Okay, I broke that one. lol. But I knew the colors I'd be getting anyway in furniture, and the accessories I had, so that one wasn't a big deal because I knew the paint would match.

Give me some more! :)

Well, I bent the paint rule a little bit - I picked my floring first, then the paint, then the new furniture.

Maybe it's more of a feng shui thing than an actual rule but I have a mirrored dresser facing the foot of my bed. I know you're not supposed to, but I liked it best there and said oh well. Maybe my haint blue porch ceilings will balance it out :-)

I'm sure I break *many*, but the only one that comes to mind right now is that I have a rug on the carpeting.

Maybe we should turn this into a 'what are the rules' thread so we know if we are breaking them.

I would rather have the individual come up with the rule of thumb they have heard and then why they break it, than list them myself:)

But here is another one, and I repeat from the "unpopular opinions" thread. "Start with your rug,and pull out the colors of your room from that". My caveat is that I don't have any modern patterned rugs, I only have traditional antique-styled persian rugs. But pull specific colors from the rug. Nope, didnt follow that one. (Maybe this is because my first, best rug from my great aunt had a lot of maroon, robins egg blue and pink in it I didnt want a pink sofa...--But mostly I ignore the rug in terms of scheme)

A little black in every room.

I've tried it and don't like it. I'm just not that into black and would rather not have any. Right now I have a tv cabinet in black in the LR that I really regret not getting in white. What a flippin dust magnet! It WILL be getting a coat of paint. I have some black curtain rods that I dislike every time I look up at them. They WILL be getting a coat of paint, too. The only black that will remain in that room is the metal around the gas fireplace insert. Can't do much about that. Oh wait, I think there's a paint for that, too. lol!

Granted, it's been years since I have taken a decorating class, but one I remember is putting a larger picture over a smaller picture, instead of the other way around - to keep the smaller picture from seeming to float off.

I nearly always break that one. I like smaller pictures on top.

I usually do too, Marti8a!

I like Thomas Edison's rule: "Hell, there are no rules around here, we're trying to accomplish something." : )

Now, I almost always prefer the larger picture above, but the truth is that I currently have no pictures of different sizes hanging one above the other. I do have two woodcuts in identical frames hanging together, and there I have the one with the greater visual weight on the top.

But here's a rule I've broken more than once: hang all pictures at eye level (or, as I have posted it on this very board, with the center 60 inches above the floor). Of course it can conflict with the rule that says to hang pictures in relation to any furniture that's below them; a picture or mirror above a fireplace is likely to be higher than eye level, unless the mantel is really, really low.

Great! I did my two pictures right! lol. I hung a larger picture and put a smaller one under it, and I have been wondering ever since if it should go above.

I never understood the "black in a room" thing. I've done it and it's no big deal.

Pal, we bought our Persian Rug a few weeks ago, after everything was decorated. It has a large patch of pale blue in it, and I don't have one blue thing in the room. But it looks GOOD. I'm so glad I didn't get a braided rug.

Here's a picture:

I wanted to paint the fireplace insert on a project in something other than black (There is actually off-white stove paint and ts a modern firplace, no mantel or ornament) but it was soundly voted against by all. (except the actual homeowner, who was game)

It reminds me of an older interior designer I know who found a largish White TV somewhere, and it freaked everyone out because TVs (at that time) were *supposed to be black or woodgrain.

I once read that the rug under the dining room table should be large enough for the chairs to still be on it when they are pulled out. I figure that none of my friends know about this rule - so who cares?

Less is more. I read that we should not display everything we own - what's the use of owning it if we've got it packed away?

There are rules about the appropriate scale of patterns, in relation to each other. I have some of the same size, though it appears to be more of a textured look than a clashing appearance, IMO. :)

One I mentioned on the other thread was the rule about only having three colors in a room. If I have, say, a yellow, green and red room, I'm not adverse to throwing some blue books, art, or, as I have on my LR coffee table, a blue dish from Morocco.

Another rule, at least around GW, is to have the WTs the same color as the wall. Nope, not here. I like more contrast.

I'm sure that there are many more that just don't come to mind, right now.

I never hang my chandeliers 30-34 inches above a table. Who wants all that light shining in your eyes?

I do not store my dish drainer out of sight. It stays on the counter - usually needing to be emptied or be used. Oops!

And, I don't hide my small appliances that I use daily or frequently (coffee maker and toaster).

Tuesday

My trash can is out and about! You all know I had threads talking about what to do with it. Ended up using a hamper (*gasp*) and later decided we use the thing often and I really don't care that it's out. It's blended better IMO than the white plastic one I had.

All the fixtures in my bathroom don't match my door knobs. Not important enough to me to pay to change the knobs. (brass)

I think some of these "rules" are just opinions broadcast by designers, like that "always use a bit of black" thing.

In my opinion the real rules are the Principles of Design, which apply to all visual art forms, be it painting, sculpture, or room design. Various sources list various design principles, but some of the most common are balance, variety, unity, repetition, harmony, rhythm, contrast, dominance, and proportion.

It's really hard to get all these going at once and I am certainly not an expert at doing it, but I do think about these principles and try to follow them as much as possible. The problem is we don't live in perfect rooms and many of us can't afford to go out and buy the perfect items for the room, even if we *know* what to do. Life Happens and we gotta live in these rooms and accommodate pets, kids, and hubbies who for some strange reason don't think that function follows form.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elements and Principles of Design

"All your major appliances should match" is a relatively new "rule".

Of course plenty of people have always matching appliances,(especially when white was most common), but SS pro and pro-style ranges and SS range hoods were around before people started wanting a DW to match.

