Beautiful Room 101

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Yesterday, I visited an old client who was ready for new furniture and some freshening up.  She asked me what creates a beautiful room, is it the stuff, the placement or the color that matters most?  The answer is Placement is the most important component, followed by color.  A great room blends, placement, color, and "the stuff" just like an artist creates a beautiful canvas or a musician composed a beautiful song. I have been in many rooms filled with beautiful stuff that still had no harmony or cohesiveness. So let's talk about Beautiful Room 101.

 The Power of Placement is the most important comoponent of a space. The decorating niche, Interior Redesign, focuses on the power of placement. In other words, it isn't what you have, it's where you put it that matters. I do not believe that redesign is just for what you already have, but it is the basis of every room I create, whether starting with all new or existing. I incorporate the same attention to placement whether I begin on paper or in the space itself.
 
Here are the FAB Five of Placement Success.
  • Who are you decorating for-Know who lives in the room and how they use it. I could do the same space with the same stuff for 3 different families and it would look different each time, depending on their lifestyle.
  • Establish Focal Points-Create the room around the focal point-the one that works for the family that lives there, not the one you think that matters.  Think of the show Frasier, where is the fireplace?  Right, behind the sofa and how about the beautiful view of Seattle, yep, ignored again.  The focal point of the room is the television (which we do not see) but Dad's ugly chair is focused on that.  An effective use of the power of placement would focus on all three of those focal points.
  • Conversation Areas- should be within 8-10 feet and facing one another so that a "family" room truly is a family space that encourages interaction and not just TV viewing.
  • The Power Zone-this is the area that is 36-65" from the floor that tells the room's story. The flooring becomes less important when you realize this power zone is where the eye will linger. Hang your art 54-60" from the floor to the center so you can truly appreciate it in the Power Zone. 
  • Competing Lines- This is one of the most frequently ignored elements of decorating a space. For example,  if you have a fireplace composed of bricks and flanked by windows with window muttons, then you should not do a grouping over the fireplace, as the lines will compete and your eye doesn't know what to focus on first.

Happy Decorating, The Queen, JoAnne Lenart-Weary