What makes a home look polished?

[MidnightPeacock]

We have a typical 1930 semi. The house required a lot of work and we had to change out floors, install kitchen, bathroom etc when we moved in 9 years ago. We quite like white walls so apart from the kids rooms the walls are white. We are fuss about lights and haven't been able to decide on a ceiling light in the extension come living room. There are not many pictures on the wall and the whole house needs a coat of paint as it looks bit mucky due to dog and small children.

I am getting really frustrated as the house has so much potential but I don't seem to be able to bring it together.

e.g. we have old style pretty ugly radiators, maybe we'd need to change them out at least downstairs?

We have a L shaped sofa but all the homes I like have two sofas rather. There is no coffee table and the everything looks somehow a bit unfinished and unloved.

What are your top tips to create a smart yet cosy and welcoming feel and look?

Rug, coffee table, art work, lights, repaint. It’s never going to look finished with basically an empty room, dirty walls, a bare bulb and no artwork.

yep, you are right of course. Skirting boards need to be painted, is gloss nicer than matt? I think I prefer free standing furniture and quite like oak or a bit of antique, mixed with Ikea of course!

It's that a nice rug is £££, same for the light so I have been putting it all off, which is really silly.

We do have wall lights that are lovely but the bulbs tend to break quite quickly so 1 or 2 are always broken (arrrg)

You have all given me some good ideas. With the L shaped sofa I'm not so sure about a coffee table, as it might feel a bit closed it and the dog will chew whatever is on it. Maybe nested tables, or are they a bit naff? I think I prefer polished to cosy but ours place just looks a bit unfinished.

I've always had white wall. What are the go to colours at the moment? I don't do insta or Pintrest. I've always quite like sand light greige.

Hit me with your tips

@Sittinginthesand

Basically you have to spend money on it

You've got it!

My home isn't polished; it needs a lot of work. But I think what makes it superficially look polished is that we thought really hard about colours, so there are colours that get picked up in different things so it feels reasonably cohesive; the colour in the kitchen when you look through from the dining room looks nice, etc.

I spend ages on rightmove and sometimes houses look as if the person did each room as a self-contained unit and never thought how they look together - so you get a flash of clashing colours every time you look through a doorway.

For me, it's symmetry and cohesion. No clutter. I'm probably a bit anal though. Relaxed schemes seem to be the thing at the moment. I don't like furniture with sticky-out legs .

To me, Kelly Hoppen and Oka schemes look polished. Ikea is too everyday to be polished IMHO (mostly).

www.oka.com/inspirations/romance-restored
This to me looks a "polished" pale scheme (if a bit too cluttered for my personal taste)

Make sure you have a theme. I like MCM and the house flows from room to room even though the sub-theme (god, that sounds twattish!) might vary. So for instance, my living room has vintage African type art, batiks, masks, screen prints. The kitchen is more Scandinavian with vintage ceramics/ cookware displayed. Plenty of well cared for houseplants with interesting leaves - monstera, palm etc. But don't put too much in one room. Leave some breathing space.

If you have well put together themes then they tend to carry the room and you don't have to focus so much on precision cleanliness. I must admit though, I like to keep all my 70's oak doors and vintage wood furniture glowing with polish. When they look scruffy it starts to go from MCM stylish/ quirky to "the scary house that time forgot" pretty quickly

Try some different things - there's loads of inspiration on things like Pinterest and Instagram.

@Sittinginthesand

You really don't have to - I get some things secondhand from ebay, I even sometimes steal things from the curbside that have been put out for the bin men! If you are a bit handy and can do things up then you can do a lot with little.

(Of course I always buy new beds and soft furnishings.)

I really would like a polished looking home, so am place marking to read later.

@ChampagneWorries

Art work on the wall, coffee table, rugs, oak doors with white frames and skirting.

Fitted furniture always looks posh compared to free standing

I am fully agreeing with this answer here, especially with the point on rugs! Nowadays, you don't even need to visit a shop to find an abundance of rugs that would suit your home, and they come in a massive array of styles and sizes as well.

When I moved into my first home, alone, I was STUMPED when it came to interior decor. I had an open plan flat, so needed a way to segment off the space really well, without building partition walls as my landlord was not going to allow that.

Eventually, I settled on a lovely shaggy rug for the living room area, and a jute rug for the dining room area. Both work incredibly well, and the space does look incredible now. Not actually too much money as well considering the quality.

If you are interested in the rugs I purchased, you can find them here:

Living Room - www.landofrugs.com/rugs/twilight-6926-white.html

Dining Room - www.landofrugs.com/rugs/sarita-jute-boucle-rug-natural.html

FULL DISCLOSURE:

I do actually work at Land of Rugs, so got access to my staff discount when purchasing. However, they are brilliant rugs and could recommend (as someone who actually has the rugs in a home) for sure.

Are you on Pinterest? I was stumped about where to start on various rooms, but basically started searching 'kitchen ideas' 'sitting room ideas' etc and found examples I really like and recreated them