Some Guildance for Viki

Hi Christine,

I need help in the worst way.  I have been trying to figure out what to do with my family room and a friend suggested your website.   I have really enjoyed looking at your website.

Finally after 16 years I have convinced my husband to remove the wallpaper border from our kitchen.  That is where it all started.  We have an open floor plan -- the kitchen and breakfast room is open to our family room. I changed the curtains in the kitchen and want to coordinate the rooms.  So I changed the pillow.  We spent two years looking for the chairs -- he wanted recliners and I wanted oversize chairs with ottomans. 

We found recliners we both love.  But I can't figure out how to arrange my living room and now my walls look bare and boring.  I need advice because I have one shot at my husband to make changes.  He doesn't like to change things in the house - he is about function.
The table between the chairs is just until I find a table but can't seem to find anything.  And my room is long and has openings.  I am not sure how to arrange my furniture.

Can you help me?

Thank you
Viki

Hi Viki,

Let's start with your furniture arrangement.  Yeah- it is really bad.  I do like the wall you chose to put the TV on- I think that is probably the best wall unless you wanted to purchase a large wall unit.  I would also consider not having the TV in the room altogether.  If you had a single focal point- that is always ideal.  Or- the TV over the fireplace is another option.  I find the split focal point frustrating.  For now- my advice will include you leaving it where it is.

The sofa and love seat pushed up against opposite walls is definitely the worst part about your furniture arrangement.  Your room does not lend itself to a parallel grouping, and it is too wide to have the furniture against the walls.  Pull the furniture in, put the long sofa opposite the TV wall, add a console table to make it look good from the back.  Create a more intimate seating area by pulling the furniture away from the walls. 

Add a coffee table or two- not chocolate brown.  You have too much dark brown in your room already.    The addition of the coffee tables will help with your seriously horrible negative space.  Read about what I mean by negative space in these posts.

Your rug is disconnected with the brown furniture and the room in general.  Replace it with a rug that can act as more of a unifier.  The rug above is from Homedecorator.com

Your drapes at one end of the room are different from your drapes at the other end.  They should all be the same, even in a large open floorplan where the areas function as separate rooms.  The pattern above is from Waverly.  Your brown furniture is coming across more like you wanted a safe non-committal color.  You have brown furniture- so act like it is part of your color pallet in a stronger way. 

I would paint your walls a silver sage blue color.  Keep it light, keep it subdued. 

Remember scale, scale, scale on your wall decor.  Also, remember variety, variety, variety.  You have three pictures,  (you need variety)  and all of them are too small (you need better scale).  See my advice to Julie on scale.    You should have a variety of wall decor items, and also a variety of numbers.  See my advice to Becca on variety.  You also have a problem with relationships in your wall decor.  See this post on relationships.

Add a lighting plan and some greenery and your room will be fantastic!

A little imagination please!

This post is a follow-up to a question asked after this post.

One sort of long follow up question, Christine. Could I do larger either rectangular (hanging vertically) or square art on either side of the tv instead of a set of prints? I'm not sure I can find 8 that I like. Most sets of that qty./size seem to be either flowers, insects or dogs. I've only ever seen smaller sets that I like. (Like Repose and Field of Dreams or Historical View on Uttermost's site, or the set of 6 Tiverton Lake prints by Paragon that are $$ and are on bronsondesign.com)

Also, you can see the smaller art above the sofa. Should I move that or try to coordinate with whatever is on the tv wall? One reason I haven't done anything is that I simply have no idea what to do! Can you match canvas without a frame with an oil with a frame, should the pieces on the other side coordinate with whatever is on that wall or should that wall change to some sort of metal piece or sconce? See what I mean? I'm stuck with indecision! Also, I sent you another picture of this long wall that is at the foot of the stairs that I was thinking of doing a black and white picture wall on. If I do that, will that have to coordinate or tie in with whatever art is around the t.v.?

Thank you so much for any advice or insight you can offer!

- Tracey

Tracey,

Do you have to use a set of 8- no- I give specific examples rather than listing the long list of all possible wall decor arrangements.  However- your suggestion that all sets of 8 are flowers- is just so far from reality- I had to address it. 

