design: why every piece can't be your favorite piece

When you're designing your house, just buy what you love and it will all magically look fantastic.

This is a lie.

I hear this a lot. People buy their favorite sofa, favorite table, favorite lamp, favorite rug, and are then baffled why it doesn't all work together. I like to call this the "hot mess" phenomena. We all understand that we can't wear our favorite shirt, skirt, shoes, jewelry, jacket, and scarf at the same time. It would look ridiculous. But then we go to design our homes, and that logic goes right out the window. 

 

{sidebar- I tried to go into my closet and pull a horrible outfit together to illustrate the point, but darn it if every combination I pulled together looked cool. I smell another blog post about assembling a fool proof wardrobe, but we'll save that for another day.}

Here's what this looks like in a room. These pieces are all great. Good quality, great design aesthetic, etc.  All together, though, it's a crime against design. And this isn't an exaggeration (okay, maybe a little), but people fall victim to this all the time. "Well, there's green in the pillow and the couch, so that goes. And there's red in the rug and the art, so that must work too. And on my gosh is the chair comfortable! So I have to have that."

 

 

{sofa and art from Room & Board, chair and lamp from PotteryBarn; table, rug, and accessories from West Elm}

 

The problem with this approach is that there is no focus. If everything is the most important piece, then nothing is most important. Something has to take the lead, and other things have to play supporting roles. Designers have a term for this: Focal Point.

So here's how we take that hot mess room and make it work. In this example, if you're going to have a green velvet sofa (and you absolutely should), then by God it needs to be the center of the room. Everything else in the room exists to make that sofa look amazing. Brass accents, coordinating colors, simple forms, and great textures make the sofa sing. Your eye has a place to rest in the room. There's no question about who is the star. The color is repeated in the room in smaller amounts to help it make sense with the other pieces. 









 

{sofa, chair, and art from Room & Board; table, rug, lamp, and accessories from West Elm}

Don't think that this means everything else has to be boring and matchy-matchy. Far from it. You just don't want everything in the room competing for attention. It's exhausting.

Here's how I've applied the Focal Point principle in my house. When we moved to our house in April of 2013, we finally had room for a king sized bed. Can I get an amen for a king sized bed?! I can almost sleep like a starfish and not disturb Steven. He's happy, because according to him, I'm a bit of a bed hog. Preposterous.

 



{headboard, frame, and gold pillow from West Elm; lamps, shades, mirror, and throw from Target; bedding from Bed Bath and Beyond; euro pillows from IKEA; nightstands are vintage and awesome and mine and you can't have them from Again & Again in Dallas; wall color Benjamin Moore Hale Navy}

I digress. We decided to get a king size bed, so I went with a tall headboard from West Elm that had some stage presence. The headboard is a luxurious velvet texture (I clearly have a thing for velvet, and I will not apologize for it) with brass nail head trim. To reinforce the focal point, I added a brass mirror centered above and painted the wall a bold navy (Benjamin Moore, Hale Navy). The bedding, nightstands, and lamps needed to be cast in a supporting role, so basic white was the best choice. 

 

The result: pure happiness. For me, a bedroom is a place to rest and relax, and having multiple competing focal points was just not going to work. We couldn't be happier with how this turned out.

 

Other ideas: an awesome piece of art, a rug, accent wall, mirror, or light fixture. It doesn't have to be furniture.

 

But, of course, it's a design principle, not a design rule. So feel free to break it as needed. Just don't say I didn't warn you.