Do you have a problem room?

We all have them, those rooms that defy all you know about design, and just continue to go about their merry way creating problems no matter what you do with them. I managed to create a monster a quarter of a century ago right  in the middle of my house because  my mind was focused on other things at the time. I’ve spent the intervening  years trying to make my dining room “right” by my standards – I haven’t achieved that yet. 

No one has ever walked into my house and said “OMG, what a mess this dining room is.”  So what’s wrong with it  in my eyes?

Location:  When you’re standing in my entry  you look directly into the dining room.  The archway frames the table and the window.  It is also a walk through space from the living room  on the right  to the kitchen which is to the left.

 

There is an alternate hallway beside the stairs, but we never go that way. My dining room is the room in the middle with no identity. Because the walkway needs to be maintained  only half the room is really accessible for  the table – problem #1.

I noticed another problem when I looked at this photo but it was easily fixed. Can you spot the fix?

Across from the table looking  toward the front porch. 

Top art work by Angela Antle and bottom by Anita Singh

A second artwork was added to connect with the chair below it. Doesn’t that look better?

Furniture: The dining room buffets, table, and chairs were
handcrafted, especially for me, by my man who can do anything.  The set
has that “casual contemporary with a nod toward mid -century modern
look” that I love.    The scale and style fits the room and the buffets
are nicely tucked away behind the table.  Have you noticed problem #2 yet?

A rather dark  view  from the living room.  Thankfully the railings aren’t that orange!

You’re right! The furniture is the same height as the railing causing your eye to run along the lines and never go anywhere else. I’ve used all my tricks to make it otherwise, with minimal success. Note all the verticals – floor lamp, tall twigs, candle sticks, vertical artwork, accentuated vertical windows in living room.  The strength of the horizontal lines and the preponderance of wood wins out every time.

Flooring and railing
Problem #3
The aged oak is so orange- my least favourite tone in wood. Because I can’t rip it all up or throw away the furniture, I’ve decided to embrace the orange  and pick it up in interesting art works that also have lots of purples and blues to tame down the orange.  

Problem #4 

Because the furniture is in one half of the room, there isn’t enough space  for an area rug which would keep the furniture from blending into the floor.  If I wanted to use an area rug I would have to cover most of the floor, but that would mean vacuuming;  I would rather use a dust mop! 

Problem #5

I have a love/ hate relationship with the railing.  It is solid wood, has a good design and fits with the age of the house and our design aesthetic. I have strong feelings about maintaining “period “architectural detailing and the railing is necessary because the living room is sunken.  But it is soooo difficult to ignore that orangey railing..  It didn’t look like this in 1986.  Time ages wood to either orange or yellow especially when treated with oil based products.  

 

Lighting 
Problem #6

The light fixture was an impulse buy  because I liked the lines,  but its scale is too small, and it is hung too high in my efforts to make sure you could see the painting at the end of the room.   As an artist, art always takes precedent over every other design  decision in my house.  This often leads me into hot water.

Wall colour 
Problem # 7

You may be thinking at this point why doesn’t she have the walls pained a cooler neutral.  Can’t happen because the living room, where most of the light comes from, is north facing and the house next door blocks off any light in the dining room.  Both rooms are dull and cold.  The living room is  Elephant Tusk OC 8 Benjamin Moore and the dining room is Light Khaki  BM 2148-40.

Window treatment
Problem #8 
I love these back tab drapes for the subtle design and their softness,  but the necessity to crop them to allow for the buffet further emphasizes all the horizontal lines. I also think I should have a window treatment that covers the window in some way so you can’t see the wall of the next house with is very close to the window and certainly not interesting.

Matching set 
Problem # 9
I have an aversion to matched sets of furniture and here I am living with just that. Matching always looks so uninspired in my eyes and gives the appearance of laziness.  Like you couldn’t be bothered to put the room together.  Yes I like a curated room and I have a bundled set!

I’m sure if I really tried I could find a Problem 10.  Many of you may feel it is the lack of cove mouldings, but that again is not part of the architectural details of the original house. 

 Well that about explains the problems. Who knew there was so much wrong with my dining room?  Most of my friends would be very surprised by this analysis!  In the next post I’ll look at some possible solutions.  If you have anything to suggest that might help with my design dilemmas, I’d love to hear from you.

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Dining room solutions

In January during a blackout our pipes broke resulting in water damage to a number of rooms in our home. What was a bit of a disaster turned into a positive for me because it finally got me moving to do something about  one of my biggest decorating problems.  That would be my dining room…. See my complaints in this  post .  It’s quite a list. 

Too much of a good thing

This is how it all looked  in early 2000 …..

Wood, wood and more wood

Problem lines  

Wood everywhere isn’t the only problem.  Note the all the horizontal lines from the buffets to the railing,  a light hung too high and a window that has a view of the window next door.   Below is my first attempt to solve some of the highlighted problems.

