We are all flawed, but social media has a way of making you think that some people—celebrities and influencers to be specific—just woke up to a perfectly curated life. But everybody makes mistakes along the way, including them! Besides, you can’t distinguish a green flag from a red flag without a little trial and error.
While I don’t have too many design regrets, there are a few impulsive purchases from recent memory that I probably should have thought twice about before swiping my card. For instance, a fake Murano mushroom lamp (ignorance is bliss), a postmodern lacquer laminate waterfall credenza (I was going through a PoMo phase), a vintage Eames shell chair (midcentury modern just isn’t my style), miscellaneous pink depression glass (I grew out of this very quickly), and a pair of vintage brass dining chairs (I’m a chrome purist). Most of these items have since been rehomed, but some are collecting dust in the garage of my childhood home in New Jersey.
Obviously, I’m not the only one. So, I spoke with 18 design influencers, tastemakers, and creators about all the mistakes they’ve made in the process of finding their groove in the realm of interiors. Unsurprisingly, their most common regret is not buying certain vintage pieces when they had the chance, but there are much bigger lessons to be learned.
There’s no substitute for good lighting
Lighting is everything. According to design researcher Alyse Archer-Coité, “there is no shortcut to getting lighting correct.” Shannon Maldonado, creative director and founder of Yowie, admits that this is her greatest weakness in terms of execution and logistics. “Lighting has to be right whether it’s natural or whether you’re installing lighting [fixtures],” she insists. “There’s no substitute for good lighting—even an ugly room can be well lit and look good.” Lighting has been a crash course for Dani Klarić too. The Miami-based interior decorator and content creator does not tread lightly about the fact that “the lighting in your space will make or break your decor.” Lately, she’s been enjoying experimenting with ambient lighting and swears that she’ll only consider overhead lighting if “all the lightbulbs have been changed to 2700K.”
Curating with no real vision, just vibes
For some, it might be hard to believe that Orion Carloto has ever been influenced by outside forces because her personal aesthetic is so strong. But the Los Angeles-based writer, poet, and curator won’t deny the impact that Tumblr had on her as a teenager while living in a small town in Georgia. “At the time, I was seeing these beautiful spaces online and wanting to almost replicate them,” she says. When the time came to move from her parents’ house to Atlanta with roommates, Carloto was inspired to paint a black accent wall that would eventually become a gallery wall. “I’ve looked back at those photos since and I wouldn’t necessarily do things the same way, but all of these moments of me that still exist would exist in a different form [today],” she says.
Shea McGee remembers how she and her husband would spend their weekends thrifting and crafting everything in the small one-bedroom apartment they shared in Southern California. “We didn’t have a lot of money to spend but I did the best I could by repurposing, refinishing, and getting creative,” she says. “Looking back, some of the choices I made are comical, but the process of making a house a home with very little budget was one of my first major design lessons.” Vivid Wu recalls how she and her husband made a series of mistakes when they first moved into their San Francisco loft because they lacked “a clear vision and aesthetic for our home”—the most glaring might be how overboard she went with the wiggle trend, not that the content creator regrets buying her Curvy mirror (as seen in the homes of Olivia Rodrigo, Demi Lovato, Maxine Wylde, and more).
