Atlanta Daily World

Good Scale Needed In Furnishings

What makes some interiors so right and others, with equally good furniture, so flat?

Everyone has seen rooms that somehow just do not "come off."

In many such cases, interior decorators point out, the weak spot is scale, or the relation of the size of various furnishings to one another.

A bulky chair, skimpy curtains or tiny end tables can throw a whole room out of balance. Large pieces of furniture in a small room or delicate ones in a large room can spoil the scale.

In decorating or redecorating a home, designers suggest that you first be sure that the furnishings are similar in scale. Mix periods, if you wish, and mix woods, but don't combine light furniture with bulky or tiny end tables with large sofas.

For small rooms get pieces that are off the floor. Because you can see the floor or floor covering under them, they seem lighter and smaller. Keep the furniture for such rooms small rather than large in scale.

Be sure that permanent finishes in such rooms as the bath and the kitchen are in scale. In bathrooms, for example, decorators usually suggest clay tile in four-and-a-quarter-inch squares, since the bath is a small room. On a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, they use a tile unit six or nine inches square.

Beware of small end tables. With a large sofa, low chests of drawers are usually a better solution. And they give added storage space, something a homemaker always needs.

Choose curtains and drapes with the size of windows in mind. If you have a tight budget, remember that an ample amount of an inexpensive fabric will look better on a large window than a skimpy amount of an expensive one.

Don't be timid about pictures and ornaments. A collection of small ornaments or a number of small pictures can spoil the scale of a room. A single large ornament or picture, on the other hand, can make it outstanding.