Chapter 7      
Accessories: Telling Your Personal Story

     Accessorizing your home is like putting a beautiful necklace on.  It's the "finishing touch", where you really express who you are and showcase what interests you.  This is more about the beautiful you than beautiful things! It's my favorite part of interior design!
The real purpose of this chapter is simply to show how to best place and display the things that are important to you.
    I am going to jump into accessories here just to tell you a few things.  You need a couple of rules for accessorizing.  Why? You don't have to buy the most expensive things to get the best look.  You can get the best possible effect with the least expense!

      Let me give you an example.  Look at Figure 65 on the right.  Look at the number of "pairs" of objects:
Two pictures,
Two lamps,
Two urns,
Two statues,
Two identical end tables.
    I call this “Noah’s Ark Design”: two, by two, by two.  Double your money, double your look!
Not only does this approach cost more, to me it's kind of boring.  Mix it up and have fun!  In all my years of

 Figure 61- A well-known resort on the East Coast;  too many pairs, but look how this big room is carved up into different seating areas, all about nine feet  by twelve feet.  There is a method to the madness!

 working with people, I've found it's always easier to work with a big budget than a small one.  Working with a big decorating budget is a piece of cake!  I really earn my stripes when I can get a great design effect with a little bit of money.  If one of the reasons you bought this book is to get more look with a smaller budget, this section will save you big bucks!

 The #1 Rule for Accessories

 Eighty percent of accessories are placed at or about eye level.  You can do an
entire room around this simple concept and be OK!

93

    When placing accessories, I go for what I call the wave.  I also call it the "skyline effect".  Hang your accessories (pictures, mirrors, statues on shelves), or place them on furniture (lamps, picture frames, statues, objects d' art), so that they show up at different heights.
    When you walk into a room, where does your eye go? It tends to look at things on the walls, on furniture  things at eye-level, right?  The most interesting rooms surprise and delight us by "mixing it up"!  On house calls, I see many rooms where the furniture is all the same height.  Then, the pictures line up in a row.  Add a border or crown molding and the room looks like a 3-layer cake!

Figure 62- My apartment in downtown Chicago.  As a renter,  I’ve always spent my personal decorating budget on accessories, so I could take my décor with me wherever I moved.  This big floral, along with the scarf table and great view, becomes the focal point of this sitting area; it’s the first thing you see as you walk in to the apartment.

    What we try to do is create interest, and that is why you want things hung high, then low, then high, then low—the wave!  You go from the lamp down to the sofa going up to the mirror.  That's how we do our room with accessories.
    Here are a couple of other general guidelines:

Use different shapes and textures to add variety.
Don't use more than three "pairs" in room, including accessories and furniture (but not window treatments).
Don't hang an accessory that projects over someone's head (just in case!).

Collections and groupings

     Everyone I work with has things that are special to them, that express who they are.  I like to show them off in collections and groupings.
    A collection is a gathering of like items—usually seven or more—in the same area of the home.  You want to keep collections together because you will get more of an impact from the items than if they're scattered across your home.

94