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Avoid these 3 costly mistakes when doing a room makeover

Avoid these 3 costly mistakes when doing a room makeover

Before you splash the cash on your room refresh, read on to ensure you don't waste time, energy and, most importantly, money making rookie errors

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Charlotte Luxford
Jan 17, 2025
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Avoid these 3 costly mistakes when doing a room makeover
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1. Not having a clear vision of the overall scheme

a bunch of pictures and a pair of scissors on a table
Photo by Fiona Murray-deGraaff on Unsplash

Rushing into a project can be one of the most detrimental mistakes, as it’ll have a knock-on effect on everything that comes after. Take your time to really think about what you actually want and need from the room – does it need to be multifunctional? Could it benefit from more built-in storage? Are there any existing elements about it you don’t like? Does it feel disjointed and need a better flow? Does it link with other rooms – is there a sense of cohesion? Consider bugbears that could be fixed – not enough sockets (or badly placed ones), inadequate lighting; these are things that need to be factored in right at the start, as they’re the messy jobs. Also spend some time thinking about how the room needs to work for your family now, but also 5-10 years down the line, so it’s truly future-proofed.

Take your time collecting images and create a moodboard with all the elements you want to include within your scheme to check they all work together in harmony. ALWAYS order samples. There’s no point figuring out half-way into your project that the carpet is a too-cool greige that doesn’t match the oatmeal upholstered headboard that you’ve just ordered (and definitely can’t return).

2. Buying the wrong shade of paint

Little Greene’s Masquerade

We get it, you’re time-poor and you just want to get on with the decorating – you’ve frog-tapped, you’ve got a two-hour window while the kids are napping/playing/with grandparents, and you THINK you’ve got the paint ready and waiting. However, you open the tin and it’s just wrong. You try a coat anyway ‘just to see’, but nope, it’s still wrong. Sound familiar?

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