Your dining room is not a storage facility for every dining chair you own.

And yet, that’s exactly how most dining rooms are arranged.

Eight chairs came with the table, so all eight get crammed around it. Ten chairs? Same thing. Never mind that the room feels crowded, the table disappears behind a wall of chair backs, and half those seats are only needed a few times a year.

Less is more for dining chairs

In this week’s video, I’m showing you several dining rooms where simply pulling a couple of chairs away completely changed the way the room felt. More breathing room. Better balance. More of an actual decorated room and less of a furniture set parked in the middle of it.

Here’s the other hot tip, PULL your dining room chairs away from the table slightly. It’s so much more inviting. See my dining room below? I only place three chairs on each side WHEN I’m having a dinner party. Also you’ll notice the chairs are not sitting butted up against the table like soldiers.

This might seem like a small detail to you, but try it and let me know how it feels in the comments below!

I’m also sharing a brand-new Calgary apartment makeover at the end, where even four chairs were too many. We changed the rug, adjusted the pillows, added better art, styled an awkward orange shelf so it finally belonged, and yes, took one chair away from the dining table.

It’s a perfect example of something I say all the time: a room doesn’t always need more. Sometimes it needs editing.

And once you see this little dining room trick, I promise you’ll start noticing overcrowded tables everywhere.

Watch this week’s video all about dining rooms!

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The post Make Your Dining Room Feel Bigger: Remove Two Chairs appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

You don’t have enough rugs.

And if you have a dog or a cat, they would also like to know why there is nowhere comfortable to lie down (and no, this natural fiber rug is FAR from adequate).

This episode is about decorating around an earthy fireplace, watch it here.

Colour, pattern and more joy than you think

If you’ve been watching my Decorate or Renovate makeovers, you already know how often I walk into a room and the first thing it needs is a rug. Especially now that so many homes are filled with acres of LVP flooring. A rug gives the furniture somewhere to land, brings in colour and pattern, and suddenly the room starts looking decorated instead of just furnished.

When I finished this makeover (below) for my childhood bestie, Tamiko, she commented, “It would have been so nice to have a rug when the kids were small.”

And that really struck me, because she had lived in this house for 22 years without one

But I know why.

Why you’re avoiding choosing a rug

Area rugs are almost as hard to choose as art. You’re trying to get the colour, pattern, style, AND size right, while somehow imagining what an 8 x 10 rug rolled up in a store is going to look like covering half your living room.

Then there’s the sheer aggravation of trying them.

In the store, somebody has to haul the rug down from a giant stack. Then you have to get this enormous rolled-up thing into your car, wrestle it into the house, move the furniture, unroll it and discover that nope, it’s wrong.

Order online and you have a different problem. The colour isn’t quite what you thought. The pattern looks much busier in your room. It’s too small. It’s too dark. It fights with the sofa. And now this gigantic rug is sitting in your living room and you have to figure out how on earth you’re going to package it up and ship it back.

So what happens?

People keep the wrong rug. Or they never buy one at all.

Rugs are NOT optional

And that’s a problem because a rug isn’t some optional little finishing touch. It’s the piece that turns a collection of furniture into a room. It adds softness, colour and pattern. It anchors the seating arrangement. It makes a big open room feel intimate. It makes hard flooring feel warmer. And yes, when your kids are little, it gives them somewhere soft to sprawl out on the floor.

This is why I keep walking into rooms full of furniture sitting naked on LVP and hardwood. People know something is missing. They just don’t know that very often, what’s missing is the rug.

Which is exactly why we’ve started helping you choose one.

Paint can’t do all the heavy lifting

If you’re already coming to us for our eDesign consultations for the right paint colour and your room is missing the rug or other layers that would actually pull it together, we can now help you solve both. Because we can give you the perfect paint colour, but if the room is missing the rug, the right lamps or another key decorating piece, paint alone isn’t going to finish it.

So we’ve added a new decorating add on option to our paint colour packages. When you purchase a paint colour consultation, you simply select the Decor Refresh Add On at checkout.

The Add On is $295, and if your room needs a rug, we’ll help you find one. And I’ll suggest a couple of other key pieces, lamps included, that will make the room feel happier and more pulled together. Here’s what you’ll get, a custom mood board with items you can click and order. Super easy, it looks like this:

So if you’ve been putting off choosing a paint colour because you already know the room needs more than paint, this is for you.

Let’s do this!

Book your paint colour consultation and add the decorating upgrade. Let us help you choose the colour and the pieces around it so you can finally get the room finished.

