Decor Portfolio

In many ways balance is closely related to scale and proportion.  A room in balance has a sense of equilibrium and a feeling that the various areas of the room are evenly weighted. Picturing the way a seesaw works can help you understand balance.  If children of about the same size take their places at each end of the seesaw the board remains balanced.  If big brother sits across from little sister, the heavier end won t get off the ground and the lighter end will remain suspended in space.  To bring the board back, he can move closer to the center to redistribute the weight, or she can increase the weight on her end with another playmate.

Spaces can be balanced in a similar way.  If one side of the room features the architectural focal point or holds most of the furnishings, and the other is relatively bare, you can achieve a balanced effect by giving the light side some visual weight.  You can treat a secondary seating area with a small grouping of furnishings, perhaps borrowing one piece from the larger group; you might even give the lighter side of the room importance by hanging artwork on the wall and accenting it with dramatic lighting. 

Although it’s desirable to emphasize the fine architectural features of a room keeping, keeping them in balance with the rest of the space is important, too. Balance may be symmetrical   when objects of similar weight or design are placed on either side of an axis (or imaginary line) at equal distances from each other.  Or, balance may be asymmetrical, when objects that are dissimilar in weight and design are positioned so that they appear to be equidistant from each other. 

Symmetrical balance is fairly easy to identify because it is orderly the mantel with the mirror centered directly above, with matching candlesticks of descending height on either side.  Symmetrical balance can underscore a room’s formality. 

Asymmetrical balance is more challenging o achieve, often more interesting to experience, and typically less formal in appearance.  Here the mantel may still have a mirror (or painting) cantered above, but the objects on the shelf may be grouped according to visual weight.  In a third form of balance, radial, objects are arranged in a circular pattern around a center point-seating encircling a round coffee table-again their visual weight distributed to achieve a sense of equilibrium.