6. Love it or lose it I’m surprised by how many times a client points to an item in their home and says “Hate that!” We so desperately want our homes to feel finished that we often rush decisions and give in to impulse buys (or sales) that weren’t really right. But you can and must love your home and every room in it. That means filling it with things that have meaning and memories attached to them, and replacing those things that frustrate you. 5 Flat Surfaces You Can Declutter Today
5. Anchor your room A rug is the one thing I frequently note is missing from my clients’ homes, which means they’re usually high on my list of items to purchase as part of a restyle. Why? Because rugs help anchor a room, plus they’re a great way to add colour, texture and softness. Need to carve up a large, open-plan space into separate zones? A rug is your number-one tool. Rugs are also relatively inexpensive for the impact they create.
4. Fake height Do you have low ceilings? Choose low-profile furniture such as sofas and coffee tables to create the illusion of room height. Boost this with tall, slim bookshelves that draw the eye upwards and make walls and windows appear taller. Mixing different heights in this way will also help create a relaxed vibe in your home. Tip: To create an illusion of more space, paint the walls, skirting boards and ceiling in the same colour. This will blur the lines of where the walls end and the ceiling begins. See more gorgeous living rooms
3. Hang it right A beautiful painting or artwork will look far better when hung at the right height. Also, having a consistent centre line throughout your home helps create a sense of harmony. As a general rule, the centre of the artwork should be at eye level, which for the average person is 145 centimetres from the floor. Remember, that’s 145 centimetres to the centre of the art, not to the hook. Yep, I’ve made that mistake before.
2. Mix up shapes Most living rooms will have a lot of rectangles and squares – it’s simply the nature of those bigger furniture items such as sofas, sideboards and shelving units. If you notice your space has lots of lines and right angles, think about adding some circles. A round coffee table, a pair of round side tables, a round rug, a round wall hanging – the options are endless. The Golden Rules of Proportion: Decor Laws You Need to Know
1. Choose a hero Every room needs one hero piece – something that will surprise, delight and make an impact. It might be an oversized piece of furniture in a bold colour, a fabulous rug, a work of art, or a feature wall. Your hero piece is designed to steal the limelight. It should be the thing you fell in love with the moment you saw it, and that you might be prepared to splurge a little more on. Remember, however, to make sure it has space to breathe.
What about the proportions for colour in a room? When making your selection, consider the 60-30-10 rule, which is a timeless decorating principle that can help you create a balanced colour scheme. Your 60 per cent is the main colour for a room, which anchors a space and provides a backdrop for the other colours. In a living room this would be walls, sofas and rugs. Your 30 per cent is the secondary colour, which would encompass occasional chairs, bedlinen, window furnishings and occasional furniture. It should support the main colour, while being different enough to set it apart and give the room interest. The final 10 per cent is your accent colour. For a living room, this would include scatter cushions, decorative accessories and artwork. For a bedroom, think throw pillows and artwork.
5. Choose circular tables To seat up to six people, round tables usually take up less room than rectangular ones. Because they don’t have corners they also help to increase the flow in a room, which is particularly important in small spaces. If you enjoy entertaining a bigger crowd but are limited by compact quarters, an extendable dining table is probably your best option as you can collapse it when you’re home alone and elongate it when company calls. If more than six souls regularly congregate at your home for a feed, a larger rectangular dining table, or even an oval-shaped one, usually takes up less space than a vast round table. It’s also easier to squeeze in an extra chair or two around tables that rest on pedestal bases rather than legs. How to Choose the Right Dining Table
And rugs? Rugs are a great way to bring a furniture grouping together. They provide a border for furniture to sit on and can help you create individual dining and living zones in an open-plan room where furniture has a tendency to ‘float’. Ideally rugs should sit under the front legs of the sofa and occasional chairs – this helps visually link the pieces together. 10 Brilliant Ways to Make Small Spaces Appear Larger
What about hanging art? Choosing artwork that is the wrong scale for a room is a common mistake, with most people erring on the small size. Checking to see whether a gallery will allow you to bring a piece home on approval is the best way around this. If you fall in a love with a piece that is too small for your room, have it re-framed with a larger mount. Another common mistake is to hang artwork too high on the wall. If a piece is hung too high it will have no connection to the furniture below it, and if it’s above eye level it can ruin the look of a room. Ideally, artwork should be hung so that the centre of the piece is at average eye level or about 150 centimetres from the ground. In a dining room you might want to hang the pieces slightly lower to factor in the seated viewing height. Also remember that having some negative space is important. Leaving some walls bare not only puts more significance on the pieces you’ve hung, but creates a calmer feel in the room.
Are there any golden rules for hanging pendant lamps? When pendant lamps are hung too high or low, they can look completely out of place in a room. You need to consider the size and style of the pendant, the ceiling height, and the space in which they will be hung. Despite these variables, there are still a few hard-and-fast rules that can help when hanging pendants. For kitchen benches, hang lights around 70-80 centimetres above benchtops. This height allows the pendants to provide a useful light source for working, without intruding on the line of sight from the kitchen to the adjoining living or dining room. For your dining table, sit pendants at 75 centimetres above table height to create an intimate and cosy dining space. For entries and hallways where people will be walking beneath the pendant lights, space allowing, the ideal hanging height is 240 centimetres from floor level.
What proportions do you need to consider for a living room? Living rooms can be tricky to get right, especially in open-plan spaces. If the room is your main television viewing space, then you’ll need to factor in technology as well as furniture. Is the TV too big for the room? Is the entertainment unit balanced with the size of the TV, and the room as a whole? A common mistake is to have a small entertainment unit with a large TV – it should be the other way around. Also, consider whether the sofa is the correct distance from the TV for viewing comfort. It should be about 2.5 times the screen width in distance away, and no more than 5 metres. The centre of the TV should be about 1 to 1.1 metres from the floor. A large sofa and a small rug also look unbalanced. For living rooms, the furniture arrangement should be conducive to conversation. Two sofas facing each other or a U-shaped arrangement are ideal. The coffee table should also be the right height for the sofa. You should be easily able reach the coffee table from a seated position so you can rest a cup of tea or a glass of wine
10. Mirrors are actually magical You don’t need a wand, you need a mirror! Not only do they add light and depth to a room, but they can reflect views, visually expand a space, be the hero piece of a room… plus, of course, they’re practical too. A mirror is a great investment and one that will make a huge difference to the look and feel of your space.
8. Off the wall A sofa need not be right up against your wall. If you have the space, pull it out a metre or two and put a shelving unit or console on the wall instead. This not only offers up styling opportunities behind the sofa, but it breaks up the room and can make it feel cosier and more inviting.
7. Take a step back Can’t put your finger on exactly what your room needs? Step back and see the room as a whole. As interior designers know, viewing a room from a distance often makes it easy to see what needs to be replaced, added or removed; whether it’s the empty wall that needs to be filled, the wall that needs colour or the corner that’s crying out for a tall plant.
Size matters! Be generous with the size of your rug. Remember the on-the-rug rule for your living room: go bigger to ensure that at least two legs of every furniture piece in the living area are sitting on the rug. Make sure the rug extends at least 15 to 25 centimetres from either side of the sofa to create a balanced look. And remember, a rug is not wall-to-wall carpet – never lay a rug right up against the wall or window. Aim to leave at least 25 centimetres of visible floor around a rug.
Pink
Q