Elements of beauty: tips on home decorating

When you purchase your first home you will want to make it as pleasing as possible and achieve a beautiful home. People for the most part have a natural need for beauty, especially in their homes. It gives us satisfaction when we receive compliments from others visiting our home. When decorating your own home you have a desire to create harmony and also you will be striving to satisfy your own longing for beauty. You will enrich the life of your family by obtaining this beauty.

There are basic elements that must be considered before decorating our home. We have to consider the furniture, colors, accessories and arrangements as they have to blend together. We need to consider if we want the room to appear formal, informal, masculine, feminine, cheerful or perhaps are we desiring a look of being dignified and restrained. There are four basic elements in planning and these are line, form, color and texture. These four basic elements will guide us in placing our furniture, and in selecting color schemes for the room. The floor

coverings need also to be considered. We have to put all of these four basic elements together to decorate and obtain beauty and also any effect we might want in each room. These elements possess physical and psychological characteristics that are essential.

Line is important as lines enclose space, give us the outline or contour of forms and also generate forms. There are two types of lines, straight and curved. The straight lines will general the psychological impression of steadiness and strength and also simplicity. Objects with straight line contours are simple. Straight lines are characteristic of types or periods of furniture. Straight lines will include form striped, checked, plaid and herringbone designs.

The direction that straight lines take will vary the effects of lines.

Horizontal lines will give the effect of relaxation as well as breadth. If you wish to achieve a restful room I would suggest you stress the use of horizontal lines in your wallpaper, drapes, lampshades, picture arrangement, upholstery and furniture. These horizontal lines would predominate in a room that is informal.

Vertical lines will express formality and masculinity. For example a man's bedroom would stress vertical lines, while a feminine bedroom would avoid vertical lines in plain or patterned surfaces.

Diagonal lines are restless and dynamic and give the feeling of instability. Broken lines will express gayety and animation. You might use broken straight lines in pillows or cushions to show pleasing variety. Curved lines will promote softness, being lighthearted in appearance and have an effect of being cheerful. Be careful to not overdo curved lines as they can appear ornate.

Forms will convey fulfillment and completeness. If you have a square room and can change the room it would be an excellent plan as square rooms can often appear to be dull and insipid. Sometimes you can make a ceiling appear lower or higher or perhaps a wall look farther away or even closer. Remember the eye will perceive the appearance of the room. Triangles will give the effect of balance and unity. These are used widely in home decorating as they can balance the movement of the room with lampshades and furniture groupings.

When using circles in mirrors or pictures you can create a pleasing effect of variety and also contrast. Oblong forms are the most used in decorating as they can provide more selections and appear more subtle.

In a home you will want to have the most secure and pleasing portions as proportion will provide, sizes, shapes and also spacing. You will want to have each piece in the room to have harmony with others as in having them in scale with one another and produce an attractive room. Furniture in a room needs to be in proportion with other furniture as the groupings in the room need to be in proportion with one another. Keep in mind always the size of the room when deciding on proportions. You do not want a really large item in the room such as a grand piano that will dwarf the other items in the room. If you perhaps have a very large room then you might add massive furniture, and have marked contrasts in the room.

Color is most important in decorating as you set the tone of your room with the colors you choose. Color provides background and can create harmony and also accent and variety. If you have a formal room you will want to use colors that will be subdued and pleasant. You do not want colors in each room to clash with one another. Colors can be used to change the size of the room through the eye of the person seeing the room. You can also do a lot of concealing with colors in the room. Blue-green, blue and blue-violet are cool colors while violet and green become unwarm when together. A room will appear to be restful if the colors are cool and soothing and have a quiet appearance. Bright colors will attract attention, while lively colors give a room contrast.

Texture is the quality of roughness and smoothness, fineness and coarseness that we can detect by our sense of sight and also our sense of touch. Textures have a psychological effect on the room as rough textures can look masculine or rugged, while smooth textures will appear formal.

Coarse textures will contrast with fine textures.

Textures must be carefully considered when planning and decorating a room.

When we wish to achieve beauty we will need to project variety and unity. Each item must team up with another to product this unity and variety. Actually unity is just teaming together the basic elements mentioned above to give a room a unified physical appearance and to produce a pleasing effect. To obtain unity we need to use both dominance and repetition in our home to create a beautiful home. Repetition is using forms, textures, colors and lines that are alike and express the same effect. In dominance you are using variations in a room to create an effect.

Try to keep a center of interest in your room.

Balance is also necessary in decorating to form a balanced grouping then giving the room a feeling of being equal or being in a state of equilibrium. If for example you place a pillow at either end of a couch you have created balance.

Contrast will serve to make one feature stand out and draw attention to itself. You can use all of the factors to give a room contrast, size, position, texure, and color. You must use contrast in moderation as the room would not achieve balance and would be out of proportion.

If you will keep in mind the above qualities in decorating a single room or your entire home, you will achieve beauty and also harmony in your living environment.