Avoiding Costly Mistakes in Decorating Your Rooms | To avoid making a mistake that could mean having to do a room over again, make a plan first of what you want the room to look like when you are finished. Take into account the size of the room, the height of the ceiling, the number and sizes of widows and the doors. Also consider the furniture that will be in the room, including the type, size and upholstery colors and patterns. Not taking these things into account can be costly and you could end up being disappointed instead of elated.
If the room is small, you may want to make it seem bigger, so you will need to avoid darker colors and large patterns as these can seem to shrink a room. Lighter colors and smaller patterns will help to make a room appear larger and airier than it actually is. If, however, you want the room to have a cozier, more intimate feel, colors can be darker and patterns can be larger.
If you have high ceilings, you can make them appear lower by putting a wallpaper border at the level usually found in homes these days, which is about seven feet. Then paint the wall above it and the ceiling the same color. This gives the optical illusion of a lower ceiling.
Wallpaper borders are most often placed at the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling. They are also used lower on the wall at various levels, depending on the effect desired. Sometimes, it is a great technique to use a narrow border at the top of the wall and a wider border at about halfway up the wall to create a wonderful effect. This is especially good for kitchens with the wider border at just at the top of the backsplash along the counters and a narrow, coordinating border at the top of the walls.
In any room, wallpaper borders can be effectively used to separate the wall about halfway up with the lower part of the wall having a patterned wallpaper and painted wall above the border. It can also separate two complimentary colors and/or patterns of wallpaper. The placement of the border can be higher or lower depending on the effect you want.
But before you decide for sure, get samples of wallpaper, borders and paint that you are thinking of using and see how they might work the room you want to use them in. Once you decide what looks best, then you can measure and buy the supplies you need.
Since you don't decorate often, you will want to get good quality wallpaper borders as well as good paint of other wallpaper. Borders of good quality paper are easy to hang and can usually just be dipped in water and put in place. Some borders are even made so that they can be taken down and store to be used again some other time. These can provide a great way to change the look of a room to match the seasons or special occasions.
Unless you are using a solid color border, which isn't likely, you will need to allow extra for matching up the pattern at the seams between strips. If the pattern isn't matched up, there can be obvious breaks in the pattern that will be quite noticeable. Another pitfall is that you will need to make sure that you smooth the wallpaper border carefully to get rid of air pockets. These will appear like bubbles or blisters and ruin the effect. The bubbles could also result in tears in the border if it is at a level that furniture might rub against it. Hanging the border so that the paper makes contact with the wall just barely ahead of the smoothing brush will help decrease the number of air pockets you need to work out with the brush after the border is on the wall.
By:Nancy Andrews
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