1.  Go to House in the Country, as I suggested.  They have at least a hundred different options that can be purchased as sets, framed or wrapped canvass- it doesn't matter.

2.  Frame sea shells.

3.  Frame vintage napkins.

4.  Use old board games.

5.  Frame stamps

6.  Frame vintage buttons.

7.  Use your children's art work. 

8.  Wrap canvasses with cool fabrics-  or just frame fabrics.

9.  Frame wallpaper samples

10.  Frame sets of old magazine covers

11.  Use sets of familiy photos

12.  Frame old hand painted spanish tiles.  I can picture 4 x 4 tiles on the wall with larger 9 x 12 frames around them.

13.  Frame or canvass wrap pages of an atlas.

14.  Frame old past cards.

Do you see my point?  To be quite honest- I didn't even use my imagination- this was just off the top of my head.  I could go on all day- but I am taking my kids to the park.  Don't tell me you can only find bugs and flowers.  Does anyone else have ideas for Tracey?



Abby's Big Barrier of Boring Beige

I would like to start by saying that I have been having computer problems- they are really ticking me off- so after reading this post- I know I came across strong- and please don't cry or hate me- I am just mad at my computer- and taking it out on Abby's family room.

Abby sent me pictures of her home- but I was unable to find actual questions in her e-mails- so - I thought I'd just run with it.

First of all- the furniture is far from ideal for the space- you have two large sofas and a love seat all in a non-specific style, and a color that is hard to find a name for. It seems so non-committal to me. Like you either don't know what style you like, or you are too timid to go there- or perhaps you and your husband have such different styles that each of you moved to the middle - which ended up being the middle of nowhere. But the result is a room full of nothing. There is also such a large amount of furniture that it is forcing you to push everything against the wall. If you have fewer than nine children- you don't need that much seating. I see a zebra chair that tells me there is a stylish girl there peeking ever so timidly out behind a big barrier of boring beige. So- anyway- if replacing the furniture is in the budget- let me know- but I won't address that in this post. One more word about furniture arrangement- case pieces almost never look good on an angle. Find a wall that is the right scale and move your curio. In addition to the angle being a problem- itis also next to your TV stand. Case piece next to case piece is a rhythm killer.

Secondly, your paint colors are horrible. I know that might sound strong. But they don't look good with each other- or with your furniture. The red wall and red chair do not go well. This is not the right style of room for an "accent wall." As regular readers of my blog know- the use of the "accent wall" is much easier in a more contemporary setting rather than in such a traditional room. HGTV are doing it's watchers a great disservice with all of the "accent walls" they are using. I would go much lighter and more neutral in your paint color. Check out the paint color I suggested for Jen in this post- and see how it looks with your items. Put your new paint on all of your walls.

Third- create more variety in wall decor. Look around the room. If there is not a window, there is a "picture" on every wall. You need variety. Check out this post that I did for Rebbecca- it goes into wall decor variety in more detail. There are SO MANY more things you can put on your walls other than just pictures. Try to do something different on each wall. Think outside the box. Anyone have some unique suggestions for Abby's wall decor?

Fourth- add drapes. Your window treatments are not done without a fabric treatment. Use that as a way to solidify your color pallet for the room. I see red, I see beige, I see black and white, and a rug that I can't really tell what colors are in there. Your room is disconnected. I selected a fabric for you (at the top of the post) from Robert Allen. Invite more pattern. Use your window treatments to give yourself a color pallet. I can't really tell what type of blinds you currently have- but they remind me of your sofas. No color- no texture- no style. I would replace them with dark woven woods- the color of your coffee table.

Fifth- add a focal point. Of course the focal point is the fireplace- but your fireplace has some issues. The trim above it makes it impossible to hang anything there. I would remove it. This is your focal point. The furniture faces it, the rhythm of the room should be all directing and pointing to this great focal point. Your surround is too small- the mantle is too skinny.... Perhaps start with simply removing the trim- and hanging something great over it.

It's pretty dangerous responding to a question without being able to read the question... I hope I was more helpful than hurtful...