When you’re decorating, it’s important that you have a good sense of balance and symmetry in a room. It’s also important that you’re considering the size of the room that you’re decorating so that you don’t end up with large rooms that feel too empty or smaller spaces that are cramped and uncomfortable. Often, the furniture choices that you make have a big impact on this, but that’s not the only thing to consider.

Visual weight is an interior design term that refers to the weight that an object or surface appears to have, rather than how much it weighs on a scale. Understanding how to use visual weight to your advantage when you’re decorating your home will help you design the best space possible. Read on to find out more:

Color And Material:

The first thing to consider is the color and material of things around the room. As a general rule, darker colors and materials have a higher visual weight. Red tends to have the highest while a pale yellow has the lowest, blues and greens are somewhere in the middle. That’s why a room that is painted entirely red will feel very claustrophobic and so will a room where all of the furnishings are red.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use colors with a high visual weight, but it’s important that you balance them with lighter colors, as well. The same goes for materials; using reclaimed wood in the home is a great way to get a rustic look, but it has a high visual weight. If you design a room with reclaimed wood on the walls and then fill it with wooden furniture, the balance will be off. You need to choose one or the other and offset the wood with some light furniture or pale shades on the walls.

If you need some visual examples, it can be helpful to visit a Furniture store in Rockwall, TX (or your local area) for inspiration. Browsing through the displays and fixtures in person can really help you start to picture your home in a different way. Be sure to snap pics as well as inquire about different color options to the staff for any pieces you might like.

Size:

Size plays a big role in visual weight so it’s important that you consider it when choosing furnishings and ornaments to put around a room. If you’re using thick curtains on the windows, for example, they have a heavy visual weight. If you combine that with a lot of large pieces of furniture, the room will start to feel cramped. If you wanted to have a big coffee table and some large armchairs in your living room, you’d be better off looking into blind installation rather than sticking with the heavy curtains, so you can balance out the furniture. When it comes to decorations around a room, you need to group them by size. So, if you’ve got a large sculpture on one side of the room, you need to balance that with something of a similar size, or a grouping of small objects on the other side of the room.

Transparency:

Any items that are transparent seem to have a lower visual weight, and you can use this to your advantage. If you’ve got a room where the walls and furniture already have a high visual weight, you can offset that by using clear vases or bottles to decorate with. This is also ideal for darker rooms where you want to improve the flow of sunlight and brighten the space up a bit.

If you experiment with visual weight and remember these rules when you’re decorating, your home will be stunning and guest ready in no time.

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