Picking Colors Can Be Fun

Dear Melissa,

I have a contemporary home not large (almost a cape size) painted white and no real divider except one small wall near the kitchen. I am afraid to paint with a color because of the flow from one room to another. I have cathedral ceilings. I do need some spark added to the rooms. Please advise me. Thank you. Rose

Dear Rose:

This is the most common question I get; a lot of people are stumped by this one. I’m assuming that since you have rooms open to one another, the color schemes are already somehow related to one another. There is probably at least one color common to all the areas. The simplest option is to paint the walls a shade of this common color. If you’re timid, start with a light color – in time you’ll get bolder. Now for something with slightly more impact: try a texture on your walls in this common color. Use either a painted faux finish or a textured wallpaper – the fainthearted can try a strie pattern, a grasscloth or rag finish.

For those of you who are even more adventurous, find a contrasting or complementary color for your walls. A lot of shelter magazines publish issues on color in the spring; or look at patterned fabrics for inspiration. Here are some examples: if your color scheme is blues/greens or pinks/blues, color your walls yellow; if your color scheme is cream/tan/white, color your walls dark brown; if your color scheme is a range of pastels, try aqua or gray walls, etc. Get the idea? Picking colors can be a lot of fun. M.A.K.

Secrets to an Outstanding Room

Dear Readers:

A woman recently asked me for the decorating secrets to creating an outstanding room. There are really no secrets. A truly great room requires careful space planning, wonderful furnishings (define wonderful however you like), and if not intuitive style than at least education and training.

Let’s get the furnishings out of the way, since this is what everyone focuses on. There is a big difference in quality and appearance -- not to mention cost -- between the merchandise available to the trade only and that which the average person has access to. (There are ways around this, but that’s the subject of another column.) You can still have a wonderful room on a budget, because even more important than placing great items in a room, is the ability to apply the principles and elements of design to the space. Some homeowners use these rules instinctively, but professionals use them deliberately.

What are the rules? The most important is the famous “form follows function”. A room’s design must meet the needs of the persons occupying the space; i.e., you shouldn’t have to adapt to your surroundings. The space should be carefully planned to handle the activities while allowing for traffic circulation.

The other design principles are ones that you won’t notice until they go horribly wrong. One is called

unity and variety, which seem like contradictory components. Actually they complement one another, like yin and yang. While each room needs a sense of planned order, the juxtaposition of opposites in it adds visual interest. Some people unfortunately carry variety to an extreme. Without the restraint of unity, there’s a fine line between an “eclectic” interior and an insane one.

The principle of balance is another biggie. This is one of the main problems I come across, and one of the easiest to fix. Balance refers to the visual weight of objects in a room. The visual mass on one side of the space should counterbalance that on the other. All sides of the room need to be counterbalanced visually.

Rhythm creates the “movement” in the room. The placement of objects and patterns causes your eye to dance around, and the eye resting on large solids provides control of this movement. Scale and proportion deal with the size of objects in relation to the size of the space and to each other, respectively. And emphasis means that nothing should detract from the focal point of the room.

Line, form, contrast, color, pattern, and texture are all design elements that occur in various combinations in every room. While each one has several discussion points, let me just say that one element should predominate in the space.

You will end up with the last principle of design, harmony, when all of the other principles and elements have been used correctly. (Ta da! Nothing to it.) I hope you look at the complexity of well-designed rooms with new appreciation. For more information, inquire about decorating classes and interior design programs in your area. M.A.K.

When to Hire an Interior Designer

Dear Melissa,

My husband and I are building and decorating our dream house. I feel like I need an interior designer to really make my dream come true, but my husband thinks it’s unnecessary. Do you have any advice for us? O.G., AZ

Dear O.G.,

While building a dream house is exciting, it can also be very stressful. If this is all you and your husband disagree about, you’re doing pretty well. I’m curious as to your husband’s concerns. Is he worried that it will cost too much, that your personal taste will be ignored, that the designer isn’t experienced enough, that you and your designer won’t be compatible? It’s easy to prevent all of these with a thorough interview.

Have you ever taken a virtual or actual tour of a grand house that’s on the market? (Don’t you just love open houses and real estate websites where we get to peek into other people’s homes legally?) Very often the interiors inside these magnificent structures are so disappointing, it’s a shame. Many homeowners with excellent taste have neither the expertise nor the resources to bring the interior of the house up to the level of the envelope. If you are using the finest materials in the structure, it is only fitting that the home’s interior appointments should meet this level of quality as well. Designers can provide access to superb furnishings, fabrics, lighting and accessories that are available only to the trade. An interior designer can also make sure that costly mistakes aren’t being made in furnishing the home’s interior. Moreover a designer can serve as a sounding board, meshing a husband’s and wife’s conflicting ideas into an agreeable compromise; often, the designer will put an idea on the table that homeowners haven’t even considered.

An interior designer can also provide a cohesive plan for your home, so that the colors and styles of the various spaces complement each other. Many homes have windows with unusual shapes, light control, or privacy issues; a designer can provide you with stylish window treatments to solve these problems. Furthermore, designers have access to the best workrooms for upholstery, window treatments, and pillows, as well as decorative painters, finish carpenters, paperhangers, etc., who are the best in their fields. The quality of their workmanship can make the difference between a so-so room and one in which even the smallest details are wonderful.

A well-designed interior that is wholly functional as well as aesthetically pleasing is difficult to achieve; that’s why people specialize in creating them. Keep in mind that there are a lot of dream houses that have never become dream homes. You are smart to recognize that an interior designer can help make this transformation a reality. Hopefully, you can convince your husband that you’d be more comfortable with help. (Even if the designer just supplies you with those to-die-for-gorgeous furnishings that your dream house deserves.) M.A.K.

Optimizing Natural Light

Dear Melissa:

We have a room in the northwestern corner of our house, which is a ranch style. Because of the trees, we get very little light into this room. Can you suggest something we can do about more windows or skylights to optimize the natural light? K.G., NH

Dear K.:

Here are some tips on window placement for us in the Northeast.

When faced with a choice, choose horizontal windows with angled window jambs to admit more light. Sun blockage on the western side of your house is not a bad thing, particularly with deciduous trees, but you might want to increase the sunlight on the northern side. Since I wouldn’t remove any windbreaks, I would definitely consider a row of clerestory windows up by the ceiling. When one edge of a window is contiguous with an adjoining wall or the ceiling itself, light flows along this surface creating an extra glow. Windows above your head will also cut down on drafts.

You don’t mention which way your roof is pitched, so all I can tell you about a potential skylight is that you should avoid placing one in a southern- or western- facing roof, if possible. You don’t need the other extreme of sun blindness. M.A.K.