 A different orientation solves some problems

Rearrange and add

I liked the changes and that satisfied me for a short time.  The new light was a good height and the roundness worked well against all the rectangles.  I also added longer (very temporary and too short) drapes to break some of the horizontal lines.    I moved the art work from  the living room to dining room,  and created some height and brightness on the dining table.  Still seriously problematic in my book because I did nothing to alleviate the wood issue, but it was improved but sorely lacking  pizazz.

Enter 2014… 

The power of paint and fabric

One of the cheapest updates you can make to any space is to paint something.  I don’t care if it is furniture, accessories or walls, it works every time. Since we had to repaint all the walls (BM Glacier white) I continued on to paint quite a few things which I will reveal over the next several posts.  

 Bringing  it into 2014

To break up the wood and the set,  I was determined to sell all the dining chairs and buy new ones. I still don’t know how I got hubby to agree to selling 8 hand made solid ash chairs because they were too matched. He was probably fed up listening to complaints!

After an extensive search,  I realized the chairs that looked best with the table  were the ones my husband made for it. I don’t like sets, but in this case I had to concede.  So … after much discussion with sister and daughter and varying opinions, I found a fabric I loved and then choose spray paint to work with it. 

I would like to say that cleaning and spray painting 8 chairs was exciting.  Not so…. But I got to use my favourite motif (circles) and my favourite colour gray. What could be better!   Part 2 coming soon… new problems and solutions. Hint:  Look at the vignettes on the buffet and table.

What do you think?  

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5 Ways to add interest to a dining room

When someone says dining room, what picture appears in your mind?  Try  it.  List the elements.

For many of us these words conjure up a dining room set with everything matching, a chandelier and some sort of hutch or maybe buffet.  Probably a picture of some sort will be included.  I bet matching is the most obvious characteristic.

It doesn’t have to be that way unless that’s what you like.

 Here are 5 ways you can  make your dining space stand out a little.

Mix and match your chairs and table

The days of dining sets have moved behind us.  In many magazines you will see all sorts of mixing of styles, materials and colours. I love the look of upholstered chairs with a wood table. They soften the hard edges and provide some relief in the “wood” department. Some adventurous types will go for two different styles of chairs.

 Adore magazine

 Another option if you aren’t too adventurous is to upholster each of your wooden chairs with a different, but co-ordinated fabric.  Note how this room sports more traditional chairs with a very simple table.

In the case of my own dining space, I painted my matching chairs charcoal  and upholstered them with a much lighter fabric to make them the centre of interest in  my sea of golden tones. I am trying to get up enough nerve to paint the solid ash buffets the same colour.   I’m not there yet.  It’s difficult when your furniture is all hand made with love.

Look for a harmonious  buffet 

Forget about having a matching buffet (I wish I could!).  Look for one with the same undertone as your table  or chairs and similar lines if you like, or go for something painted or a different style entirely.  Some element of it should relate it to the room as a whole: wood tone, style, or colour of other objects in room.

Here are two I would choose for my space to work with my chairs.

They certainly harmonize with the darkness of the chairs, the style is mid centuryish like the table and I like the fact they are both raised off the floor.  This openness will give the illusion of space, always an added plus in a small room. 

Have at least one hand made/original item

 We live in a mass produced economy where the answer  to everything is in a big box store.  Not so.  Save your pennies, visit an antique shop, a fine craft store or gallery.  Look for something you love, made by the hand of an artist, and place it with pride knowing it’s unique.  It doesn’t have to be large.

This month I have a lovely pot on my buffet created by an artist friend, Anita Singh.  I love her work 

because it always relates to the natural world.  Barnacle is always a conversation piece.  It is also the perfect example of my next point.

Use a variety of textures

Textures make the most interesting addition to spaces, and it is the element that I see under-utilized  in homes. In my space I have silk drapes, lots of wood grain, a highly textured plant container made from ceramic, a white wavy vase, metal candlesticks with mother of pearl, and two plants.  I love texture!

Choose one unexpected element

Right now the pot my ferns are in is my an unexpected item.  It is so rough and worn looking and I have it paired with silk drapes. Other options could be your light fixture, a painting, something on your tabletop or a small piece of furniture in a corner.  Some would say it should have bling, but I’ll leave that up to you.

What’s your “interesting ” score?

 This is a very arbitrary checklist, based on what is “current”  in my  decor reading and viewing.   Hardly scientific!

No my dining room isn’t perfect but hopefully it is interesting.
Just because I write about design doesn’t mean my space is perfect (whatever that means) or that it even lives up to what I know about the elements and principles of design.  There’s the small matter of competing priorities including: budget, interest and energy, connections to objects and furniture, beliefs about your role consuming and junking, and the desire for good old predictability in your environment etc.

