Your worst design decision ever?

9 years ago

A brilliant design idea can turn into a total disaster a few weeks, months or years later. What's your worst design, renovation or decoration idea?

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Pat Oliver Interior Design

9 years ago

My worst design decision was to be influenced by advertising as to what I should have. Over the years (almost 40), I've learned that the architecture of rooms and buildings and the people who live in them are more important than fabrics, shapes and colours being promoted on the high street. Everyone needs to learn what makes them happy and comfortable and relaxed in their own home and go for it.

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Comments (18)

Kerry Donnelly
9 years ago
Oohhh I have so many, I once painted the walls metallic gold with chocolate brown woodwork, I tried using a circle stamper in the hallway, my garden has had that many Cowboy builders in it lately it looks like a western out there, I spray pained my kitchen doors and finished look was "pained by local nursery under 3's, I've just got spotlights in the kitchen and hall and rather than getting the house builder to do it at the time I waited till I was in and got it done as I would save money, but I've not really since now I need to pay for a plasterer to come in,,,, I could go on and on all day lol
alant1000
9 years ago
Most expensive is probably a £4000 deck in the garden then deciding I should really have put up an extension or conservatory.

My list of shocking design ideas is so long that I'd crash the houzz server if I typed them.
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ok, my worst house was actually several years ago, we had to move due to job placement and could find nothing, and with 1 large dog/4 cats rentals are difficult, if non existent. so we ended up in a place, can not say town they were houses scattered along a 10 mile road from one place to another. Anyway, it was called Crapo - that is with a long a thank you very much! As if I would live where you are thinking! lol it was on the back side of the national park on eastern shore of MD. 24 miles from absolutely anywhere, and 2 ways to get to that nowhere. Everyday you drove the park and it took nearly an hour, you never went more than .5 miles without a hairpin turn. Ok, this was true of all the houses, when snow melted ( not much up here or we had a good rain it flooded. Sometimes you could not get home. A couple times you could not leave for days! The county trucks would come by just to watch the waves splash in the houses. fish would swim past your door. hehe. And the road, it was often under water it was in the swamp and at sea level. I have pics, honest, little fish would jump out of the way of your car, sometimes the snakes swam faster. once you started you did not stop and everyone except the jerky out of towners, with their big high hunting vehicles, drove one at a time, not making a wake. And this was at least once or twice a month. One time it was snowing hard and we had to pick up hubby, in the middle of the night, I thought I was going to have to leash the car so we did not slide into the swamp, not that we would have known, you could not see it. It was so bad my dog was sitting in the front seat and kept putting her paw on mine and pushing it. The amazing thing is I worked in the "nearby" town, Adults would come by as they had been seeing their parents. Their parents had gone through this forever, and their parents before them. many, the first floor was unusable. There are still trailers in use there that the gov. gave them more than 10 years ago, after the big hurricane. The homes and trailers are just left empty when the person gets old or dies, kids won't move back, won't even claim it. unless hunters want it, it just stands empty. i would never want to live in that tiny flooded house again. But, I would never trade the experience. Every day we saw Eagles, Bald and Gold. Osprey, Foxes, Turkeys, herds of Deer, and sike. We learned so much. It added about 10 pearls to my necklace.
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My husband trusts me and prefers I make all those decisions. That said I always ask his opinion on large pieces. If I left it all to him he would lose interest before finishing! Design is so not his thing. But then I'm not interested in documentaries on outer space or Lego.... Best we stick to our own interests I think! ;)
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Kerry Donnelly
9 years ago
Aahhhhh but the point is have you learned from them Alan? I hope I have but something tells me I'm going to make a bum of a lot more in the future lol
embzop
9 years ago
Mine all relate to furniture purchases where I have bought items for their looks and not their practicality. A chesterfield sofa that looked gorgeous but was painfully uncomfortable to sit on, contemporary items bought because I wanted to look trendy, a bedstead that was so big I had to shuffle round the room to draw the curtains. On the positive side, the local furniture recycling project does very well out of me.
quimface
9 years ago
I allowed an upholsterer to talk me into replacing the horsehair seat cushions on an Art Deco sofa with soft 'comfortable' cushions. Seemed like a good idea at the time but now truly regret losing the history of the sofa. New cushions too squishy and, as age encroaches, could do with a firmer seat to rise from.
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MaisieMoodesign
9 years ago
Deciding to paint my dining room walls Tartan, just for Christmas. It took us 2 weeks & a lot of marking out...but it was amazing & looked like the inside of a castle!
Emmanuelle
9 years ago
I covered my mid- century sideboard 's drawers with orla kiely wallpaper... Liked it for a few months, then thought I would prefer to see the wood after all! It took me weeks of elbow grease to take all the *^% glue off! Had to strip the teak back bare on the whole piece and re- oil! Glad though, as it looks great now and I have learnt a lot about restoring wooden furniture on the way! Thanks YouTube!
Kerry Donnelly
9 years ago
Any pictures Maisie? Would love to see
Olena Tkach
9 years ago
Having white kitchen furniture with thin deep reliefs. I cook a lot, and we make steaks, and lot of other dishes which, well, make the smoke, and the hood doesn't manage it completely. So all those white things pretty fast turn to become yellowish, with dark grooves I was not able to completely reach while cleaning. Since that, white kitchens are considered a cleaning hell for me =)
kazza_hayward
9 years ago
Ha, this thread has made me laugh. My worst was painting the brown floral 70s tiles in the bathroom of my first flat to what I thought was a nice peach colour (it was the 80s!) and it was dayglo orange - it was hideous. And I actually paid someone to do it, bah. also, as embzop has said, I've lost count of the items of furniture, cushions (almost a fetish!) and throws I've given to charity as they've been just not quite right. The perils of ordering online where you can't see the true colour!
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Stella Michael
9 years ago
Two things come to mind, I wanted to do a mini (temporary) update of my kitchen to remove the tiles I hated and had lived with for 10+ years since I bought it and paint the walls a lighter colour that the petrol blue that worked with the tiles. I wanted to use up some paint and mix up my own colour, which I often have and it's worked out well ... but allowed the builders to rush me, as they left it until the last minute to tell me and were eager to get on and I overdid the orange in the base paint so it turned out peach rather than a much paler, barely there shade so having got rid of the awful tiles have walls I hate, and clash with my artwork!

