​What does your dream home look like? Contemporary, Traditional, Craftsman, Mid Century Modern? Townhome,  House,  Apartment?

The style of your exterior architecture should influence your interior design. i.e. Victorian homes generally look best with traditional interiors; lodges look wonderful with structured, but casual furnishings.  Remember to bring that exterior feeling inside.  For example, exterior rock siding also works for the interior fireplace surround. ​

​3.  Function:

List the needs you have for your house. How do you really live? Be honest!
Do you need a: play room, large kitchen, four bedrooms, den, or a large family room?  Write a list of what you do each day - down to the nitty gritty- including things like how much laundry you do, which door you generally use to enter a home - garage, side or front door. 

Things like these really let you customize your home to your unique needs. For example; when I come home I rarely enter via the front door. I park in the garage and usually bring items from the car into the home. I immediately enter the laundry room, so, I need a place right near the door to set down my bags of groceries, design sample boards, etc. 

Would you like a few quick tips on how to calculate the correct size chandelier or pendant light for over your dining room table? 
​Here we go!

In general:
Add the width and length of your dining room ie. 10' + 14' = 24. 
We need a light approximately 24" wide!

Or here are a few general dining room table sizes, and the width of lights that would complement the table nicely.

Oval table 42" long - light should be 18-20" wide.
Oval table 48" long - light should be 24" wide.
​
Square tables? Just take the table size and subtract 12" off each side.
ie. 42" sq. table. -12" and -12" = 18" wide light.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Of course there are variables, but this will get you in the right ballpark!

Some interior designers use the terms proportion and scale synonymously. 
​
To be professional, we will need to make a fine distinction:
Proportion is the relationship of one part of an object, to its other parts.

 In other words, proportion is the relationship of one part of a single piece of furniture to other parts of the same piece of furniture. For example, the cocktail table top below, that is in proportion to its legs. 

Scale refers to the size of one piece of furniture in relation to the size of the other furniture in the room, or in relation to the size of the room itself.  For example, a giant lamp next to a chair, would be out of scale. An object is in scale when its size is harmonious with the size of the objects and space around it.  

OK, so now what? 
 Let’s assume that you found a sofa for a living room with suitable and pleasing proportions. Now you've got to visualise what will happen when you add different sized pieces to create a furniture grouping around this sofa.

Take the scale test. When you visualise end tables on either side of the sofa, you don't have to measure to see whether or not the scale works, you just feel instinctively that the scale is right. You will look at an object and instinctively measure it, not by its actual size, but by its visual weight. 

An object’s visual weight will be influenced by its shape, colour, and pattern, as follows:
The larger its shape, the heavier its visual weight. (OK that’s easy, what else?)
The more intense its colour, the heavier at its visual weight. 
The bolder the pattern, the heavier at its visual weight.
These things we intrinsically realize, but sometimes we need to stop, look at our rooms, and see if we have design balance.

When you select furniture, you want to consider only pieces that are suitable in scale with one another. This is just another aspect of achieving harmony. A room cannot be harmonious if one or more pieces of furniture are out of scale.

How do you go about selecting pieces that are in scale to one another? Always try to start with the most important piece of furniture first.  i.e. a large dining room needs a large dining room table.  This piece must be in scale to the size of the room. If it's not, forget it. The room arrangement just cannot work.  We need to select a different piece.

Scale in large rooms. Big rooms can handle big furniture. In fact big rooms require big furniture. In addition, a large room can handle furniture that features intense colour and bold patterns. What's more, a big room calls for large architectural features too. Such a room seems more in scale if it features big windows, big doors and a big fireplace. In other words, the architectural elements of the room should be in scale to the size of the room.

Small rooms:  Well this is where we break the rules. In the 'old days', we used small furniture in small rooms.  But not anymore.  We're finding that we can indeed use large furniture in small rooms - however the proportion of the furniture must be in proportion to the other furniture in the room.  No large sofas and tiny coffee tables here!

In reality, these are not a sequence of steps, but rather common sense using the rules of scale and proportion. 
Good luck and happy designing!
​Jil,  Jil Sonia Interiors