Because I want you to be completely happy with your finished room, for a limited time, I’m offering this upgrade as a screaming bargain. We originally priced this level of custom styling at $600, but you can grab it today for just $295.

Here is what it includes:

• Expert Styling: My trained eye will select up to three specific decor recommendations to beautifully tie your newly painted room together.
• Bonus Advice: My team and I sneak in lots of extra tips to help you stretch your decorating dollars intelligently!

Let’s pull your room together so you can stop second-guessing your decisions. 

Get your paint colour consultation here. Don’t forget to select the Decor Refresh add on

Related posts:

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Better Than White: My 6 Best Paint Colours for Your Living Room

The post The Decorating Problem Paint Can’t Fix appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

Shop the details of my dressing room here

And yes, I linked as many of the things I mentioned as I could find above.

This room is where two of my favourite things collide: colour and getting dressed. I’m showing you how I organize everything, some of the details I chose for the room, and a few of the style lessons I’ve picked up along the way, including why I own several pairs of glasses, why your eyewear really does matter to an outfit, and why I no longer believe black goes with everything.

Because whether I’m putting together a room or an outfit, I’m always looking at the same thing: how the colours relate to each other. Watch it here.

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Maria’s Office Organization: Before & After

The post Tour of my Dressing Room: Colour, Style & the Details That Make an Outfit appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

Except she didn’t want another office.

The challenge: An office that feels like a lounge

Her request was very specific. She wanted this room to feel more like a lounge where she could watch TV, read, work when she needed to, and actually enjoy spending time. The giant desk needed to go.

Here’s the office when we took posession:

The floors got refinished throughout the house including in this room. This is what they looked like before. The stain was too dark, and you can’t see it in this photo, because the room is dark and the overheads are on, but they were also a little too violet/red to be perfectly timeless.

First objective: bring in more light

The room was positioned perfectly in the layout to be the ideal home office, right inside the front entrance. However, it was much too dark to be habitable all day. So after we moved in, we added another window (below), which immediately changed the room. Letting in the light opened up the possibilities and the plan became much clearer. Instead of designing everything around a desk, we created a proper sitting area and tucked a much smaller desk in front of the new window (above).

A multi-use gathering room

The space became much more inviting, perfect for meetings between the two of us during the day. And it also doubled as a cozy room for evenings watching a show since this is the only TV on the main floor.

Once the floors were refinished lighter to a timeless neutral medium brown, the wood ceiling matched much better. It’s really a beautiful detail. We had pretty and functional millwork shelving installed and painted an airy, friendly light blue to compliment her beloved orange. The colour palette was pulled from the blue and orange area rug.

Custom orange and white drapes add soft pattern and colour.

The must have TV sits happily surrounded by a gallery wall. Lucy has beds all over the house and this is her spot in Terreeia’s office.

In case you missed it! My House Tour on Homeworthy

Terreeia’s office was featured in my Homeworthy tour of our entire house and gardens last week. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

I’ve been watching a lot of Homeworthy tours lately. Clearly, when it comes to lighting, people seem to fall into one of two camps. Either they completely understand lamps and every room has that warm, layered glow, or they don’t, and the entire house is lit from the ceiling. Recessed lights everywhere. Tiny pin lights everywhere. And hardly a lamp in sight. It’s amazing how much decorating power gets left on the table when this piece is missed. A few well placed lamps can completely change how a room feels at night or on a gloomy day. Plus a lamp does double duty. It gives you better light and instantly makes the room look more decorated.

Styling School: Learn how to layer in the details

And with dark season coming, consider this your annual reminder that lamp season is here.

Every choice in this room is something you can learn, not something you had to be born knowing. That gallery wall up behind the sitting area wasn’t hung by feel. And neither was the decision to put gingham pillows on those orange chairs instead of something that matched the fabric exactly. Or to set a lamp on the round table next to them instead of another candle.

That’s what Styling School teaches. If you’ve been staring at a blank wall wondering where to even start with a gallery wall, Give Your Art a Family walks you through building one, even from a single piece you already own. If you’ve bought pillows that matched perfectly and still looked wrong, Pillows Aren’t Supposed to Match shows you why, and what to do instead. And if a room still feels flat no matter what you move around in it, it’s probably missing what this one has, which is You Don’t Need More Candles. You Need More Lamps.

All three easy-to-digest modules are $197, and you can start using them in your own house today. Shop it here.

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New! Give Your Walls a Family (Styling School)

My Attic Studio Office Reveal

The post How We Turned a Dark Home Office Into a Cozy Lounge; Before & After appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

And let me tell you, getting an entire house AND 2.5 acres of gardens ready to be filmed was no small undertaking.

