Country Homes & Interiors February 2005
Country Homes & Interiors March 2005
STYLE TIP: LIVE A BEAUTIFUL LIFE.
It bears repeating.
“Style Tips” is a regular feature on The Inspired Room where I share a few ideas on how to create your own authentic style.
Image Source
Related Posts by The Inspired Room:
Girls Rooms: Fanciful Rugs and Lamp
Whimsical and Tasteful Children’s Rooms
I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of making a room functional beyond its obvious intention. For instance, I’ve always loved library/dining rooms. You can use the room to dine and entertain in, but you can also line the walls with library shelves to house books or create a home office. One room, multiple purposes.
Well, here is another clever use of space. I’m sure this is not a cheap table, but check this out. It is a custom made dining table that opens up to reveal a pool table! You can have a family meal, then take the lid off the table and the space becomes a game room. While the table probably costs a pretty penny, imagine the cost of a whole separate pool table room.
If you are trying to make the most out of a small house, consider ways to double a room’s usefulness! We don’t always need MORE room, we just need to be more clever with the space we have!
Country Homes & Interiors Feb 2005 via House to Home
Custom Made Pool Table by Sir William Bentley Billiards
Related Post:
Room Design: Where to Begin
DECORATING MISCONCEPTION:
A common misconception with decorating is that if you love everything in your room, your room will magically work as a whole. I get calls all the time from clients who say “I know what I like, and I buy what I love, but when I get it home I am disappointed that it doesn’t work.” Buying what you love is generally a good idea, but to really make a room feel right, there are more things to consider than love. If it were only that simple! It isn’t always about loving everything you have, it is about how things work together. Decorating a room is like putting together a puzzle, and finding the correct shape of the pieces determines your success.
CONSIDER THE SHAPE OF THINGS:
One of the tips I often share with clients is that you need to consider the shape of things when you put together a room. So often rooms are made up of mostly rectangles. Rooms are rectangles, we have rectangular couches, chairs, coffee tables, end tables and rectangular rugs. We might love each and every thing in a room, but still the room feels awkward and uncomfortable. Sometimes the reason it feels this way is because traffic through the room doesn’t flow properly if there are too many sharp angles. Especially in walkways, small rooms or tight spaces. Adding things that are rounded will make a world of difference in how the room will ultimately feel. Rounded backs on chairs, round ottomans, round rugs, curved corners and round tables will create a sense of movement that can transform a room into one that is more comfortable to move around in and more pleasing to the eye.
BONUS FURNITURE ARRANGING TIP:
Interestingly, some decorators put everything in a room on an angle in order to create drama and movement, as well as to get that “WOW THIS ROOM LOOKS DIFFERENT” experience. They place a rug on a diagonal and all the furnishings diagonally in a room. Let me just say here that while it does make the room look different, you want to be careful that you are not creating nausea with the new angles. A bunch of rectangles crooked in a room still can look awkward. Turning pieces of furniture in different directions can revitalize a space, and oftentimes some pieces do in fact look better at an angle, but I would proceed with caution if anyone tells you to turn your entire room on the diagonal. You might just end up seasick. If your room is awkwardly shaped and things feel uncomfortable, try adding in rounded pieces instead.
photo: Traditional Home online
The most common words I hear from potential clients is: “I’m stuck.” Sound familiar? You know you want to surround yourself with beauty and feel that things are put together, but it is oftentimes overwhelming to know where to begin to create what we want. Let’s talk about how to get started, whether your room is indoors or outdoors, we can tackle them the same way.
DEFINE THE SPACE
When I first begin work with a new client, I always sit down with them and ask a series of questions. One of the first topics we discuss is what the client intends to use the space for and what sorts of activities will take place in that room. Defining a specific purpose for your room, and even spaces within the room, really helps to zero in on some basic information that will be useful as you begin to design. You can apply this to indoor or outdoor room design. For outdoor rooms, even if you have no yard and only a front step to work with, a space can have a purpose! With a front door, it is a place to welcome guests as they knock on your door! It is “the welcoming space.” Just knowing that small piece of information can help you decide what to do with the space you have. From there you can design a “room” that will function and be aesthetically pleasing.
You can assign purposes several times over within a room. You might have a room that has to accommodate both eating and relaxing, for instance. So now that you have defined two purposes of the room, you can begin to create rooms within rooms. In both big or small spaces, every nook can be assigned a purpose. Dividing a room up by several purposes makes it much easier to design than if you just call a room a “living room,” for instance.
AN ILLUSTRATION
Below is a playroom of a client who called me with those common words, “I’m stuck.” She didn’t need any new furniture and her room was already cute, but she knew something was wrong because her kids didn’t want to play there. This is a big clue that something is wrong with your space. If you don’t want to go there, that signals a problem.
BEFORE: PLAYROOM
THE SOLUTION
The problem was it simply wasn’t arranged with specific purposes in mind. Calling it “a playroom” was not specific enough. We needed to create zones, or rooms within the room. By simply creating two distinct spaces, I was able to create play zones that made sense for the kids. One area became the reading/TV nook, and the other was the “arts & crafts” zone. Each space you are designing needs to have a specific purpose so that you can know where to focus and how to solve the problems. In this case, it only required switching two pieces of furniture.
AFTER: READING/TV NOOK
BEFORE: PLAYROOM; AFTER: ARTS & CRAFTS ZONE
By simply defining the room and spaces within a room, whether your room is inside or outside, you can start to envision spaces that serve a purpose, rather than just a big design dilemma.
Next posts in this series (which will at times address both indoor and outdoor rooms) we’ll talk about problem solving in room design and then start to discuss the specific components we need to create inviting rooms. TTFN!
Photos: Top “25 Beautiful Homes: September 2005″ via House to Home website
Playroom photos: my personal design projects
Let’s just pretend we are at the beach. On holiday. For three months. And it is warm and we are playing in the surf. Someone is barbecuing something tasty on the grill. I can smell it, it smells delicious. And we have a housekeeper cleaning up the beach cottage. Life is good. Take a deep breath, inhale the sea air. Feel the sand in your toes. Yeah, let’s go with it. Don’t try to tell me it isn’t true. Sometimes I just need a Sweet Escape on a Monday. And that is O.K.
Photo: Coastal Living Alex Hemer
Beach cottage articles by The Inspired Room:
Coastal Cottage Kitchen Inspiration
The Endless Beach House Remodel
Our Little Escape & Coastal Drive Bys
