THE BENEFITS OF A SOFA TABLE

If you feel like your walls are crowding you a little,

try some of these tricks to expand your rooms.

1.  Cool down your walls - warm toned colors seem to move toward you

while cool toned colors recede.  Something as simple as going from gold to gray can change your life!

2.  Declutter.   Too many accessories, too many things on the walls, too many pillows, colors or patterns...

all stop your eye on the way across the room and can make things feel visually crowded...

3.  Add a sofa table...

Sofa tables have long been used to punctuate the back of a sofa in an open floor plan.

They are good little indicators of the stop and start of a defined area...

as if to say - 'there! that's the end of the living room and beyond this is the dining room...'

They provide a place for needed lighting, 

and accessorizing... but my favorite use for them

is to expand a living space...

Its a long known trick in decorating that pulling the furniture away from the walls a little

actually makes the room feel larger.

That bit of dead air space beyond the sofa fools the eye into believing

the room is larger...

"Look!  We have all this room behind the sofa!  What a large room!

When there are things in that space...

like lamps and accessories..

it further enhances the feeling that there is space beyond the sofas.

Sofa tables (or console tables) are great opportunities 

to display some of your larger accessories

(don't let it get too cluttered with the smalls)

(Pottery Barn has been doing this successfully for years....)

So, if your room feels a little tight

here's another little trick for you to make it FEEL larger...

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Letter from a Reader:

Hi Claudine, I enjoy reading your blog so much and want to thank you for educating the world about undertones and the magic that paint can do in a room!  

I'd like to ask for your recommendation on my bathroom paint. Currently it is beige with heavy green undertone, but I'd like a lighter and cleaner look. The room doesn't get too much of sunlight. It has granite countertops in the color shown in the pictures (yellow with reddish speckles), and the tiles in the shower and floor is true gray like in the picture. 

The sinks are located separately in each side of the bathroom, so the dominant feature is the gray tile. What would you suggest a good paint that will complement the gray tiles and quiet down the countertop? The crownmolding is true white. 

Also, do you suggest the ceiling (10") is painted the same color as the wall or kept white? 
Thank you so much in advance! 

Your granite and tile have grays and a soothing gray or greige (gray/beige) in a lighter tone would compliment both.  Look at Edgecomb Gray (BM) or Amazing Gray (SW) which have a good beige undertone and should keep things calm - even the granite.

BM Edgecomb Gray

SW Amazing Gray

Good luck!