When it comes to home décor, many of us get too caught up in the beauty of individual pieces we like, and fail to think about the bigger picture. This can put you at risk of ending up with an interior that’s wholly unbalanced and uninviting. If you’re planning any interior design in the near future, balance needs to be a priority if you want the best possible outcome. Here are some tips for achieving it…
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Vary Heights
If all the furnishings and other décor pieces are the same height, the room will always fail to seize people’s interest. When you’re planning out the placement of furniture in your room, make a point of putting taller pieces next to short ones. For example, if the sofa in your living room has a low back, you can balance this out with a tall bookshelf in the background. The same rule works when it comes to small décor pieces. For example, three vases of differing heights, grouped together, and foiled by a single, larger item on the opposite side of the room, can create a remarkably striking design.
Balance your Bold or Heavy Pieces
Imagine a room in your house that you wish you could spruce up. Then, imagine one half of the room is full of heavy furnishings and décor. The imagined space feels pretty off-balance, doesn’t it? You can counteract the overbearing presence of any bold or heavy pieces by adding something to the other side of the room, drawing people’s eyes all around it. For example, if one wall of your hallway has a large, eye-catching canvas which soaks up the attention, consider looking at some console tables suitable for hallways which you can adorn with accessories to balance the space out. Provided you’re not making it too cramped, simply adding something of similar size is a great way to stop a room from feeling lopsided.
Blend Colors, rather than Matching Them
When it comes to interior design, the one tell-tale sign of an amateur is a room where everything matches the surrounding items perfectly. Too perfectly, that is. Forget about perfection, and try to go for ambiance instead. For example, if one part of the room is heavy with a bold color, you can balance it out with a pattern with large strokes or repeating images, that blends with the other element, but doesn’t match it exactly. Alternatively, you could go for a narrow color palette, but vary the intensity of the hues, and spread them evenly around a room.
Less Is More
One final word on balance; don’t turn your home into an obstacle course made of furniture! Your kids might be thrilled, but to everyone else, it’s just going to make the space look cluttered and inaccessible. The same point goes for covering different surfaces with too many different smaller objects in them. There’s a lot of gorgeous furniture pieces out there, and you may want to have them all. However, a room, and your guests, need breathing space!
