Home Style: Enhance the Lines You Have
Make the most of your home's best features by extending lines, reinforcing shapes and continuing curves
Whether it is decorating your home, clothing your body or designing a garden, emphasizing the inherent beauty is always the first matter of business. Instead of trying to cover up flaws and immediately putting your stamp on a space, start by analyzing the intrinsic positives of your site and house. Enhancing the lines, character and views of your home is the first step to a well-designed space.
Some homes are blessed with strong horizontal lines. Some are accessorized with turrets and roof peaks. Still others bank on their beautiful surroundings as their key feature. Perhaps your home counts graceful curves as its defining element. Whatever your home is graced with, flaunt it!
Some homes are blessed with strong horizontal lines. Some are accessorized with turrets and roof peaks. Still others bank on their beautiful surroundings as their key feature. Perhaps your home counts graceful curves as its defining element. Whatever your home is graced with, flaunt it!
1. Strong horizontals. In this space, the bed is a low, flat horizontal plane. Instead of fighting that shape, the designer has reinforced it. Notice the long, horizontal bolster, the long, horizontal artwork and the short, horizontal plane of the side tables and foot table.
Private Comment
| Here is another example of a horizontal line that begins in the window pane and is carried through on the dark plank shelving. Private Comment
|
Details make all the difference. The choice of long horizontal lights for these stair risers accentuates the long horizontal planes.
Private Comment
| 2. Strong triangular roof lines. If your home is blessed with a beautiful roof line, flaunt it! Don't just add a climbing plant haphazardly, but prune a beautiful vine to follow the line of the roof. The plants soften any harsh edges while still reinforcing the shape – a win-win. Private Comment
|
In this home, the roof line has been reinforced by the exposed beams. Reinforcing the strong triangular shape, the kitchen island reflects the roof line.
Private Comment
| 3. Strong setting. This house makes the most of its beautiful location. The architect has taken a cue from the mountainous setting and inverted the typical roof line. I love that this home mimics the valley of a mountain range, as opposed to the peak. Private Comment
|
If you have gorgeous views, flaunt them by reinforcing the lines and colors of the vista beyond. Mirror the color scheme of your natural surroundings by adding planting that blend seamlessly from foreground to background.
Private Comment
Is your home situated on a hill overlooking fields of wheat, corn or soybeans? Flaunt that view by adding layers of plantings that reflect and reinforce the colors in the distance.
Private Comment
4. Strong curves. Did you find an absolutely perfect stacked pedestal table for your breakfast nook? Embrace those beautiful curves and reinforce them with a curvy chandelier and patterned shades.
Private Comment
Perhaps your find of the century was a gorgeous curvy sofa. Reinforce its shape with a circular ottoman, curvy shades and a simply curved chandelier.
Private Comment
| If you have a blocky house and have built a curvy fence to break up the line, keep going with it. That one curve doesn't have to stand alone. Flaunt more curves on the facade of your home with a climbing vine or add rounded bushes to accent the round finials. Private Comment
|
Take a long look at your space, your setting and surroundings and the architecture of your home. Embrace what you already have, and flaunt those curves, lines and views.
More:
Designing With Rectangles
Embrace the Curve
Embrace Repetition
Private Comment
More:
Designing With Rectangles
Embrace the Curve
Embrace Repetition
Comments
Adam says:
Easier said than done when you just sit there searching for pretty images, what lines would you enhance when your house looks like this?
4 months ago ·
Like
susieposson says:
Start with some landscaping Adam, and the lines will start to unfold!
4 months ago ·
Like
missyme says:
Adam, right now you are blessed with a blank slate. Susieposson is right, plants will add so much to your curb appeal. We've moved 3 times in 11 years and I've done the landscaping each time without the help of professional landscapers. Here's what I did: (1) drive around and find houses with well done yards. Figure out what they did in general - do they have curvy beds up by the house? Did they use a variety of plants or mostly just a couple? Maybe even stop and ring the door bell! Homeowners are proud and pleased to talk to you about their accomplishments - they're usually happy to tell you what the plants are or let you take a picture so you can show the nursery employees when you are ready to buy plants. (2) Take some time to watch the sun pattern at your house. Note where there is always shade, or always sun etc. (3) You can probably already answer this, but note where your drainage isn't so good. Do you have places that hold water when it rains? Or places where the sun scorches the grass all summer? (4) Decided if you are the person who likes yardwork or doesn't. That will tell you what type of plants you want to dominate your landscape. For instance, evergreen plants will cost more to buy, but in the long run they live longer and don't take much work. At the other end of the spectrum, annuals are plants you plant at the beginning of the season, for instance in the fall, but die when the next season comes. And they look ugly for weeks before that and you have to pull them out and start all over. In between are perennials, which sort of come and go, although some are evergreen and stay green year round. But they are always there in the ground, waiting for their season to shine. And also, there are bulbs, which scared me at first. They seemed so complicated. But, really they aren't that complicated. Depending on where you live, some of them can stay in the ground all year and surprise you next year when they pop up and flower. So the answer to your question is landscaping is the start, and these are my super-quick ideas about landscaping. I would go to a local bookstore and find a few books on local gardening/landscaping. Or the local library. Or go to www.davesgarden.com which has wonderful information from people all over the world but mostly the US, and even by region. Bottom line, your home, like most of our homes, is boxy. So the planting beds you want to add up by the house should be a little curvy. Good luck.
4 months ago ·
Like
pauli12 says:
i love the lines of your house adam. the long wide driveway is so strong and would look great if you had some kind of plants going the length of the drive...... trying to decide if something soft or something straight would look best.
I love the open view. Looks great!
I love the open view. Looks great!
4 months ago ·
Like
Amy Renea says:
Hey Adam - I did a quick (read: VERY rough) sketch of what you could do to accent the lines already inherent in your house.
#1 Either paint or cobblestone the driveway and add a correlating material on the front triangular section of your home (where it says "interesting material"). The two flat areas are the most prominent, so flaunt them instead of apologizing for them.
#2 Add large shrubs on the three corners of your home to ground it. Add a stacked stone or brick wall (of shrubs) along the front of your lawn to brace the driveway and again emphasize the horizontal line.
#3 Add a distinctly colored front door, shutters and window boxes...again with the rectangles...
#4 Add a curved bed under the front 2 windows, add plantings along driveway with a walking path to 2 sections of garden.
...I could go on and on, but basically -- no house has no hope!! Every house has something that can be played up!
#1 Either paint or cobblestone the driveway and add a correlating material on the front triangular section of your home (where it says "interesting material"). The two flat areas are the most prominent, so flaunt them instead of apologizing for them.
#2 Add large shrubs on the three corners of your home to ground it. Add a stacked stone or brick wall (of shrubs) along the front of your lawn to brace the driveway and again emphasize the horizontal line.
#3 Add a distinctly colored front door, shutters and window boxes...again with the rectangles...
#4 Add a curved bed under the front 2 windows, add plantings along driveway with a walking path to 2 sections of garden.
...I could go on and on, but basically -- no house has no hope!! Every house has something that can be played up!
4 months ago ·
Like
Amy Renea says:
I'd also add a large shade tree on the far right to balance the height of the roof!
4 months ago ·
Like
Today's Articles
