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Portfolio
The seasonal rearrange: It's all about options.
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Artist and Design Professional Philip Sassano | | | [ click thumbnails to open in a larger window ] |
It’s February in the Midwest. Sometimes I think Valentine’s Day was created especially for us, with the specific intent of keeping spouses from strangling one another. Mentally, this time of year is where things can get a bit out of place. Much like our interiors. So, after the creative Holiday (accommodate the decorations) and Super Bowl (accommodate the friends) furniture arrangements, what’s your next move? You’re tired of the same old layout, and want something new, but seem to be stuck. To start the discussion, it’s my opinion, that the static groupings fell out of favor roughly around the time Jimmy Carter’s poll numbers headed south in the late 70’s. I remember being tasked with vacuuming the living room as a kid, knowing that it didn’t matter where I moved the furniture during the chore. That’s because the marks in the carpet, carved over centuries like ancient cave drawings, allowed me to perfectly reposition the grouping my mother insisted was the only decorative solution for the room. Like a Stonehenge kind of thing-heaven forbid things not line up with the stars. She was right about most things, but man was she wrong about that. It wasn’t until “Read My Lips” Bush that my mother began to loosen things up a bit. By that time, four growing boys were putting her decorating and space planning skills to the test. Point being, life has a funny way of letting you know what works in a space, and when you need to evolve in order to really maximize the creative potential of an interior. The trick is not limiting yourself with large pieces, especially if you know you're prone to “the rearrange”. In my world, successful residential furniture layout is about two basic things: Problem solving and compromise. Having designed hundreds of rooms and moved around plenty of furniture, experience has taught me that the most comfortable residential interiors leave themselves options. Now let’s get one thing straight, every room has issues. The only perfect plan is flexibility, and proper scale of your furniture can go along way toward minimizing your frustration when acting on the impulse to rework a room. For example, the late 90’s through 2008 saw the explosion of the steroid sofa. Design professionals and decorating enthusiasts all over the globe are still trying to push these albatrosses from the nest. I have two words for you…basement…curb. Give me right sized sofas, coordinating occasional chairs and accent ottomans used to morph the grouping any day. But if you’re already stuck with the leather and wooly mammoth size sofa, try loosing the coffee table in favor of grouped tables or small ottomans. If the side tables seem to crowd the room, my hunch is they’re only there to support a lamp…consider moving to swing arm floor lamps and move the side tables to another room. I could go on about the hundreds of a layout conundrums we’ve solved over the years. Time to offer a bit more clarity. Interchangeable parts provide greater design flexibility and give you more options when problem solving a room for an event or a season. Pulling the groupings tighter makes the space more intimate. Push the pieces apart and create more private sitting areas in the same room. You get the idea. Multiple pieces, with good scale, also allow us to creatively coordinate fabrics that add interest to the room and ultimately shape it’s visual identity. Simply stated, the more items you cleverly decorate, the more complex, detailed and interesting the interior. Which leads me to the other half of the equation…compromise. Okay, I understand space in our interiors is ultimately limited. However, some of the best spaces I’ve seen, were not the largest…they were the one’s that maximized the potential. Not with size, but with interest and scale. And sometimes that means letting go of what you want to room to be and designing to what the space can actually handle. Trust me, everybody knows when there’s a decorating elephant in the room. Even if they haven’t had the guts to tell you. All I’m suggesting is stop trying to make rooms something they’re not. I cannot tell you how many dining rooms have to go without a buffet because the homeowner wants to seat ten in room that should seat six. You have to be realistic regarding what the room can handle, and scale helps us breach the design gap. Forcing the issue with furniture that is not to scale, and the inclusion of non-functional elements that have no real purpose in the room, are the number one and two causes of "rearrange frustration". So, try following the philosophies of flexibility and proper scale, and I think you’ll find that the seasonal rearrange won’t nearly be as difficult a task. Thanks for the curious click. (Comments:info@refinedrustic.com) | |
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