Your space, your way
Artwork, accessories add personality to a homeAshley Gurbal, agurbal@altoonamirror.com
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TIPS, TRICKS FOR ACCESSORIZING
Interior designers Marie Feltz, Interiors By Decorating Den, Duncansville, and Amanda Krider, Living Your Dreams Interior Design, Martinsburg, offer the following decorating tips:
- Decide what type of feeling you're trying to create: restful, multi-functional, energizing.
- Texture can break up a monochromatic room, whether it's a stucco wall or rough-coated pottery.
- Work in odd numbers - have one or three or five of something.
- For a formal room, accessories should be symmetrical: the same size and height. In more casual areas, use asymmetrical arrangements.
You have the funky sofa - even splurged on the matching chairs and some trendy candle sconces to hang on the wall. So, why doesn't the room ooze style and personality like the ones on home-decorating TV shows?
It could be as simple as finding the right finishing touches, said Duncansville-based interior decorator Marie Feltz.
"A house without accessories is like food without seasoning," said Feltz, who owns Interiors by Decorating Den. "Without accessories, a room lacks a real feeling of warmth and personality."
But if you struggle with accessories, don't worry: You're not alone.
"Just like it's difficult to find the right jewelry for an outfit, people find it difficult to find the right accessories for the home," Feltz said. "What they tend to do is buy accessories that are too small. Or they don't know how to display collections ... or how to rotate things."
Where to begin? Feltz recommends emptying the room completely, arranging your furniture and then adding the accessories - which could be anything from baskets to artwork.
Choosing the right accents
Some shy away from big, bold pieces, but those are the pieces that can make a room, Feltz said.
"Add a little drama," she said. "People make mistakes when they collect little things and put them on a wall, and it's too small. Don't be afraid of big, beautiful designs."
Too small accessories can actually make a room just seem off, said Amanda Krider, an American Society of Interior Designers-certified designer who owns Living Your Dreams Interior Design in Martinsburg.
"I know a lot of people (have) 10-foot ceilings - which are usually more common than 8-foot ceilings now - and the room isn't quite right, and they don't know why," Krider said. "I'll bring in a candlestick twice the size of the one they have, and it's perfect."
But the accessory doesn't have to be a big, bold dust collector - it can be functional, too, Feltz said, like an elaborately decorated basket that stores rolled-up towels or toilet paper in a bathroom.
Mirrors - one large one or a grouping of smaller ones - can do double duty as wall art and an accessory, but you'll want to make sure it's reflecting a nice area of your home, and not a junky entranceway or the ceiling.
"Stand where the mirror will be and see what it will reflect," Feltz said. "If you don't want it to reflect the ceiling, tilt the mirror down."
No matter what items you choose as accessories, they should be things you truly enjoy, Krider said.
"Always make sure you love what you're buying," she said. "Don't just buy things to fill space. I'd rather see an emptier room than something full, but with pieces that don't mean anything. ... If you love something, your neighbor may hate it, but don't listen to them. It's what you like."
Accessorizing with art
Artwork can be a good way to add contrast to a room, Feltz said.
"Your artwork doesn't have to match your couch," she said. "Don't be afraid to mix and match. It will all blend and work together."
Original artwork can add a whole new dimension to a room because it's so unique, said Sue Port Simon, co-owner of art4, a gallery in Hollidaysburg.
"Fine, original art has much more depth, much more warmth from the artist," Simon said. "It's unique - you're the only one who has it."
Janice Martin and her husband, John Keppler, have been decorating their Altoona home with artwork for about 20 years.
"We both had a great interest in original art. ... So we began some time ago every year to buy a piece of original art for each other as an anniversary gift," Martin said. "We're not wealthy people, we just value it a great deal and know it adds so much more dimension - not just to the decor, but to our lives."
Martin said she and her husband don't collect art on the basis of subject matter, but on what they like. Their collection includes everything from Japanese wood blocks TO? lithographs - and the more colorful, the better.
"If you buy what you respond to, what speaks to you, it'll work," she said. "We never think it's too mixed up. We try to fill our home with what pleases us."
And that's exactly what Krider tells her clients in choosing artwork.
"Get something very interesting to you, something you feel like you could look at forever," she said. "It should be something you just can't walk away from, something you're like, 'I would cry if I didn't get that,' or if someone else bought it.
"Unless you love it and love it more the longer it's there, unless you can't without it, don't buy it."
Mirror Staff Writer Ashley Gurbal is at 946-7435.
