“Maybe Get A New Couch.” He said. 😁
Years ago someone asked me if I could help them decorate their new apartment. They had no clue how to go about it because everything in their home was brown. Brown carpet, brown lamps, brown couch, brown walls, and even a brown dog. It was a complete smorgasbord of utter boredom. They firmly believed that the only thing that matched with the color brown was, well…. different hues of brown. Therefore, their artwork was brown to match the couch and its surroundings. I soon discovered that there are a good number of people out there that believe the same thing, only the color has now changed to grey.
The point of art is to feed the soul. The art you choose to hang above the couch, or elsewhere in the house, should be something that speaks to you and is something that you enjoy seeing day after day. The moment you walk in the door and see the art, you should immediately have that feeling of home and this is where you belong.
With the advent of HGTV and TLC networks, we now get to see the inside of many homes and pick up on all the new trends. The thing is, everyone is watching the same shows and buying the same furniture and artwork that is displayed on the television. The result of it is we have become a cookie-cutter society with a lot of disposable stuff. That piece of artwork bought at the big corporate discount store quickly goes out of style and is then sold at a garage sale or thrown into the dumpster. Then a new trendy piece is purchased and the cycle begins again. The winner in this game of indulgence is currently taking trips in his specially built rocket to go play in Outerspace.
Match You, Not The Couch.
When choosing artwork for your home there are a few questions you should always ask yourself first.
- Does it speak to you in some way? Does it make you happy or sad, tranquil or anxious, passionate or cold?
Art can add personality and energy to a room. - Is that an emotion that you want?
- Will you still like that piece of art 10 years from now?
- Does it remind you of a specific time or feeling in your life?
- Will you regret not having it?
- What do you want the focal point of the room to be?
If the answer is no to any of those questions, then keep walking and go look at something else. If the answer is yes, then maybe that’s the art for you.
Everyone displays different personas to the world and your home should evoke your persona, not somebody else’s.
Size Does Matter…When It Applies To Art.
Don’t give your couch an inferiority complex with the art. If the art is too large, the couch will look insignificant and guests will be uncomfortable thinking the art is going to fall on them. Too small and the couch overpowers the room and the artwork becomes irrelevant. There are a few things that can be done to make the art and the couch play nice with each other.
- Large artwork should be 2/3 or 3/4 the size of the couch. and the bottom part of the frame should hang about 8″ to 10″ above the couch. In the picture above the couch is not against the wall, but the painting is hanging 8″-10″ above the wainscotting.
- If the artwork is not large, consider grouping art together in groups of 2 or more and spaced equally apart. This provides the aesthetic of larger artwork. Still, even in a grouping, the artwork should match each other, but it doesn’t have to match the couch.
- Don’t be afraid to be bold and daring. If you want to make a statement think BIG.
If You Still Want To Match The Couch, Just Get A New Couch.
If you’re still worried about artwork needing to match the couch, then pick the art that speaks to you and get a new couch.
You don’t have to decorate all brown because everything is brown around you. Pretty much everything goes with brown. The same applies to blue, green, grey, black, white, beige, and even greige. Now matching art to wallpaper, that’s another post and another century.
