Furniture Scale: Finding the Right Chair Size For Your Sofa

Proportion and scale are terms used to define the right balance in a room. The general knowledge of the world will understand when something is too big, too small, and just right when placing furniture in a room, but how do you know what to look for before you bring it home? Learn how to judge correctly what will look best in your home by measuring up the essentials.

I have a client who just purchased a large, low and very deep Chesterfield sofa. WeE have been working for a while on finding the proper chair based on the dimensions of the sofa. WE waited until the sofa arrived and saw how much space we had to work with.

After noting the low profile of the sofa and neighboring chairs to a dining set, we decided to keep that consistent throughout the room. Another aspect of the room that helped us determine the shape of the new club chairs was the fact that most of the elements in the room were rectangular or square. Therefore we knew that we needed to introduce something round to add some contrast yet complimentary lines in the space.

Here are some general tips when deciding on chairs:

If it is Too Big: Traditional styling isn’t this wing chair’s problem. There are very modern versions of the wing chair out on the market today. Proportion is. The high back is strong and sometimes considered masculine, and it could potentially overpower a lower-back sofa, which should be the room’s largest focal piece for upholstery goods

If it is Too Small: A small chair can prove that there’s more to scale than height. Sure, it’s a problem if it is incredibly short next to a large, tall, high back sofa. But a chair, for example, that had a lot of texture or visual uniqueness could contribute to the competition of a sofa that stands quiet and soft in a room. Think of a chair that may have razor-thin back, reedy legs, and paper-width sides, but maybe you select a loud fabric to make sure it is heard in the composition of the room…sometimes you can break the rule with scale if it is achieved in texture and style.

This club chair that we selected is about 30” wide by 37” deep and is somewhere in a general range of dimensions for a “practical” chair. Finding something in this range of scale will often be considered a safe choice when shopping for new furniture. I recommend measuring.

Measure twice! Purchase once! Then you will be sure to have a happy solution in the end!

Breaking the Rules…Modern Mix

The challenges that a lot of my clients experience today is finding a style that they like. Whether it is a modern Le Corbusier chair or a hand carved Queen Anne table, you may like both items and find yourself puzzled with how to make them work in the same environment. We live in a world of “change.” With modern day technology we see constant changes taking place all around us, which sometimes makes us want that to take place in our homes as well. For every time you’ve walked into your home and thought to yourself that a particular room needs something new or different there is a simple way to finally take action and start taking steps toward making that change. Whether you want to furnish that part of the house with classic furniture or modern furniture, with a few simple steps you can have the look you want and surprisingly they can both co-exist! The key is to decide what the room needs and what you want.

Let’s say, for example, you want to redo your master bedroom. The most common elements that you are dealing with are the paint, the furniture and the general design of the room itself. So maybe its as simple as finding an old vintage trunk at the foot of your sleek modern bed. How will these choices affect the rest of the room?

Well, to add balance and make it look deliberate, I would suggest pairing either of the two styles with perhaps a third piece like a modern Ghost chair in front of your grandmother’s vanity table in a corner. When it comes to lighting, perhaps the bedside lamps are mismatched, one being a sleek chrome modern style, paired with a vintage Victorian mirrored table lamp. Check out AllModern.com for some great ideas on modern furniture.

There is a big difference between redecorating the entire room and replacing a single piece and generally there are no rules when it comes to selecting the style of a piece of furniture, just so long as you can determine BALANCE. A few smaller items can really help define the room and make it your own.

Classic versus Modern Classic furniture has an appeal that is easy to understand. For instance, an antique curved end console has an intrinsic appeal that you find immediately attractive. And you think that there is no possible way you could place that behind your Florence Knoll sofa. Truth be told – you can! Break the rules, but follow through accordingly. Make sure that you add a vintage painting above the fireplace with an ornate frame to balance the console. Maybe find a modern Womb chair and a pair of traditional rolled arm club chairs. Go ahead and find a traditional vintage rug. A crystal chandelier could be accompanied with a modern tolomeo reading lamp. A sleek glass top coffee table and the room has achieved a modern mix! And I bet it will make you feel right at home. Please share your thoughts and feelings about the modern mix design…do you think you can do it?