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Achieving the Look You Want with Furniture
by Kathleen M. Peters, www.KatieDidDesign.com
So you've gone through all the magazines
and decorating books, and you know the general look that you want your room
to have. But you don't want to copy it exactly... so what do you do
to get that look with YOUR colors, patterns, fabric, and furnishings?
This article deals with achieving the look you want with furniture.
Of course, many of us don't have the option of buying all new furniture if
what we've got doesn't help achieve our desired results. But if we
understand how our furniture is affecting the look of our room, then it's
easier use color, patterns and fabrics to adjust that look to what we DO
want!
Furniture comes in many styles and finishes.
From Traditional to Modern, white-washed to mahogany, painted to unfinished,
wood to metal, and antique to new... if you can dream it up, someone's probably
made it somewhere. But despite this wide range of styles, there are
only two major aspects that must be considered - style, and finish or color.
Considering the finish or color of your furniture
is easy. Wood finishes come in anything from white-washed to natural
pine, oak, cherry, mahogany and a host of others. Painted furniture
can be in any color of the rainbow. And metals are finished as anything from
white enamel to black wrought iron. All you need to do is consider
whether your furniture is light, medium, or dark in color, and how that color
will affect your room. This follows the same basic color principles
that I outlined in the "Achieving the Look You Want With Color" article;
dark colors take up more visual space and look more formal, and light colors
take up less visual space and look more casual. So a frosted maple
living room set will look best in a casual room and give it an open feel
to help it look larger, while a dark cherry living room set will help your
room to look more formal and masculine.
The style of your furniture is a more complicated
consideration. To help, I will break it down into three aspects of
the design -- simplicity, weight, and grace.
The simplicity or complexity of the furniture's
design is important to consider because it needs to be 'matched' to your
decorating style. A simple design would be straight legs, straight
or simply curved chair backs, etc. A complex design would include lots of
carving and curves in the wood or metal. This doesn't mean that you
have to put a simple bedding set and simple curtains in a room with simple
furniture; it simply means that you need to balance the simplicity or complexity
of your furniture with the decorating style of your room to achieve the look
you want. If you want a simple looking bedroom and you've already got
simple furniture, then all you need to do is keep your curtains and bedding
simple. But if you've got simple furniture and you want an ornate and
luxurious bedroom, then you'll need to get extra-rich looking fabrics and
styles to dominate the room and achieve that rich look you want. On
the other hand, if you've got Great-Grandma's ornate antiques, but you prefer
a simple decorating style, then you'll have to go ultra-simple in the rest
of your decorating to compensate... perhaps simple painted walls, straight
elegant silk draperies, and simple table scarves will simplify your room
enough to create the look you want.
When considering the weight of your furniture, you
need to focus more on the visual weight, and less on the actual scale weight.
A simple wrought iron bed could weigh more than a cherry sleigh bed.
But the sleigh bed has more visual weight because all you see is a thick
solid piece of wood across at both ends of the bed, while the wrought iron
allows you to see the wall behind the bed. The visual weight of your
furniture will affect how much room it looks like it takes up, and therefore
how large or small your room looks -- the heavier your furniture looks, the
smaller your room will look. So if you've got a small room and heavy
furniture, then use other decorating techniques such as light colors and
simple designs to 'lighten' up your room. And if you have tiny light-weight
furniture and want a dark, masculine look, then consider using dark colors
on the walls, and heavy-looking bedding and draperies to add weight to the
room.
Finally, consider the grace of your furniture's
design. By grace, I mean the amount and type of curves used in the
design. This is important in determining whether your room looks feminine
or masculine, romantic or modern, and rich or simple country. Gracefully
curving legs and scalloped pieces work wonderfully in a girl's bedroom or
a Victorian sitting room. And straight Shaker-style chairs or beds
look great in a country kitchen or boy's room. But again, if your furniture
isn't ideally suited to your decorating style, then you simply need to effectively
use your other decorating options to alter or disguise the look of your furniture.
If you've got a simple country bed set, and your daughter wants a frilly
Victorian bedroom, then plenty of ruffles and floral fabric will easily dress
it up. Or if you've got a beautiful fancy Queen Anne bedroom set, and
a husband who hates frills, then simple, solid-color drapes and bedding should
add enough of a masculine touch to make you both feel at home in the room.
To sum it all up, achieving the look you want isn't
as difficult as it may seem. Just take one aspect of your room at a
time, and analyze it to determine what it contributes to the room.
Once you've done this, you'll have a much easier time figuring out what the
room needs. And above all, use what you love... no matter what
you do, you can't create a room you love out of colors and fabrics you hate.
Sometimes we have to compromise on something, but if we can figure out how
to balance those items with things we love, then we can still achieve a room
that is comfortable, beautiful, and makes you feel right at home.
Have fun!
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This article Copyright 1999-2004 - Kathleen Peters, KatieDid Design. Reproduced with permission.
Kathleen Peters - 'Katie' - is a custom window treatment and bedding designer, and owner of KatieDid Design, her online shop. She is also the editor-in-chief of Decor, Decorating, and Design, a free bi-monthly ezine filled with articles, tips, and guidelines to help with your home decorating.
http://www.KatieDidDesign.com
http://www.DecorDecoratingAndDesign.com
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