For weeks, my team fluffed, clipped, weeded, deadheaded, cleaned everything in sight, while I shopped, styled, moved things, moved them back, and obsessed over every last detail.

My sisters Anita and Elizabeth were here helping me pull the whole thing together and especially on the day of the tour! Terreeia was, of course, making sure the entire operation actually happened. By the time the Homeworthy crew arrived, the house and gardens had never looked better.

Anita Junttila, Maria Killam, Elizabeth Jacobs

Apparently it takes a village to make the dream work. And I’m very lucky to have mine.

This tour is especially fun for me because you’ve seen pieces of my house for years, but you’ve never really been able to walk through it with me and hear the stories behind the rooms, the colour, the art, the garden and all the little details that make it ours.

Come take the grand tour with me.

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The post Well, it’s finally here! My Homeworthy house tour is LIVE! 🏡🌸 appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

The short answer? The look of fresh, light walls is still very much in. But it has become slightly warmer. So the way we get the “warm white walls” look is not what you think.

By the way, I’m not here to sway you according to the trends. My timeless advice does remain consistent, and that’s what I want to share with you. I’ve been here steering you away from stark art gallery white walls before, during, and since the white trend, into friendlier, more versatile, custom wall colour options all along.

Given that stark white walls were never the best idea, and that now the trends are shifting, and here’s what you need to know.

Why warm white paints aren’t as warm as you think

We are officially running away from cold, stark interiors. Especially with high contrast black everywhere. In 2026, everyone wants warmth, comfort, and cozy sophistication.

So to get the look, you reach for popular “warm” off-whites like Benjamin Moore White Dove or Sherwin-Williams Alabaster, expecting them to instantly cozy up the space. They sure do look warmer than the cool true whites like BM Chantilly Lace and SW High Reflective white comparing chip to chip.

But that warmth is relative.

Those off-whites are not going to look as warm as you think on your walls! Every day I see videos and carousels with headlines, like the ones below, promoting popular “warm” off whites, like Sherwin Williams Snowbound and Benjamin Moore White Dove. (Both of which, by the way, I specify often for cabinets and trim. Because off whites and whites are still the most timeless choice for trim and wood work).

But there’s one thing you should notice looking at posts like these.

We are always looking at beautifully styled rooms, most often with warm lighting bathing the room. But strip that room of all the furniture and decor and what you have is basically a stark white box.

At the end of the day, an off-white is still a stark white. Unless your home gets tons of natural light and is filled with white furnishings, off-white paint ends up looking thin, dingy, or like primed drywall waiting for actual colour.

What is replacing stark white walls?

If you want walls that feel bright and fresh without feeling stark, you aren’t actually looking for an off-white.

What you’re really looking for are Complex Creams and Taupe Greiges.

In the Killam Colour System®, these are the palest colours in the undertone categories of beige and taupe. Because they have slightly more pigment than a thin off-white, they sit back softly on the wall and you get that magical Goldilocks colour that is fresh but also warm. The perfect cozy backdrop.

And you can choose the right undertone to relate perfectly to your furniture and finishes for that high-end, pulled together look you’re actually trying to achieve.

White vs. Off-White vs. Complex Cream vs. Greige

Benjamin Moore Seapearl (Taupe Greige) walls by Read McKendree

Here’s the easiest way to think about it. (Hint: It’s most definitely NOT about whether your room faces North or South, East or West).

True white: These are the whites that don’t flash too-cool blue or grey undertones, and don’t show any creamy yellow undertones either. They basically only work when your room is already strictly contemporary, think art gallery with plenty of modern bright white furniture and ample natural light from walls of large windows. For most normal homes, True White is best reserved for trim, ceilings and millwork where it provides nice contrast with more liveable wall colours. Examples: SW High Reflective White, BM Chantilly Lace.

Off-white: Softer and more versatile than true white, but still mostly too stark for walls, these slightly warmer whites still need ample natural light (more than you think). Balanced off whites are extremely useful for trim, ceilings, millwork and cabinetry. Examples: SW Alabaster, BM Cloud White.

Complex Cream (Palest Beiges): In my system, these are the palest colours in the undertones of beige. They give you the light, creamy look people often think they’re going to get from a warm white. Especially useful for updating a home with earthy finishes (brown, beige and gold). But also the perfect choice for a new home that needs a warm yet fresh backdrop for decorating. Examples: SW Neutral Ground, BM Ballet White.

