Den Decorating Disasters

There’s something in your den that’s keeping it from being a functional, decorative room that’s put to good use.  No, it’s not your spouse, it’s a den disaster.  We all have them, disasters that is, but how do you fix them to even begin to decorate the den?

Dark Paneling

It’s too difficult, messy and expensive to remove wood paneling.  Most of the time it feels like it’s been superglued on.  Use a wall liner, which is a fairly inexpensive wall covering that you put up like wallpaper.  It fills in the grooves and gives you a smooth surface that’s ready for a coat of paint or anything else you have in mind. 

No Windows

If your den is a lower level room with no windows, this may be perfect room to serve as a home theatre and den combination.  For home entertainment systems, you want to shut out exterior light and noise, so your dark den might be the perfect place to set this up.

Too Dark

Brighten up the room with a light wall color.  You don’t need to go white to go bright, pale yellow can cheer the room up, as can other lighter colors.  Don’t forego color to brighten the room, add some hot, rich accent colors and plenty of lighting.

No Overhead Lighting

A lighting plan is important in any room of the house.  Rooms require several types of lighting:

  • Ambient (general);
  • Task;
  • Decorative; and
  • Accent.

If you don’t have the decorating budget to add overhead lighting, make sure you have plenty of floor and table lamps to pull off all the lighting functions needed.

Ugly Furniture

If your furniture in the den is just plain ugly, and you don’t want to spend the money to replace it, you have a few options:

  • Cover it – slipcovers, throws and pillows can cover up ugly upholstery;
  • Paint it – don’t go painting a valuable antique, but furniture can be painted to give it a quick, budget makeover;
  • Move it – It may be time to move out the really ugly pieces and replace them with other pieces you have in your house.  There’s sure to be an extra chair or table somewhere in your home that can be brought in.

Don’t throw in the towel on the fixing up that den, there are plenty of design fixes to get rid of that decorating disaster.  Now, about that spouse….