A House of Perfect Proportions

How to bring an overscale room down to size

Written by Marin Preske • Photographed by Keith Scott Morton• From Decorating with Style Magazine

It’s wise to break up a large room to give it human-scale proportions. But before defining seating areas, which lend warmth and coziness, consider these ideas for adding dimension to the walls, windows, ceiling and floors.

» Employ and highlight molding to lend character and help bring down the scale of a room. "Before we started, the moldings disappeared since everything was white," says Tarasoff-Sutton. "But after painting the walls and ceiling blue, it all just popped."

» Use a room’s anatomy and suspended fixtures to define seating areas. To define the left and right sides of this room, the designers hung a pair of iron and crystal chandeliers between the French doors. They anchor the two halves of the room while "floating mid-air."

» Break up monochromatic flooring by adding layers. The designers used one light and two deeper blue rugs that contrast with the floor color to impart balance and define the sections of the room.

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