Top 9 Furniture Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Top 9 Furniture Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Nov 11, 2022

There are many things you need to consider when buying quality furniture for your home. Between choosing the right size to fit your space, finding the perfect color to complement the rest of the decór, and selecting the right fabric fibers for your family’s needs while still ensuring maximum comfort, it can get a little overwhelming.

Since buying furniture is such a significant investment, you need to be sure you’re making smart and informed choices so that you can enjoy the results for years to come.

Let’s look at the best ways to buy furniture for your unique home, needs, and lifestyle. We’ve outlined some common mistakes people make when purchasing furniture, so you can avoid running into the same problems and wasting time and money!

1. Choosing the wrong size for the room 

We can’t tell you how often we’ve had clients come to us for professional help after making this same mistake. Sometimes, the most obvious factor is the easiest to forget, especially when you’re distracted by pretty patterns and luxurious fabrics.

If you’ve decided it’s finally time to throw out that old leather sofa and opt for something a little more timeless, the first thing you need to do to ensure functionality and comfort is to think about the flow of your space, map it out, and measure your furniture around that.

2. Not checking comfort for each family member

When you’re already so busy with life’s other demands, you want solutions to your problems fast. But every family is unique and has different needs. So choosing whatever option appears simplest might not be the best decision for your family in the long run.

Especially when buying bed frames and seating, consider the specific requirements of each family member. There are many options to suit people of different ages and abilities to ensure everyone can enjoy the furniture and feel comfortable and relaxed at home.

Top 9 Furniture Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

3. Buying furniture pieces impulsively

We’ve all been there. While sometimes you’ve got to act quickly to bag a bargain, it’s often wise to pause and consider whether what you’re about to buy complements the rest of the decór in your house and if it makes practical sense for your home.

It can be tempting to impulsively buy an enormous four-poster bed to fulfill your princess fantasy or make the half-awake decision to take home an antique side table at the weekend flea market. But remember to ask yourself, am I making the right choice for my home in the long term?

4. Not measuring your doorways 

Again, we know measuring is not the most fun part of the design process, but it is a necessary step if you want to avoid some serious furniture buying nightmares! If you take only one furniture buying tip away from this blog it’s to always measure first!

Once you’ve measured and figured out what will fit in the room while leaving adequate walkways for traffic flow, check if the furniture you’re about to order can be dismantled, and measure your doorways. The last thing you want is the vintage dark wood dresser of your dreams arriving at your door, only for it not to fit through!

5. Not taking your lifestyle into account 

Home furniture should provide comfort, not dread, as you watch muddy paws making a beeline for your pristine white couch. If you’ve got kids or pets running around or love to entertain, it’s best to opt for more durable seating options that are more forgiving of dirt.

If you’ve got a busy household with people coming and going regularly, consider your furniture's impact on that flow, while also creating a comfortable space where everyone can gather to relax and spend quality time together. 

Top 9 Furniture Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

6. Too much furniture in one space

We get it; we’re furniture obsessed too. But sometimes, less is more, especially in terms of functionality.

If a specific space feels a little too crowded in your home, consider rearranging for optimal floor space and practicality and donating whatever no longer fits to your local charity shop. Then you can think about buying some new furniture!

7. Beds blocking sunlight

Who doesn’t love sleeping in on a Sunday morning? A solid curtain that keeps out the early morning sun can help you do just that.

Top 9 Furniture Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

However, once you’re ready to rise and shine, you want to allow as much natural light to enter your room as possible. When purchasing a new bed, consider the size of the frame and whether or not the headboard will be taking up much of that prime window real estate. Also, keep in mind that a bed blocking access to the only window in a room will cause an issue for egress in case of an emergency.

8. No consideration for traffic flow

You spend enough time sitting in traffic on your commute home from work. So the last thing you need is to get stuck maneuvering around your family and furniture as you all gather around the dinner table.

When you measure furniture to confirm it will fit into your space, think about whether or not it will allow for the people to fit in around it, too. Consider high-traffic areas, such as where you enter and leave rooms, and how much access you need to seating arrangements, particularly dining tables.

9. Not asking for professional advice

Furniture buying is a fun and exciting task, but it’s also a serious one, as you ideally want these pieces to be with you for several years. Look for exceptionally high quality, functional, supremely comfortable furniture in styles that won’t go out of fashion any time soon.