Secondly, I bought a modern style chesterfield sofa online, which is more grey than the purple I wanted (which I can live with) but is far too short! It's fine and comfortable for sitting but far too short for lounging and watching TV in the evening, quite uncomfortable. The previous sofa was a bit bulky for the space but have gone too far the other way.
User
9 years ago
Chesterfields are not renowned for comfort, unless down filled and softer leather covered.
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JesmondDene
6 years ago
Painting a hallway orange....so, so bright. Only served to enhance the ill fitting front door, which from the outside looked like something from the 'readi-brek' advert, with a dayglo buzz all around it!
JesmondDene
6 years ago
Oh....and on a roll...stripping old pine bedroom floor boards, but not sanding them back quite enough. Always tempting to scrimp on time and save money on sandpaper discs....except once varnished and 'finished' every hair and piece of fluff stuck to the rough parts of the boards...awful, forever more!
oldmanaudi
6 years ago
Had a ceiling rose put up in our Victorian house. Wasn't too sure. Had it removed at extra expense when a friend said it looked like an intercept missile. Very costly mistake.
Mel Mo
6 years ago
I painted my bedroom wall metallic gold, it turned out quite dark and not as expected. I had a new boyfriend at the time. He's now my husband, and 12 years on he still cracks himself up by making jokes about he snot green wall that shocked him to his core during his first visit to my bedroom.
Jonathan
6 years ago
When I was inexperienced and I would start a project but part way through loose faith because the unfinished room didn’t (understandably) look great and make costly changes. Now I avoid any on the hoof replanning, stick to the original plan and it seems to always come good and is certainly less stressful.

Your worst design decision ever?

Pat Oliver Interior Design

Comments (18)

Kerry Donnelly

alant1000

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