Thoughts on Design: Good Design is for Everyone
Is good design a luxury only available to the wealthy?
First of all, let’s clear something up. Design is not the same as stuff. Stuff (furnishings, art, etc) is all part of a design, but good design is much more than a collection of nice things. In fact, you can have very expensive things and still have a home that is not well designed.
And sure, money can buy good design advice and custom luxury goods tailored to a specific person or place, but good design should be available to everyone. It is why I write this blog.
Good design is not necessarily about spending a lot of money, and it’s not about acquiring a bunch of things. Shopping is NOT the same thing as design. It may be a part of it, but it is not the whole story. Good design is about making good choices to maximize what is available to you, but it is most of all about making the whole better than just the sum of the parts.
Good design is personal. Just say no to impersonal options like catalog decorating and generic retail “looks”. A furniture chain showroom may be pretty, but it is definitely not personal or unique. You can do so much better.
Good design elevates comfort and ease and brings joy. It makes living well possible. It is about the little things as wells as the big ones. It is about the unique combination that brings out the best in you and your home. It supports your ideal life with design solutions that make life happier.
You can have a $2000 sofa or a $15000 sofa, but if it is in the wrong place in the room, or is the wrong size, or doesn’t have a convenient table near it, or the room isn’t properly and pleasantly lit for the intended functions, nobody is going to sit on that sofa.
The ‘rules’ of design apply regardless of the price of the ingredients, so I would argue that good design can be available to everyone. And yes, you can have your recliner and good design too :).
Colorful bedroom for a plant lover, professional musician, and vintage hat collector | design: JRL Interiors, Acton, MA | photo: Megan Booth
You make design choices with every purchase and every placement…make them wisely. Start with a well thought out plan. Your plan and your style is (or at least it should be!) unique to you and appropriate for your house and your lifestyle, but the principles of good design apply across any style.
Design principles have evolved for practical reasons as much as aesthetic ones. Standards for heights and spacing exist for safety and/or comfort. Successfully using balance and scale are what give life to a room and make it a welcoming and pleasant place to be.
There are thousands of design principles and I’ve written extensively about many of them…these are just a few
The best way to choose paint colors
Choosing and hanging artwork
Lighting choices and placement
Furniture arrangement
The best rug sizes
Window treatments
Scale and balance
Number and size of throw pillows
The well dressed bed
Choosing seating
How to mix patterns successfully
Kitchen and bathroom design
Comfortable sitting room | JRL Interiors, Acton, MA
There are waaay more things to consider, but here are a few of the takeaways to get you started…
Seating
Make sure seating is placed in groupings that facilitate comfortable conversation without the need for a megaphone…hint: the best place may NOT be lined up around the perimeter like a waiting room…very few meaningful conversations take place in waiting rooms.
Tables
Night tables need to be at a convenient height for the mattress. Side tables need to be a convenient height for the chairs. Coffee tables need to be the right size and shape for the sofa. Every seat should be in easy reach of a table surface…you have to have SOMEWHERE to set down the empty wineglass…
Kitchens and Baths
Rooms with permanent fitted furnishings like kitchens and bathrooms have an enormous list of standard measurements for maximum safety and convenience. There are volumes of information on this and these rooms are where design mistakes are the most expensive and most disruptive to change. It really, quite literally, pays to get professional help.
Paint
With regard to aesthetic decisions, the best paint color for your space doesn’t cost any more than a bad color choice, but it WILL be costly if you have to do it more than once. There are a lot of guidelines in our paint guide and in past posts about choosing paint colors, but most importantly, look at a good sized sample of the proposed color in both the artificial and natural light IN your space.
Lights
Speaking of light, nothing changes the mood of a room faster than the lighting. Choose the right kind of lights and put them in the right locations. Lights need to be placed where they can do their intended job best (and without blinding anyone or poking an eye out). Hanging fixtures should relate to any furnishings below them both in size and placement…this goes for kitchen islands, dining tables, foyer tables, etc.
This guide will help you get your light bulbs right so you don’t end up with the atmosphere equivalent of an interrogation room in your living room (unless, of course, you WANT to make your family and friends uncomfortable…I admit this might be useful for prospective dates for your daughter or aggressive door-to-door salesmen).
The Mix
Mix patterns and colors and textures in a pleasing way with some repetition of color palette and variety of scale. Mix skirted or solid and leggy pieces in a room. Mix painted and stained wood pieces.
Too much of one kind of thing can be boring and/or overwhelming depending on what that thing is! This is one of the many reasons that suites of matching furniture have fallen out of fashion.
Add an unusual item/conversation starter. The mix of divergent elements introduces a dynamic that makes a space more interesting, but too much weirdness is just…weird!
Wall Decor
What and how you hang things on the walls makes a difference. Randomly placed pictures are not only pointless, they are unsettling. Randomly placed mirrors can visually decapitate the viewer..now THAT is really unsettling! This guide to hanging artwork will help settle the argument you and your significant other are having over how high to hang the pictures. And this guide to choosing the right mirror will forestall any beheading.
Size matters
Pay attention to scale so that the furnishings relate to each other and the room. That does not mean a small room should be crammed with doll size furniture, but it is also not the place for a bloated oversized sectional. Get stools the right height…it is different for vanities vs counters vs bars - too tall and there isn’t room for your knees, too short and your chin will be resting on the counter?!
Rugs
Make sure rugs are the right size for the furniture and the room and don’t pose a tripping hazard in any walkways. Rugs should connect furniture groupings by having at least the front feet of all the seating pieces on them. Dining table rugs should be large enough so the chairs don’t fall off the edge when pulled out because they’ll catch on the edge when scooched back in.
An interior design professional is a shortcut to good design, and most people can benefit immensely from a consultation to get them on the right path. Even without a consultation, there is a wealth of knowledge on this blog gleaned from MANY years in the design business….(you can search by topic in the search bar to the right on a desktop or at the bottom on a mobile device).
And good design principles apply on a smaller scale too…from tabletop styling to the arrangement of food on a dinner plate, good design makes everything a more pleasant experience.
Your environment influences your mood and your productivity. The world needs what only you can contribute. A well designed environment allows you to live your best life and make your unique contribution to the world as only you can.