Taupe Greige (Palest Taupes): If you have a home full of finishes from the recent grey trend, such as grey or taupe tile, carpet and stone, chances are high that the taupe greiges, the palest colours in my system in the undertone category of taupe, will be the sweet spot for a creamy look that still relates to all the grey finishes. Examples: SW Pacer White, BM Fog Mist.

What if your whole house is already painted white?

If your house, like many homes currently are, is already painted white top to bottom, inside and out, don’t worry! Just because trends are shifting warmer, it doesn’t mean you need to immediately do a complete repaint.

While it’s true that too-stark white walls are no longer trending, there is an easier fix.

Because warmth can absolutely be achieved with good decorating. Layering in the art, pillows, area rugs, drapes and plenty of warm atmosphere from a shaded lamp in every corner of every room goes a long way towards warming up the feel. At least while you figure out which of the more versatile pale neutrals will be the best choice for your home and plan your update. It’s absolutely not a rush. And I show you how to do it each week on my Decorate or Renovate channel over on Youtube.

My YouTube channel just hit 100K subscribers!! It’s where I share exactly HOW to create a home you love forever AND save money with my Decorate or Renovate channel. Please help me keep the momentum growing! Subscribe to my channel here.

Stop Guessing and Get Colour Right the First Time

Going into 2027 it’s officially not the move to simply choose an Instagram famous off white for your walls. But don’t worry! Choosing paint colours doesn’t have to feel like a high-stakes guessing game. Once you understand neutral undertones, picking the perfect custom pale neutral for your home becomes straightforward, no unwelcome surprises.

Need help choosing the perfect warm neutral for your walls? Shop my one room, two room or more or open layout paint packages here.

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The post Are White Walls Still in Style for 2027? Here’s What’s Replacing Them appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

The kitchen is enormous. It genuinely belongs in a house. But that left only a relatively small area in front of the kitchen to function as his living room, dining room and office. And because he rents, I wasn’t interested in filling the apartment with big, heavy furniture he’ll eventually have to move again.

So this makeover became a very good lesson in small-space decorating: you don’t necessarily need less furniture. You need the right furniture, at the right scale, doing the right job.

And because this is the third apartment I’ve decorated for Luukas, I’m also taking you back through his previous two homes. You’ll see the same art, the same IKEA pieces and even the same $20 botanical poster reappear in completely different ways.

Because a new home does not mean you have to start over.

Sometimes you need $400 worth of finishing touches. Sometimes you need a new sofa and a big area rug. The magic is knowing what stays, what goes, what moves, and what you need to add to make the new space work.

Watch the transformation.

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The post How to Make a Small Space Feel Bigger appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

And then somewhere between that conversation and the finished room, it stopped looking like the picture. It looks fine. It’s just not what you saw. And you probably decided it was a budget problem, or that you should have hired someone better.

It’s neither.

I’ve been trying to explain this to homeowners for twenty years and I could never actually show it. This week I can. I took four inspiration photos, this one (above), a warm rustic kitchen, a cozy neutral living room, and a creamy bathroom and watered them down on screen, one decision at a time, exactly the way it happens in a real project.

You will recognize your own house in at least one of them.

Watch it here.

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The post Why Your Inspiration Photo Never Makes It Into Your House appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

I get some version of this email all the time, and it almost never comes from someone who is new to decorating.

You’ve been reading shelter magazines for years. You know what you like. You can walk into a store and spot the best thing in the room almost immediately. Your friends probably ask you to come along when they’re choosing a sofa.

And yet you can still be completely stuck regarding your own kitchen.

Sometimes it’s because you bought a house that checked all the practical boxes, but the style was never what you naturally gravitated toward in the first place. Now you’re trying to make decisions inside a house that doesn’t speak your language.

That’s when people start wondering if they’ve somehow lost their taste.

You haven’t.

The problem is that taste and design are not the same thing.

I know this because I’ve been there

Years ago, when I was working on my last garden, I was standing in a nursery looking at hostas and called my landscape designer, MaryAnne White.

There were yellow ones, blue ones, green and white ones, green and cream ones. I liked all of them, so I thought I should get some of each.

Mary Anne said, “No. Get 12 yellow ones.”

And of course, she was right.

That conversation became one of my favourite design rules that my longtime followers often remember when they shop : boring now equals timeless later.

But there was another lesson in that story.

I have good taste. I’ve spent decades looking at colour and interiors for a living. But landscape design is not my wheelhouse, and in that moment I was doing exactly what homeowners do every day. I was choosing individual things I liked without really understanding how they would all work together once they were in place.

That is the difference between taste and design.

Taste chooses individual items. Design creates relationships.

You can stand in a showroom and love the tile, the faucet and the pendant. They can all be beautiful.

