Having worked with flooring customers and interior decorators, the biggest decorating traps customers fall into are:

1) Trying to ‘match’ their new flooring with their furniture, curtains, paint or their pets (it happens!)

2) Decorating Backwards.

Why ‘matching’ is a mistake:

Your floor is pretty much a permanent thing. Your movables, furniture and yes your pets come and go. So trying to match anything is a temporary solution. Here’s a tip: If you try too hard to match everything, it will look like you tried too hard! Thing is, it only takes a few shades off to throw the colors into chaos. So rather than ‘matching’ aim to ‘coordinate’ so there’s a natural flow or harmony throughout the room.

Another good reason not to try and ‘match’ is colors change overtime. Wood in particular is light-sensitive and some species change drastically over a matter of years. Wear and tear may also dull a wood or laminates surface murkying the true color of the floor. If working with tile, keep in mind grout ages as well and changes color due to typical household accidents.

Lighting has a big effect also. Natural light brings out different tones than halogen lighting. Fluorescent lighting is much different than fiber optic lighting. And so on. So what you thought was a perfect ‘match’ looks lame when you install new lighting.

On matching, every flooring shopper should remember: ‘Match and you’re playing with fire”

Decorating Backwards:

Decorating backwards means (it’s a term I invented) starting with the walls and furniture and working your way down to the floor, leaving it last. You’re going the wrong way! Your floor sets the foundation for everything else. You should be taking flooring samples to the fabric, paint and furniture stores, not the other way around.

If you despise that diarrhea colored wall, then re-paint it! The very first question I’d ask a customer after they told me the color of their walls was “Do you like it?’ I was dumbstruck how many replied with:

‘I hate it!’

But for some God only knows reason, they felt they had to buy the same color they hate and put it all over their floor!

Don’t go out trying to buy a diarrhea colored floor ‘because my walls are diarrhea colored! If you do then you’ll need to get diarrhea colored furniture, diarrhea colored pets, diarrhea colored paint then you’ll be in deep sh…shugar! 🙂