Decorating Lesson-Beautiful Room 101

Wow, I love what I do! Thirty years of creating beautiful homes and teaching others to do the same, never gets boring for me.  I walk into a room and my hands start to itch with eagerness to honor the room and help it realize its true potential. Many of my clients have been around so long, I am beginning to work with the third generation. What an honor to be passed on from Grandma to Mom, to the children.

This last month I have had the pleasure of making selections for a dorm room for the daughters of an old client. The fun thing was while we worked as a team on this project, Mom was inspired to give her own home a new look. "Why,' she said, "should my daughters be the only ones who get a new space?" But before we got started with her new look in her home, she wanted to play student herself.  Time for a lesson in Decorating 101.

The first question she asked was what exactly creates a beautiful room, is it the stuff, the placement or the color?  The answer is the people who live there and a room that tells their story.  A visitor to a home should be able to tell much about the occupants, such as who they love, where they visit, what they love to read or collect, and what their lifestyle is.  Once you have an understanding of the people in the space, it is time to focus on the elements and principles of great decorating.

A fabulous room blends placement, color, and "the stuff" just like an artist creates a beautiful canvas or a musician composes a beautiful song. I have been in many rooms filled with beautiful stuff that still had no harmony or cohesiveness and most importantly, no personality. Let me share some tips with you for our next few posts that will hopefully inspire both the professional and the DIY decorator. Let's begin Beautiful Room 101 with some placement principles.

The Power of Placement is the most important component of a space. The decorating niche, Interior Redesign, focuses on 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, 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. This will also help you to determine the most important aspect of decorating, form follows function. It has to incorporate the comfort and functional needs of the client.
• 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 36-72" from the floor that tells the room's story. The flooring becomes less important when you realize the 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.

Coming soon... more on placement principles that ROCK!   Happy Decorating from The Queen of Decorating, JoAnne Lenart-Weary

Comments

[Julie Martelo/Florida]

Tonight I caught the last few minutes of HGTG's top 25 Decorating Mistakes. Did anyone else see it?? Well, the #1 decorating mistake, according to many designers around the country IS... Using Fake Flowers or Plants!! Well, needless to say, I was a bit disappointed since in my decorating, redesign & staging business I use DO use silk plants, and in my own home I have a few silk flowers (not tired and outdated, though)... so I'm just curious.. those of you that offer Interior Design as part of your business... do you ever use fake (silk) plants? What about for Staging? I'm just curious what our industry would say about it.

[Jennifer Keener]

I can attest to the Power of Placement! I still am amazed how many times that clients who were planning on buying new furniture because they thought it was the problem in the room change their mind once their existing furniture is placed in the perfect arrangement for their family's needs. It truly works everytime!

[Sandra Racz]

The FAB five really sum it up! It still amazes me when redesigning a space whether it's for me or a client the impact placement has on the space. I love the point I stand back scan the room and think, "Wow, that looks so much better". Think about it, you haven't even added the color, yet. I'm a "rules" gal and the FAB five provide simple steps to a beautiful room. A system always helps to keep me on track and focused.
Remembering the FAB 5 of Placement Success...makes you a success. And there is More Placement Principles to ROCK? Send em on.