25 Tips to Make Your Home Better

Joseph Pubillones
Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:10:24 -0800
Lifestyle

When decorating a home, some design sense may come intuitively, some from your family home, some from perusing shelter magazines and other tips may have been acquired through endless hours of viewing home decor shows on television. While many can afford to hire a designer, there are others that cannot. Today's column is full of insider tips on interior design to make your future projects fun and easy to accomplish.

Understanding the big picture is the most important part of creating a room that is functional and beautiful. Designers understand space, proportions, furniture placement and color from years of working on projects. Here are 25 tips to make your home a better place.

1. Using low-scale furniture help make a standard height room seem taller.
Updated: Sat Mar 07, 2026

When decorating a home, some design sense may come intuitively, some from your family home, some from perusing shelter magazines and other tips may have been acquired through endless hours of viewing home decor shows on television. While many can afford to hire a designer, there are others that cannot. Today's column is full of insider tips on interior design to make your future projects fun and easy to accomplish.

Understanding the big picture is the most important part of creating a room that is functional and beautiful. Designers understand space, proportions, furniture placement and color from years of working on projects. Here are 25 tips to make your home a better place.

1. Using low-scale furniture help make a standard height room seem taller.

2. Finding furniture pieces that are appropriate to a room is essential.

3. Start by envisioning a room with an overall style in mind, e.g. French provincial, Italian modern, etc.

4. To give a room serenity, use pairs of things, e.g., a pair of brackets, prints or a pair of upholstered chairs.

5. Keep your eyes entertained by mixing objects of different eras or vintages.

6. Don't overlook the light that comes in from your windows during the day, and the lack of light at night.

7. Fabric shouldn't be matched to exactitude, but rather a range of a similar color makes your room alive.

8. Rooms in all one color make your spaces feel larger.

9. Mixing patterns on pillows is an easy way to spruce up a boring sofa.

10. Use white or a neutral trim to offset a bold wall color.

11. It is uninspiring to choose the same wood finish for all case goods.

12. Choose an overscaled piece of art be the start of decorating a room.

13. Bold colors create a perfect backdrop for antiques.

14. A striped rug can be a statement piece in an otherwise monochromatic room.

15. A dash of Chinoiserie adds sophistication to any room.

16. Always respect architectural elements original to any structure, work around them, not against them.

17. Doors can be wallpapered to match the walls to make them seemingly disappear.

18. A great paint job is worth every penny.

19. Not every room requires window treatments. Sometimes the view is just enough.

20. Beds are the perfect place to splurge on a glamorous headboard.

21. A floor to ceiling shower curtain makes a small bathroom feel grand.

22. Adding a pair of pilasters can turn the plainest room into an architectural gem.

23. Eliminate clutter at once. That is an order.

24. Mirrors are to be placed strategically to bounce light or reflect something beautiful.

25. Rooms that are considered finished usually are stale. Move things around periodically.

Of course, each room and each home have their specific requirements. These tips are intended to make you think and, maybe, break the rules.