That doesn’t mean they belong together. It’s why, when I spot a random faucet or tile in a bathroom that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the room, the homeowner will often shrug and say, “My husband wanted to participate in the selections.”

A room works because the elements relate to each other. The countertop relates to the floor. The backsplash works with the countertop. The paint colour pulls the room together. The undertone in the new tile has to work with the stone you already own and are not replacing.

The problem is that most people are still asking, Do I like this?

That’s a perfectly reasonable question, but it is not enough. The better question is, does this belong in my house?

Good taste can actually make decorating harder

Having a good eye means you can recognize what’s beautiful. Expertise means knowing what actually belongs in the room.

A tile showroom can be full of beautiful tile and I’ll still dismiss most of it in five minutes. Because the question isn’t, “Do I like this?” It’s, “Does this belong in a timeless kitchen or bathroom?” Those are two very different questions.

That’s why “Just choose what you love and it will all come together” is such terrible advice. You can love every single choice individually and still end up with a room that feels wrong. And usually, if it feels wrong, there is a reason.

Maybe the grey you chose has a green undertone and the travertine you’re keeping is pink beige. You may not know exactly what the conflict is, but your eye can still see it.

So you repaint. You change the rug or buy different pillows. You keep trying to fix the room without fixing the actual problem. Once you understand what you’re looking at, the decision becomes much easier.

This is where your taste belongs

Taste absolutely matters. It just needs to be used in the right places.

Your fixed finishes, flooring, countertops, tile and millwork, need to work together first because they are expensive and difficult to change. This is where the timeless conversation comes in.

After that you get to have fun. Your furniture, art, textiles, lamps and colour are where your personality comes in. This is where all those things you love get to make the room feel like you.

All these photos are from my current home. And yes, there are plenty of yellow hostas. Apparently I learned my lesson.

That is why good taste is not enough on its own.

You also need to know how to read the room you already have, understand what belongs with it, and make decisions in the right order.

Once you can do that, your taste becomes an asset instead of another source of confusion.

So how do you actually learn to do this?

That’s what I’m walking you through in my free live workshop, Decorate or Renovate: the magic is knowing the difference.
Your good taste needs a plan. I’ll show you how to read the room you already have, figure out what truly needs to change and what you can keep, and make your decisions in the right order, so you can finally start putting all that good taste to work.

It’s free and live on Tuesday, August 25, at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET.

It’s live only, no replay, so come join me.

SAVE YOUR SEAT → HERE

Related posts:

First Rule of Design: Boring Now Equals Timeless Later

Second Rule of Design; Waiting Now Equals Beautiful Later

The post Fifth Rule of Design: Good Taste Isn’t Enough appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

Her living room had a 20-year-old fireplace, pink-beige carpet, partial wainscoting, and a collection of finishes that didn’t relate to the kitchen renovation beside it. I looked at the photos and thought: I can’t decorate my way out of this. The envelope needed work first.

But then I thought about it: this show is called Decorate OR Renovate!? Why was I only choosing homes I knew I could transform with decorating?

So I emailed Jenn back and told her I’d come, but this time, instead of arriving as the decorating fairy, I was going to show her what I thought she needed to renovate first. And once we added up the fireplace, flooring and other changes, we were looking at roughly $30,000.

Then, while I was there, Jenn took me into a spare bedroom and showed me a pile of art she wasn’t using. And suddenly I saw something I hadn’t seen in her application photos. Maybe I could decorate around that dated fireplace after all.

This is where the story gets interesting, because I was about to prove myself wrong.

Watch Part 2 here.

At the end I asked Jenn how she felt about renovating now. Her answer? “I don’t think we have to, I like a thrifty deal :)”

And THAT is the magic of knowing the difference between what actually needs renovating, and what just needs decorating.

Tuesday, August 25, I’m teaching a free live workshop: Decorate or Renovate: The Magic is Knowing the Difference If you’re staring at a room that feels dated and assuming the answer is renovation, come to this first. I’ll show you how to tell what actually needs replacing, what simply needs decorating, and where to spend your money so you get the biggest transformation without ripping out perfectly good finishes you could have worked with. Because the expensive mistake is renovating before you know what actually needs to change. Register here.

Want Your Home Featured?

I’m looking for homeowners in the Fraser Valley or Lower Mainland who are willing to appear on camera for an episode of Decorate or Renovate!? Maybe your room feels unfinished, your furniture layout isn’t working, or you’re stuck wondering whether you need to renovate or simply decorate differently. Submit your home for consideration and tell me what isn’t working, what you’ve already tried, and what you’d love the room to become.

