How to Elevate Your Space With Furniture Accessories
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Furniture accessories such as lamps, tables, mirrors and sculptures can breathe life into a space, but also add dimension and visual interest, giving you the chance to display and enjoy prized possessions or collections.
As much time as you might spend contemplating the shade of beige or whether it’s time to replace the sofa you’ve had a decade, there isn’t enough time to fully understand all about your personal tastes if you don’t carve out pockets of time simply to ponder them — to step away, sketch your bedroom, gaze at art images, download images, collect fashion catalogues, tear out pictures from magazines, include more detail and then less and then more again. Your most important tool for creating the environment you want is your imagination: learn to layer furniture and accessories, identify focal points, establish balance.
Identifying the Areas in Need
Accessories will be of various types: decorative like a vase or a painting, functional like a tray. Think about which spots could benefit from an extra accessory to make your selection smarter – for example, a chair’s upholstery that has faded in time may be revived by a stylish slipcover, which will also make it softer to the touch.
The smallest pieces – little decorative boxes or the like – supply extra dollops of colour, as well as shape, materiality and scale, while also making visually complimentary or contrary juxtapositions between small and larger ‘frames’, tensions as well as choreography.
A mix of varying-sized vases can offer an arresting visual contrast; piled-up throw pillows and blankets create texture and depth on seating areas.
Creating a Focal Point
Focal points visually enliven and enrich a space by reinforcing design styles, creating movement, and by infusing interest and balancing decor. Focal points draw your eye, magnetise and even guide you to an area in a room – though that’s not always intentional! Focal points are created by structural features such as a fireplace, large picture window, wall art; or by a rug or a focal point that is created by grouping furniture together.
Start with a piece of artwork that immediately draws the eye, and build on from there: a large mirror or gallery photo wall or powerful painting can serve as your centrepiece. From there, you can design the rest of your decor around this focal point to create not just something pretty, but a visually pleasing space that also feels tonally balanced and harmonious — departing elements with elements of strong contrast will draw the eye straight to your centrepiece, while elements with impressive colours will draw the eye directly to the centre. Other elements can be natural points of focus, too. Fireplaces or TVs can serve as these points of focus. So can bay windows, storage cabinets or seating arrangements. Stately storage unit/permanent seating arrangement OR Fireplace/TV are examples of natural points of focus.
Creating a Cohesive Aesthetic
Home accessories play a crucial part in styling, helping you to bring a design vision to life and finish things off beautifully. But how do you create a cohesive and harmonious look, without losing the personality of a space? Make sure each decorative item and pieces of furniture accessories you put on display in a room align by being prepared and following some rules.
When selecting furniture, think about how its colours match and contrast with those of the other pieces – consider choosing hues that seem to ‘go’ with your style before you scatter them throughout the room. Similarly, try including a diversity of textures – smooth and rough, matte and glossy – for visual interest.
Home accessories such as rugs, throw pillows and art work help associate different rooms Together, decorative trays or bowls can group small sentimental accessories into a cohesive theme so that an elevated level of association links different rooms from room to room, setting up pattern and order within the space, a kind of invisible link that balances the overall room plan and reveals the personalities of the owners.
Creating a Comfortable Environment
In other words, comfort makes for a good setting for concentration, one in which work and rest can be accomplished and from which we feel more willing to emerge. When objects such as pillows, throws and cushions are introduced into a space, the reason is not merely aesthetic, but also because a central goal of interior decoration is to promote wellbeing.
Mould-resistant, mildew-resistant and fade-resistant pillows and rugs made from these fibres will keep your investment looking good for years instead of years to weeks or months. Make sure that furniture accessories fit nicely and neatly into their space as well – too small and you have awkward corners and shapes; too large and these furnishings can fill the whole room and create a swampy atmosphere. If you decide on pillows, bolsters or throws filled with polyester fibrefill (which is fast-drying), then choosing a mould- and mildew-resistant polyester fill can prolong their use without replacement or replacement issues.
