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QC03172016

46 The Queens Courier • at home • MARCH 17, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com AT HOME furniture fundamentals By Tresa Erickson New flooring, paint, linens and accessories will do wonders to perk up a tired space, but if you are short on time and money, you might want to try a simpler fix: rearranging the furniture. One of the easiest and quickest ways to spruce up any room is to rearrange the furniture. Move around some pieces, swap out some pieces, and voila, you have a new look for just a few hours of work. Of course, not any old arrangement will do. Here are some tips to ensure you create a good arrangement for the room. Consider the purpose of the room. If you are creating a conversation space, don’t center everything on the TV. Allow an area for TV viewing and an area for conversation. Looking to create a study space? Relocate distractions like TVs and phones, set up a table or desk, and add a comfy chair for reading. Pay attention to scale. Too tall or too small of a piece can throw off the feel of the room. Arrange pieces so they complement each other in scale. Use larger side tables with larger sofas and chairs, for example. Don’t place Aunt Millie’s small, ornate footstool in front of a large, overstuffed chair and expect it to work well. The chair will dwarf it. Place it elsewhere, perhaps in front of that Victorian settee you so love. Allow space to move. Too much furniture crammed together and lined up against the walls can make a room feel small. Remove pieces you don’t need, pull some pieces toward the center of the room and spread out everything else. Moving the sofa a couple feet from the wall and allowing space to walk around it can make a room feel more spacious. If you are working with a rather large room, consider creating areas within it, such as a workspace in one corner of the room and an entertaining space in another. Light up the room. Don’t rely on one overhead light to do all of the work. Mix it up with various floor and table lamps, pendants and sconces spread around the room. Light up dark corners with floor lamps and highlight artwork with sconces. Hang a pendant above the dining table and set up a table lamp behind the sofa. Give the room more ambiance with various lighting sources. Consider drapes. When hung appropriately, drapes can add drama to a room and make it feel complete. Want to create the illusion of a higher ceiling? Hang the drapes from ceiling to floor. Want to create the illusion of larger windows? Hang the drapes beyond the casement ends of windows. Don’t buck tradition. While it is fine to mix things up a bit, you donÕt want to go overboard and create too unique of a look. Take your dining room table, for example. If you have a chandelier in the center of the room, your table should go under it. Place it where it was meant to be and will look best, and if you can’t, consider relocating the light above. Add a longer chain to the chandelier and swing it over the table. The same principle applies to beds and dressers. You can move sofas and chairs away from walls, but beds and dressers are best left against walls. Hang artwork with care. Use your photos and prints to ground furniture. Hang a print above your sofa, but be careful it is not too high. The point of the artwork is to draw the eye to the arrangement not away from it. To ensure accurate placement, tape up some templates before hanging your artwork. This will save you time and prevent you from having to fill a lot of holes in your wall. These are just some fundamentals to follow when rearranging furniture. You are the best judge, of course, and keep in mind it may take several rounds of moving around furniture before you come up with an arrangement that works. Furniture arrangement truly is a process of trial and error.


QC03172016
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