And if your home is chosen for a renovate episode, the consultation and design direction won’t cost you anything—just like you’ll see in today’s video. Apply here.

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The post I Thought This Room Needed a Renovation appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

You’d point at whatever is oldest, because that’s the only answer available to you.

So you got a quote. Maybe two. And when the number came back, something in your stomach turned over, and not only because of the money. It was because you couldn’t shake the feeling that you might spend all of it and walk back into the room afterward and feel exactly the same way you feel now.

You haven’t said that part out loud to anyone.

Meanwhile your husband looks at the same room and says he doesn’t see the problem. Your sister tells you your house is beautiful and she means it. And you stand there thinking, I know it’s fine, I know I should be grateful, but I don’t like being in here and I can’t explain why.

You’ve already tried. There was the rug. There were new cushions, and for about a week it felt better, and then it went back to looking the way it always looked. There’s probably a lamp in a box somewhere that never found a spot. You’ve saved forty rooms on Instagram that look nothing like yours, and you can’t work out what they have that you don’t, because on paper you have the same things.

At some point you decided the problem must be that your house is dated, and dated means it has to come out.

I’ve done these makeovers for three years now and I’ve stood in a lot of these rooms. Here’s what I keep finding. The thing everybody is blaming is usually not the thing making the room feel bad. Sometimes the living room needs decorating so you can live with your kitchen for another five years. Sometimes one permanent finish genuinely has to change and everything else can stay. And sometimes yes, the renovation should go ahead exactly as planned.

The difference is worth a lot of money.

That’s what I want you to watch for in the before and afters you’ve just seen. Not how much better the rooms look, because you already know I’m going to make them look better, that isn’t the interesting part. Watch what actually needed to change, and what suddenly doesn’t seem as important now that we have added a look and a feel to the most important room in the house.

Not sure if you need to renovate or decorate? This room-by-room guide provides clarity before hiring contractors. Get your FREE download here.

Keep an eye out tomorrow, too. I’ve got something extra special to share

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The post Stop Renovating Everything That Looks Dated appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

This week’s episode is a good one. For the first time ever, I’m walking through the changes that my clients home needed before it could be decorated. Because when Jenn first applied for my makeover series, I declined because none of her fixed elements related to each other.

The pink-beige carpet. The dated fireplace surround. The dark mantel. The kitchen finishes going in yet another direction.

I honestly thought I couldn’t pull off a decorating makeover without correcting the envelope first.

What decorating can do

Then, after we walked through everything that needed to be updated, Jenn showed me what she had hidden in another bedroom. And honestly there are times when I surprise even myself. We created magic by just re-arranging furniture and finding a place for so many decor pieces the homeowner has stopped displaying because they just don’t know where they should go.

This is Part One: what I thought needed to change before we could decorate, what it would cost, and the discovery that changed the direction of the entire makeover.

Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Want Your Home Featured?

I’m looking for homeowners in the Fraser Valley or Lower Mainland who are willing to appear on camera for an episode of Decorate or Renovate!? Maybe your room feels unfinished, your furniture layout isn’t working, or you’re stuck wondering whether you need to renovate—or simply decorate differently. Submit your home for consideration and tell me what isn’t working, what you’ve already tried, and what you’d love the room to become.

And if your home is chosen for a renovate episode, the consultation and design direction won’t cost you anything—just like you’ll see in today’s video. Apply here.

Related posts:

10 Critical Decisions for a Timeless Home Renovation

5 Steps to Starting a Bathroon Renovation

Why Good Decorating Starts with the Right Advice

The post Should You Renovate Before You Decorate? appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

I’m desperately searching for a new rug for our family room… I came across this one, but I’m worried it might be too much color. We have built ins in this space that’s I’ve incorporated a lot of different colors…I think my couch is violet grey, but there are couch covers on it that might be a different undertone. The walls are pale oak (taupe). Please help!

Neutral does not mean “goes with anything”

I see this mistake all the time because you can’t just buy a gray sofa and expect it to magically work with every colour. I actually think that’s one of the reasons the gray trend has hung on for so long. People assume gray is “neutral,” so anything goes, right?

It’s one of the biggest decorating myths in the design world.

When an all-neutral room feels drab or lifeless, the instinct is to throw a bunch of colour at it. But that doesn’t work.

Colour only looks intentional when it’s repeated throughout the room. And just as importantly, the dominant neutral that’s already there, in this case, the gray sofa, also needs to be repeated.

If the rug is the only place introducing all those colours, and the gray sofa is the only gray in the room, everything feels disconnected instead of beautifully layered. That’s why so many people end up blaming the rug when the real problem is that the room isn’t coordinated.

