DEAR GAIL: I so love walking through model homes and looking at how they’ve been accessorized. Then I come home and try to re-arrange mine and just get frustrated with what I end up with. I have a lot of wonderful and different accessories, but when I put them together on my coffee tables they just look like a bunch of things and nothing special. Help? Judie H.
DEAR JUDIE: After selecting paint colors, accessorizing is the most frustrating area for most homeowners. Accessories are the finishing touches that make your home personal and bring each room together. They can be thought of as being "jewelry" that completes and compliments the room.
There are no secrets. It is mainly about balance, proportion, texture, color and theme. One guideline to help you is to have the following three elements on your tabletops, height, texture and color. Height can come from a candlestick, sculpture, vase or floral. Texture is the material your accessories are made from: a wooden box, decorative basket, or stone candlestick. You’ll then add color with candles, flowers or the accessory.
An example would be a large iron candlestick with an orange candle, a decorative wooden box, a stone acorn finial and a basket of greenery with trails and curly willow sticks. It is not that each item has to have each element, just that each element is present. So you have your height and color from the candlestick and then textures from the box, acorn and basket container.
What then brings the grouping together is balance and proportion. This is where most arrangements go wrong. You need to remember the "visual weights" of your accessories within the grouping and the grouping in relation to the table. You don’t want all the same size in your accessories or go from tall to very small. Until you get comfortable, have three sizes, small, medium and large. Remember to bring in your height, but it doesn’t have to be from the largest pieces.
Maybe you have a very large stone bowl that you can arrange with a wooden sculpture and an iron picture frame. Add colorful decorative balls in the bowl and tuck some greens under the balls trailing over the rim of the bowl onto the table.
The accessories on your table should be in proportion to the size and weight of the table. First, don’t over clutter the table so that it looks like you are simply piling the items there for later arrangement. Or place a bunch of tiny items on a large table or too many large on a small one. Just because you have a lot of accessories does not mean you should or are able to have them all out at once.
You also need to proportion the weight of the accessories to the weight of the table. What this means is that, I wouldn’t place a large bulky stone bowl on a delicate glass and brass table or a fragile petite figurine on a heavy wooden table. The weight of the items and grouping should be in proportion and feel balanced.
For a more visual appealing arrangement, group your accessories together off center on the table. Space them far enough apart so that you can appreciate each item but close enough together to appear as one display. Also keep in mind the rule of odd numbers. Three accessories and a green or a floral and a couple accessories are more than sufficient on a table.
The grouping should also have a common theme just as you have in decorating the room with fabrics, wallpaper, artwork and furniture. So if you have an Oriental vase, I wouldn’t place a rustic candlestick and a country goose together. But you could place the Oriental vase with a brass candlestick and a swan figurine. Each item does not have to be oriental but have the same feel.
Accessorizing is the fun part and does make all the difference in a well-made room, as the right jewelry can change the look and feel of your basic black dress.