The fine art of balancing a room
The room: Every room needs balance, places for the eyes to focus, weight distributed throughout the room so it doesn’t appear lopsided. Think of your room as a scale and always add a bit more to one side or the other so as not to tip it too much in one direction.
The challenge: Let’s say you have a room with a single, overwhelming focal point: a large fireplace or a large, dramatic window. If there was nothing else in the room, your eye would go directly to that spot. That’s fine — it gives you a starting point — but it’s not the only thing you want to see.
The Solutions
There are several approaches to balance.
Sometimes you need to enhance an architectural focal point. For example, a large window framed with draperies needs to be anchored with something of substance — maybe a sofa or a pair of large chairs angled around a table. If not, that focal point seems too top heavy.
In many public rooms, the fireplace is the focal point. It is usually centered on a long wall, with space on either side — a good place for matching chests or demilune tables with lamps and perhaps artwork above them. You could argue that we are just adding more weight to that side of the room, and you would be correct. The trick is to tack across the room and create another focal point, or to triangulate and create more than one anchor.
The two easiest ways to create weight in a room are to add artwork and/or case goods (wooden pieces of furniture). The furniture is a no-brainer. Think piano. A baby grand is an ideal way to fill a bay window or an asymmetrical alcove in a large room. What if you need weight on one side of the room but have no space for a chest or an armoire? Hang one large picture, stack two similar prints or paintings above each other, or group a collection of smaller prints gallery style. Grouping paintings creates drama and creates peaks and valleys in a room.
In addition to balancing the weight from one side of the room to another, you also want to give your eye something to focus on as you move from top to bottom. This will help any sized space appear larger.
In general, the concentration of weight in a room should be greater on an interior wall and dissipate as you move to the lighter perimeter of the house.