In this room, the rug is doing all the heavy lifting. It introduces dozens of happy, saturated colours—but where do those colours go next?

Nowhere.

The sofa is gray, the gallery wall is mostly muted. Most of the accessories are also neutral. The only thing that relates to the rug is… the rug. So instead of feeling intentional, it feels disconnected.

That’s exactly why the homeowner starts thinking, “Maybe I need a different rug.” And she does because there’s many colours in this rug but not a stitch of the biggest colour in the room, which is the gray so the room doesn’t look like a designer was there yet.

With this many colours in the rug, we need a sofa that picks up one of the colours like this:

And then if yellow is a colour we love, we repeat it. I am showing a very basic computer generated example but I think you get my point.

Make sure key colours are repeated

This wallpaper image arrived in my inbox last week and I noticed the same thing happening, all the colours on the colour wheel but not one of them is the grey headboard.

Whoever styled this image to sell this wallpaper pattern also thought grey goes with everything, but better yet, to bring it to life, let’s add all the colours.

But the look we really have is this: I don’t like my gray headboard so let me throw a bunch of colour at it.

This is the same mistake I see all the time.

I added a different paper to go with the headboard and now the look we have is that the headboard was chosen on purpose to work with the wallpaper.

In one of most recent Decorate or Renovate!? makeovers, the homeowner had a huge, colourful cow hanging over espresso sofas with taupe walls and pink beige shag carpeting (this episode is coming soon).

I’m illustrating the same point here and that is a colourful piece of art in an all neutral room will not save it from looking drab.

When colour or neutral appears only once, it looks random. A neutral sofa is not like a pair of jeans. As I’ve shown many times in my makeover shows, when someone has too many neutrals the room can’t support a strong colour. That’s when the principles of good decorating need to be introduced.

Contrast, interesting shapes and texture. That’s how professional rooms come together.

So before you replace the rug, ask yourself:

Have I actually repeated these colours throughout the room?

One final Create Your Dream Home cohort opens soon. It’s the last time everything sits in one course: the full Killam Colour System® foundation, decorating, and timeless finishes. Future cohorts will be shorter, so get on the waitlist here.

Related posts:

From Gray Walls to Happy Colour; Before & After

Watch this before you Rip Out your Gray Floors!

The Problem with an All Gray Room

The post Why Your Colorful Rug Doesn’t Work with Your Grey Sofa appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

Lacey thought her biggest problem was a corner fireplace. Then AFTER one room makeover turned into FIVE (in one day), she admitted she’d also been considering replacing the black fireplace surround in the living room (sneak peek below), the black entry tile and much of the flooring on her main floor—a renovation that could have cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Instead, we spent one day decorating. By the end of the makeover, the room felt completely different, the black finishes suddenly belonged, and the renovations she’d been planning no longer felt necessary.

The right decorating plan has a funny way of making you say, “Wait… what renovation?”

Watch this epic makeover below:

Wondering if your house really needs renovating—or if it just isn’t finished yet?

Download my free guide and learn how to evaluate each room before you spend thousands on renovations you may not need.

PS. Love before-and-after photos? Members of my Dream Home Community get exclusive sneak peeks, additional before-and-after images, and behind-the-scenes content from every makeover, join us inside here.

Related posts:

You’re Overthinking your Living Room; 5 One Day Makeovers

8 Makeovers that Saved $54K in Renovations

Why we Believe Art Must Have Meaning

The post How a One Day Makeover Saved a 50K Reno appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

Maria & Elizabeth (Watch this epic makeover here)

It hung above a cabinet in the family room (below), a piece of art a student had painted for the homeowner, something she genuinely loved. But it was up there completely alone. No framed friends. No company. Just one meaningful piece, floating by itself on a big blank wall.

My sister Elizabeth films these makeovers with me, and in the car on the way to shop, she said something that stopped me:

“That art is an orphan. It needs a family.” (below):

She wasn’t wrong. And honestly, that’s the whole idea behind the gallery wall course I built: Give Your Art a Family. Not just learn how to hang frames around your TV (like I’ve become famous for) but how to actually give the one piece you love–the family and friends around it–that makes a wall feel finished, layered, almost like a mural, instead of one lonely painting doing all the work by itself.

If you’ve followed my one-day makeovers for a while, you already know what happened next. Someone asks about one room, and because most homes are open-concept, it’s almost impossible to touch just that one space. This one started in the family room and, like it usually does, it spread and I ended up finishing the living room, styling the entry, dining room and kitchen too! This one became an extreme makeover and we were still finished in just one day!!

