 Cheerful
Decorating
By Patricia Morgan Do you play with
your home décor? We can enjoy our home as an arena for fun as well as pleasure. Our home
is a place of potential comfort where our personal preferences can be expressed. Over the
years friends have asked me for tips since I am known as an amateur interior decorator.
The key word here is “amateur” and I said “decorator” not
“housewife”. I wonder how an “amateur housewife” would act...
The guiding principles following were learned from my mother, my
architecture designer brother, books, home building, renovating and decorating our various
homes, and meddling with other people’s spaces. It is great to know some basic
decorating “rules” so you can confidently break them. It will give you a sense
of “I know what I am doing. It’s my space and I’ll make it look and feel
the way I want.” There are so many places in the world that you have no control but
in your home you are the Queen. Enjoy your creative power.
Some rules to follow or break
Outside
Choose an accent or “punch” colour for your front door that
welcomes your family and guests to your home’s entry point. Avoid
“welcoming” them to your garage door. Fade out your garage door with a paint
that blends with the exterior walls of your house.
Inside
1. When creating a room’s colour scheme choose the wall paint
LAST. Paint is your most economical decorating tool with a million colour choices. There
are limited options with carpeting, upholstery, curtains and bedding schemes and they tend
to be high price items unless you are an enthusiastic garage sale hunter.
2. If a room feels heavy and dark, even if it has “beautiful
wood”, you can transform it with light coloured paint. Old-fashioned panelling can
take on new life with paint or stain.
3. To have a balanced space, place the biggest piece of furniture on
the wall facing the entry or door. We tend to feel comforted by seeing a couch, bed or
some other inviting piece when we enter a room. It tells us where to go to settle.
4. Large pieces of furniture are usually best when aligned with the
architecture of the space. If you have a focal point, like a fireplace at a corner
diagonal, have your next heaviest visual piece, probably a sofa, facing it at the same
angle.
5. When you want to create a space to walk through a room allow 3 feet
or more between furniture and walls.
6. Private rooms such as bedrooms are often painted or papered in
different colours to designate a personal space. Small washrooms or bathrooms provide a
space to be daring and bold because we spend brief periods there. Additionally, if you are
anything like me, seldom do you go there to entertain.
7. Have something black in a room to help ground the space.
8. You can give public areas like the living room some flair with
something living (plants, fish tank), something to read (magazines, books) and something
that reflects your personality and interests (painting, statue, collections).
9. Hang wall décor at eye level so that the pictures in areas where
you sit, like the living room, are lower than when hung in hallways.
10. Hang wall decor congruent to the furniture. Avoid a picture
“falling” off the edge of a couch. You can use a sofa, dresser, bed or chair as
a horizon line for images.
11. When grouping wall images create a steady bottom horizontal and
side vertical line. If a picture in a group is hung more than half its width from the
other pictures it may look lost. Groupings work well if there is a repetition of either a
theme (cats, scenery, flowers) or similar colours. The wall space can be imagined to be a
piece of paper on which you are creating a balanced view of many objects.
12. The only time to “step hang” (one step up from another)
objects and pictures is on staircases. Again, we want to stay congruent to the room’s
architectural lines and not have our eyes fighting with it.
13. Have fun. You can place a delightful stuffed animal on a chair in
the living room or in a guestroom. Put a humour book like Calvin and Hobbs on the coffee
table. You can hang a fun painting, saying or poster. Hang an animal portrait at a
pet’s eye level above her feeding dish. Remember that it’s your home and the
closest you will be to “living in your own castle.”
Patricia Morgan is a therapist, professional speaker &
author of “Love Her As She Is”. She can be reached at 403.242.7796 or visit her
website at www.lightheartedconcepts.com |