When there are so many considerations in finding the perfect furniture that suits your style and lifestyle, why not leave it up to the professionals?

We understand that you’re super busy. Instead of getting overwhelmed and making the wrong decision, save yourself the hassle altogether and get help from our team of friendly, expert designers.

Need help selecting new furniture for your home? 

Schedule your discovery call now to learn more about the furniture pieces you should buy and let us help you create the home of your dreams without losing any sleep!

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"We enlisted KBI's help for our project- remodeling 6 different rooms in our house: Formal living room/entry, family room, kitchen/laundry, dining room, hall bath, and office. We came into a house that needed a lot of help and now have a beautiful home that we're proud to call our own. They are have been extremely thoughtful, accommodating, and professional. They are definitely your advocates throughout the process and make themselves available if you ever have questions.

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Highly recommend Design Lifestyles if you're looking for a partner in designing a home that will suit YOUR style."

Crecia Magee

"We’ve hired Design Lifestyles for two rooms in our house now, and are very happy with both results. In each case, they were very receptive and responsive to our inputs and worked to be sure we got the design just right and to a place where we were comfortable with it. They also manage the procurement and install of furniture for one of our rooms and did an excellent job making that process easy and fun for us."

John Sturdivant

"I had a wonderful experience working with Design Lifestyles, and I love how they have transformed my home! Kim and Lauren are extremely talented and really good at discerning and respecting a client’s likes, dislikes and personal style.

I love how they presented me with options.   I could choose furnishings and materials, without being overwhelmed with too many choices.  It was fun, and it felt good to participate in the process of creating a pretty, cozy home for my family. Their attention to detail is amazing.  Every color, fabric, pattern and accessory is coordinated and intentional, without being too “matchy,” if that makes sense. I also have to say, Kim has a calm, reassuring demeanor that really helps in the midst of a remodel.

Kim and Lauren are kind, talented ladies, and they are a joy to work with.  Stephanie and Kelly are lovely to work with as well! Thank you, Design Lifestyles team! I hope I get to work with you again on future projects!"

Luisa A.

"We absolutely LOVE Design Lifestyles!! Shortly after moving into our brand-new house, we had some an idea of how we wanted it to look inside.  However, we soon found ourselves extremely overwhelmed by all the options at our local furniture stores, along with the thousand of ideas from social media sites. To add to our challenge, we have 3 young children that keep us very busy throughout the week. We really needed some professional help, so we contacted Design Lifestyles. After our initial meeting with Kim, we knew we wanted to work with her.  Throughout the entire process, Kim really listened to our desires and took detailed notes of our vision.  She also challenged us to think through the process since we had never hired a design firm before. Kim brought a tremendous amount of creativity and suggested amazing ideas/layouts/colors that we never thought of or imagined we would love. She and her team were very professional, kind, upfront with expectations and on top every single detail of our project. On our reveal day, we were blown away by how Kim had turned our house into a beautiful warm and inviting HOME.  There is no way we could have ever done this without Kim’s expertise, hard work and commitment to her clients.  Our words of gratitude do not adequately express the joy we feel each day living in our new home.

We highly recommend Design Lifestyles to help anyone looking for assistance with your interior design needs. She is amazingly talented at what she does and is truly a treasure to work with.  Looking forward to working with her again in the future!"

Jason H.

"Kim Bailey has the qualities an interior designer is supposed to have - artistic ability, creativity, and visualization.  But she and her team at Design Lifestyles have more than that -  they are passionate, caring, problem solvers too.  We simply could not be more pleased with the result of our collaboration with Kim and her team.  But the process is important too.  We engaged Kim Bailey interiors in February of this year. From the beginning Kim and her team worked with us to understand what we wanted. They worked diligently to present ideas to bring it all together. They were responsive to our many questions and  comments often sent at odd times of days, nights, and weekends. And, when we started this project, there was not a pandemic, but it hit while we were underway.  Kim and  her  team managed it all – from changes in orders, to receivers to movers and installers - all with uncanny precision and a sense of calm.

In the end, our new contemporary home is stylish, fitting of our desires and our personality and within the budget we outlined at the start. I checked all 5 stars and every box above because Design Lifestyles is deserving of it."

Jim Grau
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