piece of the puzzle. Natural light, ceiling height, furnishings and the atmosphere you are trying to create all play a role in whether a colour works.
Everything Should Be Timeless
Few words get used more frequently in interior design than timeless.
The idea sounds sensible enough. Most people do not want to spend thousands on a renovation only to dislike it a few years later. The trouble is that the word has gradually become associated with safety, and safety is not always the same thing as good design.
I have written an entire blog about this because I think timelessness is often misunderstood. A home built entirely around avoiding risk may age reasonably well, but it can also end up feeling rather generic. When every decision is filtered through the question of whether it will still be fashionable in ten years, there is a danger that personality gets edited out along the way.
The interiors people remember are rarely memorable because they followed every rule. More often, they contain something unexpected, whether that is an unusual piece of vintage furniture, a bold colour choice or artwork that reflects the people living there. A timeless foundation is often a sensible idea. Building an entire home around playing it safe is something else entirely.
Stick To One Style
This advice has probably confused more homeowners than it has helped.
People often feel pressure to identify their interior style as though they are choosing a Hogwarts house. Once the label has been selected, everything must apparently stay within the boundaries of that particular category. Scandinavian, Industrial, Traditional, Coastal or Mid-Century Modern become identities rather than sources of inspiration.
The problem is that very few people naturally like just one thing. Someone might love the clean lines associated with Scandinavian interiors while also being drawn to traditional antiques and vintage artwork. Another person might enjoy contemporary furniture but prefer older homes full of architectural character. Trying to force all of those preferences into a single style category can feel surprisingly restrictive.
Some of the most interesting homes are difficult to label because they reflect a mix of influences collected over time. They feel cohesive not because everything belongs to the same style, but because the homeowner has developed a clear sense of what they personally like.
Match All Your Wood Tones
Matching every wood finish in a room sounds logical until you see the result taken to its extreme.
When every piece of timber is identical, a room can start to feel more like a furniture showroom than a home. Real homes tend to evolve gradually, with pieces arriving from different shops, different decades and occasionally different countries. Expecting every timber finish to match perfectly is often unrealistic, and in many cases not particularly desirable either.
That does not mean any combination works. Wood has undertones just like paint colours do, and some combinations sit together more comfortably than others. However, a little variation often adds depth and character. In much the same way that a garden filled with one type of plant would feel rather dull, a room filled with perfectly matching timber can sometimes feel a bit one-dimensional.
Match All Your Metals
Few decorating rules seem to cause as much unnecessary stress as the idea that every metal finish in a home must match.
At some point, many homeowners find themselves standing in a showroom, wondering whether a brass light fitting can possibly exist in the same room as a black tap, or whether a stainless-steel appliance has just ruined an otherwise perfectly coordinated scheme. What started as a simple decorating decision somehow turns into a quest for complete metal uniformity.
The reality is that most homes already contain a mixture of finishes. Kitchens often include stainless-steel appliances alongside cabinet hardware and lighting. Bathrooms frequently contain mirrors, taps, shower fittings and accessories that are not all identical. Even in homes where a dominant finish has been chosen, there are usually other metals present once you start looking closely.
The reason mixed metals in interior design work is because people rarely experience a room by analysing every individual finish. They experience the room as a whole. As long as the overall design feels balanced and intentional, most people will never consciously notice whether two metals match perfectly.
In fact, insisting that every finish must be identical can sometimes make a room feel less natural. Homes evolve over time. Light fittings get replaced, furniture gets updated and accessories get added gradually. A slightly more relaxed approach often results in a space that feels collected and lived-in rather than overly coordinated.
That does not mean anything goes. Mixing metals successfully still requires some thought, particularly when finishes have very different undertones or levels of shine. However, there is a considerable difference between creating a cohesive palette and believing that every metallic surface in your home must belong to the same finish family.
If that were truly the case, stainless-steel ovens would have been causing decorating disasters for years.
Buy The Sofa First
I understand why this advice exists. Sofas are expensive, they take up a lot of visual space and they are often one of the first items people think about when furnishing a room.
It is a little like choosing your shoes before deciding what outfit you are wearing.
The trouble is that choosing a sofa before establishing the overall vision can occasionally send the entire project down the wrong path. It is a little like choosing your shoes before deciding what outfit you are wearing.
The sofa may be beautiful, but without considering the flooring, colour palette, lighting and overall direction of the room, it becomes much harder to judge whether it is actually the right sofa.
Personally, I prefer looking at the bigger picture first. Once the overall mood of the room is established, the furniture decisions tend to become much easier because they are supporting a clear idea rather than trying to create one.
Rules Are Helpful Until They Aren't
Most decorating rules started life as practical guidance, and many of them remain useful when applied thoughtfully. The trouble begins when guidelines become requirements and people start following them automatically without questioning whether they make sense for their particular home.
Good design has less to do with following rules and more to do with understanding why those rules exist in the first place.
A white ceiling is not always the best choice. Dark paint does not automatically make a room feel smaller. Mixing styles is not a decorating crime, and matching every wood tone is certainly not mandatory. The more homes I see, the more convinced I become that good design has less to do with following rules and more to do with understanding why those rules exist in the first place.
Once you understand the reasoning behind a piece of decorating advice, you are in a much better position to decide whether it applies to your home, and whether ignoring it might actually lead to a better result.
