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I actually like an oversized chandelier. I put a large one in my medium sized, open concept dining room, and it definitely makes it look like a "place." A guy at a lighting store, many years ago talked me into a larger than I thought I needed chandelier (very pretty--a Delft traditional) and it looked as if it totally belonged.
Go bigger rather than smaller with chandeliers, I think. And hang them a bit lower than you think they should be hung. I love lamps and lighting!
1000% with you on that! I love the bit of unexpected and great lighting can manage that so quickly and bring such style to a room.
I actually like an oversized chandelier. I put a large one in my medium sized, open concept dining room, and it definitely makes it look like a "place." A guy at a lighting store, many years ago talked me into a larger than I thought I needed chandelier (very pretty--a Delft traditional) and it looked as if it totally belonged.
Go bigger rather than smaller with chandeliers, I think. And hang them a bit lower than you think they should be hung. I love lamps and lighting!
OMG I am a lamp fanatic. I just bought two lamps for my living room, got them home, then realized that I just didn't like the lamp SHADES, so I spent two days online and then one day out shopping for the perfect shades. I think I finally found them. I was relieved that I didn't have to actually bling them up, because you know I WILL do that if I have to! LOL
OMG I am a lamp fanatic. I just bought two lamps for my living room, got them home, then realized that I just didn't like the lamp SHADES, so I spent two days online and then one day out shopping for the perfect shades. I think I finally found them. I was relieved that I didn't have to actually bling them up, because you know I WILL do that if I have to! LOL
I think I'll start a thread about lamps...
Oh, please do! I always thought it would be really fun to learn how to make lamps out of unexpected things. Now that I'm retired, maybe I will revisit that idea.
The guideline about how high to hang art kind of annoys me, especially when it's presented as an absolute.
My brother is 6'5" and his wife is 6' tall. I think they should hang their art work at a level that is comfortable and visually pleasing to them, rather than for a hypothetical average 5'6" person.
My ceilings are 14' high - If I hang my art too low, the proportions of the room look ridiculous. I also have to hang my paintings a bit higher because my cat will try to climb them if they're too low.
Some of the 'mistakes' or rules about furniture being too large for the room are really hard to work with if you buy furniture for a specific room and then you move to a new house. I ran into this problem myself when I bought my current house. Fortunately, I was able to sell the too-large sofa and too-big dining table and buy a more suitable replacement, but not everyone is able to do so.
I've been toying with the idea of rearranging my living room to 'float' the furniture more but I don't want to do so at the expense of ruining my lovely view.
I agree. I am tall (but not that tall) and realized my dad was hanging stuff at what is eye level to him (he is 6'3") and not at my friend's eye level (who complained the picture in my bedroom was too high but she is like 5' tall.) I actually have a hot air balloon picture that is a little higher than the "should be" height on purpose and I like it that way. (Everything else is pretty much eye level though.) But I also have a dresser with stuff on top of it so I don't think it looks odd at all.
I think the furniture being too big or too small does happen a lot when people move or they can't really get their own stuff so they just get whatever they can passed on to them. My table was too small when we moved to our new place and our couch too big---l finally purchased a bigger table when I could afford it and the couch is modular so I did he best that I could.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
This made me laugh:
My living room curtains would have to be hung upstairs and descend through the floor! LOL
Stuff like that makes me wonder if people who write these things ever enter real houses.
Me too. There is not even 6" between the trim and the ceiling. But I don't think my room looks stubby at all.
My living room curtains would have to be hung upstairs and descend through the floor! LOL
Stuff like that makes me wonder if people who write these things ever enter real houses.
Yeah, they worded that very poorly. While I am not that much for rules, I think they should have made that statement in terms of the ceiling or ceiling trim instead of the window trim. Assuming somewhere in the 8-11' ceiling height, I think it *generally* looks best to hang curtains within a few inches of the ceiling (or crown moulding in a traditional house). Choosing to word it in terms of a height above the window trim is so pointless because the vertical location and the dimensions of a window can be different from house to house which can cause a funny situation like you pointed out exactly
4. Inadequately lighting a room. Many rooms and entire houses are poorly lighted, Geyer said. “It’s hard for people to know where to put the lighting,” she said. There’s a difference between overhead lighting and accent lighting. The light in a room should be layered and from different sources.
Probably one of the most important points about decorating, and one that most people pay no attention to. Lighting makes an enormous difference in the overall feel of a room
Ok now I thought there was a general rule of how high to hand art on a wall? (obviously different if 12 foot ceilings and over a fireplace for example) -- like on an 8 ft wall with nothing else and then again for over a sofa or a table?
My wife and I don't follow any rules of thumb for hanging art. The placement of items hanging on the wall depends on all the other room elements and purely how it looks. This includes but may not be limited too: the ceiling height, the thickness of trim in the room (if there is any), the height of other objects (sofas, bookcases, desks etc.), the presence of some other vertical delineator (such as chair rail), etc.
Sure, if you have a blank room, the "eye level" approach would make the most sense since you have nothing else affecting the art. But now say you add two floor to ceiling bookcases and a high-backed settee on a wall. These now impact where you would hang the hart if you are hanging art above the settee for example. Or say you have chair rail in a room. Depending on the setup, art might look best centered between the chair rail and the ceiling height depending on the size of the picture and the height of the room. In either of these cases the art may not be "eye level" but coordinating it with the surrounding elements makes it balanced.
In my opinion, art should be placed where it looks properly balanced in a room, which may or may not align with the common rules of thumb.
Ok now I thought there was a general rule of how high to hand art on a wall? (obviously different if 12 foot ceilings and over a fireplace for example) -- like on an 8 ft wall with nothing else and then again for over a sofa or a table?
If you google this, you should find some general rules of thumb. I generally hang things slightly above my line of sight. In my old vaulted living space, I lined at least some of the art with horizontal lines that seemed to connect between the tops of doorways and windows. I felt that it made things seem more harmonious.
General rules are helpfu; but rules can be broken. If you are a newbie, then rules are really helpful.
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