100 Decorating Tips From Best Interior Designers 3/10

Part three of 100 very useful decorating tips from best interior designers gathered by HouseBeautiful.

1. Start your living room furniture plan with the best seat in the room and work from there – DD Allen

2. Use wallpaper in unexpected places: on the ceiling in a panelled room, in closets, hallways, and small foyers. A great pattern or texture in small spaces can be a prodigious twist – Lindsey Coral Harper

3. The perfect wall colour is seldom the prettiest shade on the fan deck. Give that slightly drab stepsister shade a go – it will be far more interesting – Robin Bell

4. In lamps with two sockets, I like to use one pink bulb and one white bulb – Marshall Watson

5. When framing artwork that requires a mat, specify a mat with 8-ply thickness – the increased depth of the resulting bevel can make anything look important – Madeline Stuart

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6. Stop at 6 pillows on a bed. You need 2 soft extra-long pillows, 2 European squares and, if you want, you can do 2 more European squares. But those Pekingese-size small pillows all over the bed are vulgar. And if you have so much to throw on the floor when you get into bed – David Netto

7. A dining room rug should extend a minimum of 3’ from the edge of a dining table – dining chairs should always be fully on the rug – not two legs on and two off – Ginger Brewton

8. When doing curtains or shades, take them all the way up to the ceiling – it will increase the height of the room – Vicente Wolf

9. I typically suggest an island 5’ wide by 8’ long. You don’t want it to look like an aircraft carrier. And when cleaning up you want to be able to reach across it effortlessly – Christopher Peacock

10. Use the precious for everyday purposes. We’ll rummage through clients’ closets and find loads of precious hand-me-downs like porcelain vases and crystal that are a bit out of vogue. We’ll use them for completely ordinary purposes – a vase becomes a chic pencil holder, a crystal bowl holds makeup brushes. Turn the ordinary into a special moment – Benjamin Dhong