The 3-T Method Could Make Decorating Your Home a Whole Lot Easier

Decorating a room should be fun.

Then, we're standing in the middle of the living room, wondering whether the new rug works with the sofa, whether we suddenly hate the coffee table, and why the lamp looked so much better in the store.

Fortunately, there's a simple formula that can help us make some of those decisions.

Real Simple recently outlined Mollie Ranize's 3-T Method, which boils decorating down to three ideas: tasteful, tailored, and timeless.

It's not a list of colors we're supposed to use or furniture we're supposed to buy. 

Instead, the three Ts give us a handy little filter for deciding what works in our own homes.

So, let's see what each one means.

1. Tasteful Doesn't Mean Boring

For the "tasteful" part of the method, Mollie suggests thinking about a room like a cast of characters.

Some elements can take the lead, while others are better off in supporting roles.

That's a pretty useful way to look at a room that's somehow become too busy.

A bold rug, colorful artwork, or unusual piece of furniture can absolutely have a place. The trick is to not make everything in the room compete for our attention at once.

If the patterned rug is already doing plenty of the talking, then the sofa can let it have the floor.

2. Tailored Means Decorating for Our Actual Lives

"Tailored" brings the focus back to the people who actually live in the house.

The idea is to decorate around our routines, rather than building a room simply because it looks beautiful in a photograph.

That's where the dog on the sofa, the pile of shoes by the door, and the chair we read in every night get a vote.

It also means thinking about storage, durability, and how we move through a room before falling in love with a piece simply because it looks good.

A gorgeous white sofa we're afraid to sit on isn't going to do us much good because our homes have jobs to do, too.

3. Timeless Keeps Us From Chasing Every Trend

Finally, "timeless" is about giving the bigger decisions some staying power.

Mollie says we should lean toward enduring shapes, materials, and colors, rather than building an entire room around whatever happens to be trending right now.

That doesn't mean trends are banned from the house.

They're just a lot less terrifying when they arrive in the form of a throw pillow instead of a $3,000 sofa.

Smaller pieces also give us room to experiment. 

We can bring in a trendy color through pillows, artwork, lamps, or other accessories without committing an entire room to it.

When we're spending serious money on something we hope to keep for years, timeless starts to make a lot more sense.

The Three Ts Give Us a Decorating Filter

The nice thing about the 3-T Method is that we don't have to redecorate anything to use it.

We can simply look around a room and run what we already own through the three Ts.

Does everything work together without competing for attention? Does the room make sense for the way we live? Are the bigger pieces things we'll probably still like several years from now?

We may discover the room doesn't need another shopping trip at all.

Sometimes, the missing decorating trick is knowing when we're done.

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