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Tipping the 'Scale' with Interior Design By Angel Rasper

Tipping the ‘Scale’ with Interior Design written by Angel Rasper

You’ve just bought or built a new home. The paint is dry and the floors are gleaming! The smell of new carpeting and wood fills the air. The cabinets and counter tops you designed for your new kitchen created the warm and inviting setting you were hoping for, making the space absolutely perfect for hosting many holiday parties and family events.

As you start to settle into the idea of an exciting new chapter unfolding in your life, functionality starts to top the list of things to consider as the foundation to the next step. Now it is time to follow your heart and construct plans for the next phase of your interior design project- decorating!

So whether you are decorating for the holidays with a carefully chosen Christmas tree or just for everyday living in a new home, the scale of the rooms must be determined in order to make appropriate selections for key furnishings and decor.

Once the size of a space is mapped out, choosing furniture that will create aesthetic appeal, as well as functionality and decorative flow, is a matter of finding the right anchor piece or pieces that will create the perfect impact.

For example; if you are planning to make a specific area the family room, think about the amount of seating you will need. Will there be a television? What spot in the room makes the most sense for decorating around the use of the TV?

Be willing to take into consideration the type of furniture that will accommodate the functionality of the space.

Hooker Furniture Living Room 68" Two Door Console www.hookerfurniture.com

A stylish and trendy combination with the flat screen TV is the use of consoles and credenzas. They lend a great place for storage and most flat screen TV’s fit on them with ease. The elongated design of consoles and credenzas adds a complimentary shape to the linear look of the modern flat screen television.

Creative ideas to fit the changes made to the TV have re-invented traditional uses for some furnishings that were intended for other uses too. So don’t be afraid of bending the rules if a sofa table you love is within scale and can be used as an entertainment center. Learning how to be more inventive and thinking outside the box is a great way to brand your own personal style, while bringing a happy balance to your design project!

Above is a re-designed antique that has been given a fresh new look with CeCe Caldwell’s all natural paints. The new look diversifies the use of what may have been known only as grandma’s old dresser! Imagine the possibilities! Project and photo credits thanks to Anita Moeggenberg with Flutterby Creations! http://www.flutterbycreation.com/

The decorative choices available for credenzas and consoles can range anywhere from the classic antique to a more modern contemporary design. Consoles, credenzas and even re-designed vintage buffets can become a great starting point when selecting the key pieces that you will need to fit the scale of a family room.

Photo Credits Hookerfurniture.com -Melange Fleur de lis Mirrored Credenza

Once you have chosen the spot that you feel will be the most useful for your home entertainment set up, thoughts on how you should arrange for seating should follow. It is at this stage that scale starts to teeter more into the scope of proportion.

Does a sectional fit the scale of your room? Would it make more sense to use a sofa and a recliner or club chair, especially if the proportion is more fitting with the entertainment center?

Photo Credit Sacksteder's Interiors- Citirama 2013 www.sackstedersinteriors.com

So if plenty of seating is what you have in mind, consider a large sofa with two flanking chairs or a sectional that wraps around the room in style!

Proportion is the stage where decorative pieces work together to create an overall balance and aesthetic appeal in a room. The way you place furniture and decorative accents in proportion to one another can give your space the look and feel of a professional designer’s touch.

Photo Credit Hookerfurniture.com Adagio Wood Back Side Chair

For example:

  • Pictures hung above a sofa should never touch the top of the sofa or ceiling.

  • Chandeliers should never overpower the look of the dining room table.

  • Rugs are meant to anchor an area not over power or be understated.

  • Don’t smother a small piece of accent furniture with large accessories.

  • A centerpiece should never spread out into the space where someone will be dining. So if branches are covering plates … the arrangement is out of proportion.

Spatial functionality should always determine placements and purpose for any room in your home, thus affecting the furnishings we chose. Scale is very essential when it comes to making decisions about the furniture because scale will affect how we engage the space.

Photo Credit Sacksteder's Interiors- Citirama 2013 www.sackstedersinteriors.com

How you decorate for the holidays should also be taken into consideration when you start making decisions based on scale. It is easier to have an area of the room planned out in advance for the majestic Balsam Fir that you and your family have come to love every year, than to move large furniture around to accommodate it during the holidays.

Take a step back and look- envision the room during all seasons while making your scale decisions.

Photo Credit Hookerfurniture.com Hooker Furniture Bedroom Chatelet King Upholstered Panel Bed

Sofas, entertainment centers, bedroom furniture and dining room tables are great examples of what we consider to be anchor pieces. Anchor pieces will usually fall under the category of large furniture or items that can be used as main focal points like large artwork, statuary or light fixtures with grandeur. They are meant to meet the scale of a space and then be placed in proportion to one another and other decorative items used in the room.

The more secondary decorative items in the living space need to be carefully placed in proportion with anchor pieces as well. It is here where all the time and effort that was spent on the carefully selected pieces to create focal points can suddenly lose direction with misplaced seconary items.

By adding decorative elements that don’t fit spatial requirements for function, proportion and balance, the design path of the décor project can start to become chaotic. So chose wisely and be willing to give this step of the process the appropriate time and attention it deserves. Consider this to be the polish of the project!

Scale will help you decide what fits and where and is essential when planning for an interior design project that has graduated to the decorating phase. Scale is determined by the width, depth and height of a space. Knowing these measurements will make purchasing for your project more specific, thus narrowing down your furniture and focal point decisions.

So once you have measured out your room’s decorative dimensions based on scale and key pieces are in place. The next step is to experiment with proportion and proportion is where design depth marries the artistry of layering.

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