Decorating Fads

Walls

• If you're still looking at walls cloaked in mirrored panels or knotty pine paneling, it might be time to consider an upgrade in your home. The heyday has passed for these finishes that were once the envy of the block, and rooms that still feature walls like these look dated. Tread lightly, however, when choosing your new wall treatment, and don't invest in yet another short-lived fad: for example, chalkboard paint. Such a novel idea when it began popping up in home decor magazines around 2009, this French Country-inspired idea has, unfortunately, lost a bit of its appeal due to overuse. Years later, it's not uncommon to see entire walls, doors and even the fronts of appliances covered in flat black chalkboard paint. And, of course, where there's chalkboard paint, there are chalk scribbles -- everything from grocery lists to doctor's appointments have become the featured artwork in too many kitchens.

Furniture

• No matter how expensive or light-colored your living room furniture may be, don't use clear vinyl slipcovers to protect your investment. This 1950s, stick-to-your-legs solution was once trendy, as your grandmother can attest, but it's a real party-buster today. Treating your furniture with a coating of fabric protector is a much more attractive -- and comfortable -- solution, and most furniture retailers are willing to do it for you before the pieces even leave the store. If your high-end chairs, sofas and coffee tables do end up damaged, don't buy into the DIY craze by decorating with creations you built yourself over a couple of tall beers in the garage. Unless you have adequate carpentry skills, that coffee table made from old pallets is going to look like just what it is. So is the lamp made from soda bottles and the bookshelf you nailed together from old fruit crates.

Ceilings

• Popcorn ceilings first came into play around the late 1950s. They went up easily and hid all sorts of defects in the home's actual ceiling surface. Unfortunately, popcorn ceilings fell out of favor almost as quickly as they came in when homeowners discovered how difficult they were to clean. These ceilings are notorious for capturing and hanging onto dust. Even worse, many popcorn ceilings installed before 1978 contained asbestos as a binding agent. If you've inherited a dated popcorn ceiling, seek the services of a professional before trying to remove it. Once your home's ceiling has been updated, check the rest of the rooms for that notorious 1990s decorating fad called wallpaper border. Again, everything in moderation -- putting borders around your walls where they meet the ceiling once served a purpose. It allowed you to cover the jagged ends where the wallpaper ended. But, for reasons unknown, when wallpaper began falling out of fashion, some diehard fans held onto the border idea, using it to top rooms painted in both traditional and faux techniques.

Accessories

• Keep calm and don't be offended. Unless you're displaying a reproduction of the original World War II poster -- Keep Calm and Carry On -- you need to pack up your parody art and set it out in the garage in the yard sale pile. This sentiment was originally conceived by the British government during WW II to bring hope and comfort to its people. To date, it has been modified to encourage everything from shopping to dancing to eating -- sort of an anticlimactic fate for such a purposeful statement. Another decorating fad you might want to avoid, especially if you're a fan of shabby chic style, is accessory overload. Those 1990s country decorating magazines were full of photos depicting rooms swathed in layer upon layer of accessories -- piles of vintage doilies, stacked decorative boxes, ivy on the wallpaper and in silk vines trailing over the cabinets. Know when to say when. If your living room mantel resembles the clearance rack of your local home store, you might be over-accessorizing.