hampton designer showhouse: don't scale back

i think the most important lesson i took from my visit to the hampton designer showhouse was the lesson of scale, which is interesting because my conversation with jamie meares that same week also touched on the importance of scale.

the kitchen, designed by denise rinfret, was, to me, a true study in scale. because it was a large room with generous ceilings, "normal" size kitchen accessories and fixtures would have looked rinky-dink and silly compared with the rest of the space. so ms. rinfret clearly paid attention to that and chose things of ample height and stature. you can see it evidenced in these photos in the thickness of the countertop marble, the additional row of windows above the doors and windows, and the size of furniture in the breakfast-room portion of the room. additionally, the set of three varied-height candlesticks are much larger than most sets like that, and they work beautifully. the same is true for the three-tier serving tray, the glass shelves, even the footed porcelain bowl holding oversized moss balls was perfectly proportioned to the size of the room.

these choices showed an attention to detail that jumped out at me right away, and also made a strong impression on me about making choices that take into account everything about the space in which you're working. sometimes, no matter how much you love something, it just doesn't work where you're trying to use it, and i think it's important to see or hear that truth when it strikes.

the best example of this in my own home came not long after the designer showhouse visit, when i fell head over heels in love with the ps maskros chandelier from ikea. i wanted so, so badly for it to look interesting and fabulous in our dining room. it just didn't. if they had a smaller version of it, it would have been perfect. but they didn't, and it wasn't. so sad.

particularly sad because this is what it looked like in the box and mitchell still needed the use of his fingers after assembling all 160 pieces, hanging it, and then unhanging and disassembling it. thanks honey :)


first ikea photo from http://www.farm4.static.flickr.com/