Leggy furnishings need to be grounded

“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, Part 1, King Henry IV

DEAR READERS: As we approach the holiday season and time for decorating our spaces, I would like to offer what I hope to be a helpful hint.

Holiday decorations tend to hold special places in our hearts for some reason. We were given a particular ornament or stocking by our parents or grandparents; or we bought a favorite Santa or menorah on a trip. And we’re very proud of our holiday trimmings and can’t wait to show them off, sometimes to excess. There are ways to incorporate holiday accessories into your existing décor without making your house too crowded and without overwhelming your space. The key is to edit.

If you put your holiday things on top of whatever you have now, neither will be that impressive. Before you start putting out the snowmen and snow globes, remove some of your existing accessories. This will give you the opportunity to showcase your favorite holiday pieces and not take away from the things you have out all year.

Some homeowners go to an extreme and even remove the art from their walls and replace it with holiday paintings or wall hangings. If your collection of holiday decorations is that large, you should definitely remove most of your day-to-day things. And, sometimes it’s sad to take down the decorations, right? But if you pack your regular things away for the holidays, you get to unpack and rearrange them again — so it’s a win-win all the way around!

If you use a little restraint, I think you will find that with holiday trimmings, less can, in fact, be more.

Q: Every piece of furniture I have in my living room has legs that seem to fight with each other. It also makes my room look odd, like it’s just a room full of legs. I don’t remember thinking this about other people’s rooms, but now I’m not liking my living room because of it. Short of getting new furniture, is there anything I can do to fix it; and how can I avoid that look with other rooms?

A: Yours is actually a very common problem. When you have a room like I presume you have, with tables, a sofa, maybe a desk or chest and chairs with exposed legs, the room is unbalanced and not grounded. It looks like the furniture is just waiting for you to leave so it can get up and walk out.

Dining rooms can appear this way when the dining room table, chairs and a server or buffet are leggy. Having a buffet with a cabinet base and no legs softens the leggy look. Also, a floor-length tablecloth can “remove” the table legs. This can prove a costly fix though because, more than likely, such a tablecloth would have to be custom made. A cost-saving tip here would be to buy fabric by the yard and make it yourself.

Short of buying new dining room furniture, a dark-colored carpet large enough to accommodate the chairs pulled out and some large floor plants with substantial containers will give the room some balance. You might also try switching out your long-legged buffet for a chest found elsewhere in the house.

Depending on the style, bedroom chests work well as buffets. Remember, you can repurpose almost any piece of furniture.

In your living room, you essentially can do the same thing. Cover a side table with a floor-length cloth. Try switching out your legged coffee table for a trunk or large ottoman. Again, use area rugs and large plants for grounding.

If you have the luxury of buying an entire room of furniture at one time, pay particular attention to the leg issue. It’s not something that we give a lot of thought to, but when you end up with a room full of legs, it’s not pretty!

Consider your really big pieces, such as the sofa and chairs, as major grounders. Keep exposed legs to a minimum. Then when you add tables, the room will be more balanced.

Carolyn Muse Grant is the founding president of the Architectural & Decorative Arts Society, as well as an interior design consultant/stylist specializing in home staging. Her Inside Spaces column appears weekly in the Home section of the Review-Journal. Send questions to creativemuse@cox.net.