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10 Tips for decorating a small living room

It’s a fact that  in many of today’s new home builds, either your living room or family room will be a smaller  room.  There are many things that can be done to help visually enlarge smaller spaces. There are ways to use darker colours and larger scale furniture in smaller spaces, but their successful use takes a trained eye.  If you want to decorate a small room  with confidence the following ideas are easily applied. 


1.  Choose light  furniture with simple lines

Houzz

There’s only one thing I would change in this room. With everything else  so light , I find the darker wood of the table somewhat harsh.  Something lighter would be more cohesive

Choose furniture first and look for pieces that are light in colour and have legs. Lighter colours occupy less visual weight and legs provide an unobstructed view of the floor, allowing the space to appear more open.  Coffee and end tables in metal and glass also allow the eye to move through the pieces consuming little visual space while dark wood furniture has the opposite effect.  The cow hide ottoman above works because it is overall light and has great legs. It also serves to connect the tones of the wood pieces in the room.

2.  Choose a lighter colour scheme 

 Maria Killam

 Neutral colours mixed with  lighter shades of blue and  green  work well in a small living area.  Cooler colours recede  thus giving the impression of a larger space. . Use hints of  brighter colors in  accent rugs or pillows. The golden accents above warm up this space.  Small spaces work best with a three-color (or less) palette as in the room above.  If you love texture consider using a monochromatic scheme.   Bare  wood floors in lighter wood tones also add to a clean, flowing feeling.  Dark floors have the opposite effect.  Unfortunately the current trend for darker floors often causes many problems including closing in a space. The dark mirrors at the end of this space enlarge it.  Which leads me to …

3.  Use mirrors effectively

 source 

Mirrors
can make a small space look larger but it’s not that simple.  They
function best by reflecting light. That can be the light colour of the
wall or refleced  light. Be aware of what gets reflected in
your mirror by standing in different positions in the room.  I have seen
mirrors actually decrease visual space because they reflect the wrong
things.

4.  Emphasize  vertical lines  

source

We often forget that a room has a vertical axis. Add things to the space to encourage your eyes to move upward from the furniture.  Floor lamps, large vases with tall twigs, full length draperies, long  mirrors, vertical paintings or stacked paintings, mantles, tables with multi- layered  arrangements etc. are possible choices.Did you notice the large mirror on the end wall?

5. Match the furniture to the scale of the  room  

A.S.D. Interiors

If your room is small, choose smaller scale furniture.  Armless chairs, apartment size sofas, small sectional etc. will make the room appear  more spacious. Consider a bench rather than a conventional coffee table or a glass or lucite table as in #4 photo.  Don’t get carried away with this and  end up with  clutter by using too many small items.

6.  Choose multifunctional furniture  

 

 Heather Scott Home & Design

 One of the best ways to deal with limited space is to choose  dual-purpose furniture, e.g., a pair of ottomans can double as coffee tables, with storage inside; coffee tables with a lower shelf can hold baskets, books, covered boxes for storage; consoles with doors make tidy hiding places, bookshelves used as a sofa table when you can’t walk around the sofa, etc.   

7.  Build in storage 

 
source 

Give a small space  character and maximum function with a bank of custom-built cabinets in a light colour.  Built in cabinets and
shelving triple storage options.  Keeping the colour of built ins light
will increase the visual space. Arrange objects on open shelves in an
artful way.  Leave lots of open space and vary the sizes and shapes of
decorative objects. 

8. Harmonize  large pieces of furniture

 11 eleven 

If you have a  sofa or sectional that you need to keep and it dominates the room,  paint the walls  a shade that is just a bit lighter than the upholstery . The eye will move  across the room rather than sticking on  the sofa. In the room above a stone wall harmonizes with the sofa and the warm yellow from the wall is picked up as accents.

9.  Control clutter

Design Shuffle

Find interesting ways to store the objects that are
needed in a room, e.g.,  storage cubes, baskets, covered decorative
boxes, ottomans, etc. This room has a lovely wicker basket which serves as an end table.  On the shelf  is a fabric covered box and the coffee table has a lower shelf which can be used to store books, boxes, baskets etc.Sometimes the more space you have the more objects you accumulate. Keep shelving organized.

10. Layer lighting

 Cecile Lozano Interiors

Lighting is important in any room but even more so in a small room.  Keep window 
treatments light and airy so that the natural light can shine through or have drapes that can be pulled back to let the light flood in. .
For evenings or when there is minimal natural light use additional lighting to maximize each area of the
room. A dark corner is a great place for a floor lamp or an accent table with a lamp for reading.   Wall sconces take up little space and can be used to highlight a certain areas of a room. Lights over artwork add an additional layer of brightness and highlight the artwork.  I try to have at least four  levels of light in a room- natural light, dimable ceiling lights, floor lamp or sconces, and  table lamps. Do a visual check to see if the four corners of your room have adequate light.

Many of these ideas will work in much larger rooms too.  The most important thing to remember is to select furniture that is the right scale for the space you are decorating. 

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