Accentuate The Positive

Adding those all-essential finishing touches to your living space has the power to turn a house into a home. Abode2 offers some stylish pointers on hitting the refresh button with some well-chosen accessories

It’s amazing how small, decorative items can make a huge impact in a room. Designers know the influence that rugs, lighting, throw pillows, art, and other accent touches can have in a space and know how to use them wisely.

Neutrals are great in large furnishings and permanent fixtures, but inexpensive accessories are perfect to really breakout with pops of colour and varying textures. They can also be used to add visual interest and contrast in a space, alongside decorative accents which can easily and inexpensively be altered or exchanged to fit changing moods, styles, or seasons. So, try the following simple tips for choosing, combining, and decorating for a new look you’ll love.

Perfect Proportions

You’ve seen homes where owners have mistakenly chosen a postage-stamp rug in a coliseum-sized room. And those awkward walls where the too-large piece of art is crammed into a too-small space. Before choosing and placing accessories, take the time to study scale and proportion and what fits best in your space. One simple way to be more fluid about proportion is to have pieces of many different proportions in a space. If all furniture is of the same size, there’s no rhythm, or balanced movement. Proportional variation also applies to layout. In a large room, break the footprint into sections with rugs of varying sizes - a really big rug will amplify and connect spaces, while a smaller rug under the coffee table and part of the sofa, will punctuate that space as a destination of its own.

Story Telling

The living area is the perfect place to put up pictures for you and your guests to enjoy. Photo frames come in all sorts of designs, from table-top frames to epic wall installations. Having pictures on display will remind you of good times and perhaps serve as conversation starters when you have friends and family over. Walls throughout the house are the ultimate canvas too. Paint a bold colour on an accent wall. Hang a grouping of framed book illustrations or shadow boxes, go for a decal/transfers that fill the wall, or mount a mirror (or a collection of them). Hang all of your art with the centre at 57inches to create an eye-pleasing effect throughout every room.

Asymmetrical Arrangements

Mantlepieces are commonly decorated with a mirror or art in the centre, flanked by a candle or vase on each side, but this type of symmetrical arrangement can induce a snooze fest in a room more quickly than dimming the lights. When arranging accessories, try going for balance instead of symmetry and group smaller items in odd numbers, such as in threes or fives.

Loved Up Layering

Think of accessories as the decorations on a cake. Large accessories should be placed first and sparingly, with medium-and small-sized accessories filling in and adding balance where needed. Several small accessories can give the “feel” of a large item when grouped, but don’t forget to leave some breathing space. Not every nook and cranny needs to be filled.

Flower Fashion

One of the strongest headline trends of this year, is the return of dried flowers to decorate the home. Like with most of our style obsessions, this started in Paris as the likes of Jeanne Damas, Sabina Socol and Marissa Cox placed sprawling dried bunches of grass in straw baskets. From Pampas grasses and dried flowers to seed heads, their aesthetic has huge appeal. One of the most popular and simplest methods of drying flowers is to remove excess foliage, tie the bunch and hang it upside down for several weeks inside to let them air-dry. For other inspiring ideas, scroll through Instagram and see what takes your floral fancy.