How to Stylishly Decorate Your Home

Audra: Alright have you ever heard of the phrases you get what you pay for or sit
like a lady, those usual phrases that you hear from moms. Well sometimes
moms advice seems like it’s nagging but in the interior design world it can
actually help make or break a room. Rhiannon explains.

Rhiannon: Thanks Audra, I’m here today with interior designer Donna Hoffman who
has found that a little bit of advice from mom can really help with
decorating a room. Thanks for joining us today Donna.

Donna: My pleasure Rhiannon.

Rhiannon: Okay now the first thing you say and we’ve all heard this, mom says don’t
be too matchy matchy why is that?

Donna: So true, especially in the living room and in the family room. You don’t
want that so far to match the chair and you definitely don’t want the end
tables to match the coffee table, to match the sofa table as well. It’s a real
down market look. It’s a catalogue look. In fact I brought a great photo to
show you of a young family’s home that I worked on and you can see in
that photo there’s the notching end table, coffee table and in the
background and what we did was we relocated things. We broke up the
marriage and we put certain pieces in another room so now we’ve got a
new coffee table in that room by the way this marvelous over sized.

Rhiannon: So you can use purpose.

Donna: Exactly. In fact great point because you love the shape by splitting up into
two rooms it get to see a shape that you love in two different areas of your
home and at the end of the day you’ll have a much higher end look a
richer look by doing wood pieces in the living room or the family that are
in conversation with each other but not a matchy matchy look.

Rhiannon: Now we all want to find a good deal but we’ve also always heard from
mom you get what you pay for.

Donna: So true and never more true than in the interior design and home
furnishings world, the cheapest price item Rhiannon is almost going to be
the most cheaply made using the cheapest materials and also the cheapest
amount of labor, the American Consumer just doesn’t understand how
much gets dropped down in the back room to land something at an
inexpensive price.

The frame alone on the sofa starts to downgrade tremendously that lower
the price point as do the cushions. In fact when you go upstairs and price
point in the cushion of a sofa you get inside inner springs. You get a phone
wrapping, you get a polybaton wrapping and you even get a down
wrapping if you wanted to pay just a little bit of extra for comfort.

Rhiannon: And only gave a great example of quality versus saving a buck.

Donna: I do in fact these are two pillows same age one comes from a national
retailer the other one comes from a custom work room, take a look at them
from the profile one looks like a pancake and one has great loft. This is all
about dropping out quality in the back room. This has the proper interfiled
and this one doesn’t. The customer paid a lot for this so you get what you
paid for.

Rhiannon: Donna you say there’s a right and a wrong way to work with florals?

Donna: Not only florals but any large print. My mother always used to tell me you
know you look so cute in florals and my answer is I might but the sofa
doesn’t if you think about that large scale print what it does for your lower
half. Imagine that on 84 inch wide piece of a pole street, it’s going to take
up a lot of space in a room so when I have a client say to me oh Donna I
wish my living room were larger. I wish my family room was larger, get
the large print off of the sofa because it’s going to take up a lot space
visually and really shrink of the way that room feels. And mom always
encouraged us to sit like a lady..

Rhiannon: I have to sit up straight even though you’re wearing jeans.

Donna: Well in interior design I say to all of my clients sit like the queen you are,
sit like the king you are and I say have fun with your shares, let your chair
silhouettes be little works of art go wide and deep in some really
interesting new and unusual silhouettes maybe something that doesn’t
exactly match the sofa like we’re talking about before. This is the place to
do a little splash in color, in shape and even with some fun print.

Rhiannon: Thank you so much Donna these are all great tips and I guess Audra that
means mother really does know best.

Audra: They certainly do, thanks a lot Rhiannon and stay with us we’ll be right
back.