You’ve decorated your space with a comfortable couch, incorporated accents like side tables, chairs, and greenery, and maybe you even added a rug to tie it all together. But something still feels off, and you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s an all-too familiar design dilemma, and can sometimes leave you feeling completely at a loss.
Interior designer Lily Walters, founder of Elter Studios in Colorado, has come up with a trick that’ll give you an answer about what’s not working in as little as five seconds. She shared the idea on her Instagram account, and people flocked to the comment section with thank-you’s. Some even say they use this same trick in their own artistic endeavors, like flower arranging and painting.
The “5-Second Squint” Trick
The trick is to squint your eyes for about five seconds while scanning the room. This blurs everything into blobs and can help pinpoint the areas that need attention.
“If everything turns into one same colored blob, you need contrast,” she says in the post. “If everything is sitting at exactly the same height, you need variation.”
She says to also look at where your eye travels from one spot to another. If it’s wandering around the room “like a ball in a pinball machine,” then that signals too many different things are fighting for your attention. And if your eye gets stuck in one zone—a giant black hole or a big bright spot—that could signal your eye is landing in the wrong place.
Basically, the idea is to create more balance, and to make sure your eyes are being drawn to where they need to go. That means incorporating dark tones (be it a deep wood or rich red) and adding items with varying heights for contrast. It also means picking one or two anchor items you want your eyes to travel—like a painting or a piece of furniture—and making sure the eye goes there first.
Ultimately, this 5-second trick can help quickly identify problem areas and give you a blueprint for how to fix it all.
Wendy Rose Gould is a lifestyle journalist who routinely contributes to Real Simple, Martha Stewart, Women’s Health, and House Beautiful, among others. She covers home and garden, wellness, and travel, focusing on thoughtful storytelling and detailed reporting. When not writing, you can catch her perusing thrift stores, singing, hitting the gym, and petting any cat or dog that'll allow it.