When we went back to do the walkthrough last week for Friday’s reveal, she mentioned that “My husband doesn’t care about this stuff, but he sure noticed this round of changes!” He noticed that the house glowed at night now, instead of sitting under what used to be a runway of overhead pot lights, end to end. We swapped that for eight lamps. And he noticed the fact that the feeling suddenly shifted in every roon.

That’s really the whole point. Not decorating for decorating’s sake, but the way a room you actually love changes how you live in it, whether you “care about this stuff” or not.

And there’s more to this story about art:

We met two roommates this past weekend, in the middle of the heat wave.

Two women posted in our local community Facebook group”. . . if you have a pool in this weather and you’re keeping it all to yourself, that’s just pure selfishness! Share the wealth, think about it! Please don’t laugh at us, we are running on our last single brain cell. Help us out!” In exchange, we will bring ice-cold Aperol Spritz to start the ultimate pool-side happy hour!

So we invited them over.

Virtual garden design by MaryAnne White

The boxwood in my triangle beds in front of our vegetable gardens and greenhouse filled in this Spring and look at how fabulous the lavender is, followed by my white agapanthus which comes right after the lavender has expired! So gorgeous, I feel so blessed.

Last year for my birthday my team sent me a double lounger in yellow (linked here) and white stripes along with this raft that has become Lucy’s favourite toy when we’re in the pool! She’s doesn’t like the water but she sure loves to jump on and off the food and cabana bar (linked here).

Anyway, somewhere between the pool and the patio, we got to talking about their house. It’s a rental that came furnished, but there was no art anywhere in the living room, and only one lamp. She mentioned the room had basically become a drop zone — nobody actually sat in there.

That’s what Friday’s reveal is about. And it’s what Give Your Art a Family (which is the new name for my Gallery Wall Module. which OMG deserved a much better name so you can all feel the joy) teaches from the ground up — starting with just one piece you already love, through the frames, the colors, and how to hang it all without turning your wall into a swiss cheese wall of holes.

Get it here, and give your art some family and friends! Woo hoo.

See you Friday (I cannot wait for you to see this makeover!).

Related posts:

The Gallery Wall I hung Twice

The Magic Formula for Creating the Perfect Gallery Wall

Why We Believe Art Must have Meaning

The post Why Your Favorite Painting Is Still Alone appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.

The funny thing about timeless design is that it’s repetitive. There aren’t a gazillion different ways to create a timeless home.

Maria’s Timeless Warm Neutral Kitchen

Trends change. The principles don’t.

I’ve been teaching the same colour and decorating principles since I started this blog in 2008 because they still work. In fact, they work even better at the end of a trend cycle.

I recently met a follower who has been reading my blog since the beginning. Her daughter grew up during that time because I’ve been writing this blog for 18 years–eeeeek! Because I don’t have children I don’t count like that but it made me feel old, haha.

But think about those colourful tile bathrooms from the 1950s and ’60s. People don’t work that hard to preserve them simply because they’re old. They preserve them because they have charm, character, and a timeless quality that’s worth decorating around. They update the wallpaper, lighting, mirror, and decorating, but they leave the tile because it still belongs.

Now what about the white kitchen?

For years, everyone declared the white kitchen “over.” But timeless white kitchens never went out of style (below).

Crisp Architects

What people got tired of were the cookie-cutter imitations that forgot all the details that made the originals timeless. (below).

One of my readers reminded me of that this week. Five years ago, we planned a timeless renovation for her kitchen. When they recently sold their home, they received four offers on the first day, all above asking. That sale fell through through no fault of their own, so they listed it again.

Four more offers. Again, all above asking.

That doesn’t surprise me at all.

When buyers have spent all weekend walking through homes filled with the trends that are already feeling tired and overdone, walking into a beautifully designed, timeless kitchen feels like a breath of fresh air. Instead of adding “replace the kitchen” to their renovation budget, they can simply move in and start living.

That’s the difference between trendy and timeless.

And it’s exactly why my advice hasn’t changed much in the past 18 years. In today’s video I’m showing you how 5 current trends fit into the conversation about timelessness, or don’t.

Watch it here.

Related posts:

First Rule of Design; Boring Now Equals Timeless Later

Second Rule of Design: Waiting Now Equals Beautiful Later

Third Rule of Design: Expensive Does not Equal Timeless

Fourth Rule of Design: Trendy Equals Temporary

The post 5 Timeless Design Trends That Never Go Out of Style appeared first on Maria Killam | Colour Expert & Creator of The Killam Colour System®.