All of the hardware in a small bathroom should match --

I followed that first time through with my boys' bath, and it loooked all wrong. I ended up re-doing the room after only five years because it was just so wrong. My new hardware? Stainless steel sinks, brushed & polished nickel faucets, oil-rubbed bronze light fixtures, shiny brass door knobs, blue/black cabinet knobs, shiny chrome on the shower doors, satin chrome accent tiles and a polished nickel train-rack. And it looks SO MUCH BETTER!

1) I learned recently (on this forum) that "one's curtains should be lighter than--or no darker than--one's walls." The curtains in three rooms of this home are substantially darker than the walls. However, I love how my window treatments look!
2) "Keep the shell neutral, e.g. floors, walls, window treatments, and big pieces like sofas. Save the shots of color for accent pieces, throws, pillows, etc." Um, no. Not around here. I have this sensory deprivation thing going on: My soul feels starved without color. Think Bohemian meets Alice-in-Wonderland.

O.K., I have one I have a question about, actually, and it's topical: sheesharee's bamboo shades in the same field of vision with the valence over the kitchen sink. I think I'm breaking a rule the same way she is: using different window treatments in the same field of vision.

I have a similar situation, except I have *three* windows, one the kitchen sink, one a family room area, and the slider doors to the patio in between those. Three distinct areas in one open area. The kitchen has no room for a curtain and I'm mosaicing a valence for it, actually, to match the backsplash. The family room is a high window, not a long one, and I have a tdbu cellular shade in the exact color of the wall on it. The slider has been the toughest. After exhaustively searching for romans or drapes or *something* that would give us some privacy but not look too un-modern, I found at Ikea, of all places, some curtains that are the basic color of the wall (close enough) with dark grey/blue wavy lines on them that recall the countertop in color and relate to the wavy lines on the backsplash valence over the kitchen sink. So in a way, all the WTs relate to each other. But in another way, they're definitely not the same thing. Is that o.k.?

So on board with you don't have to choose the paint color last.

It sounds really good. It's actually very good advice, but a lot of people simply can not do it that way. It's not realistic for them from a budget, time, capacity stand point. Along the lines of what 'Art' was saying, most people can only do so much at one time.

In order to try to stay on topic here...

I just read this "rule" about color on another site. It's similar to the one about always add a touch of black:

"The easiest color combination is the use of white plus color. The end result can never go wrong." Needless to say, I have not followed this rule. Or maybe we should call it advice?

Whenever I see color advice similar to the quote above, I think to myself that I'd love to find that person. Find them and give them the task (challenge) of ten houses, ten clients, one work week and the only "rule" they have to follow is that they have to follow - to the letter - their own color advice. I wonder how well they would do.

Or maybe we should call it advice?

I wonder if the people who insist that every room must have a touch of black are going from house to house checking on it.

I would say that there are no genuine rules, but there are things that people might call rules that are actually useful:

- Conventions. The length of curtains is a convention, as is the height at which to hang pictures. Conventions represent practices that work most of the time, but there will be situations in which something else is better.

- Formulae. A formula is like a recipe in cooking - useful if you don't know how to do something. Using three colors in the proportions 60:30:10 (or something like that) is a formula. It's by no means the only way to do it, but it usually gives pleasing results. One color plus white is a formula.

- Tricks of the trade. These are things that designers often do, and it's helpful to know them, but they are certainly not rules. "Every room needs a touch of black" might be one of these.

Unfortunately, there are also arbitrary statements that reflect one person's taste but somehow catch on. Theodore Bernstein, the late copy editor of The New York Times, wrote a book called Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, which was about so-called rules of grammar that were not rules at all. Miss Thistlebottom was the archetypal English teacher who taught you all the rules of grammar, plus some that she made up herself.

My favorite of these in decorating is still Alexandra Stoddard's "Every hall needs a stack of wonderful old quilts." Clearly, I don't have the kind of house that she would have been interested in decorating.

I have been guilty of advising against a contrast of white hues, such as juxtaposing white and cream. It sets my teeth on edge, but others may not mind it.

On the other hand, I think I've been clear, when advising against blue, green, or purple curtains, that I specifically meant sheer or semi-sheer curtains that would be drawn across the window. I advise against sheers in those colors because they filter the light and impart their color to it. Nevertheless, if you would also use blue, green, or purple light bulbs you might like the effect.

How can I forget a rule that really angered me? LOL. FYI, I'm not mad anymore but this is a perfect example of rules.

When I bought my sofa table and posted it here, all I heard was it's "too tall" for the sofa, and the table should ALWAYS be the same height of the sofa back (not the pillows.)

I have to disagree vehemently on that one. I love my sofa table, it looks good with the way the room is decorated.

And so far none of my friends have noticed it. :)

I didn't realize that matching pictures weren't supposed to be staggered. I have pictures hung this way all over my house! To be honest, I did this partly b/c it is easy, but I did think it looked good, especially if the pictures don't otherwise fill up the wall space. Maybe not?

Flyleft

There really isn't a way to match window treatments in your rooms: (Curtains? --could be an issue over the sink.
Shutters?--Awkward over a slider. Blinds? maybe.)

IMO you have solved it pretty well: no conventional window treatment on the kitchen window--a tiled valance becomes part of the architecture, just like a cabinetry valance would. A deemphasized window treatment on the awkwardly placed window--matching the wall; and a functional window treatment on the slider.

Things that people might call rules . . . are actually . . . Conventions. Formulae. Tricks of the trade.

That is a wonderful observation, okmoreh.

rule/convention:
-When you want to paint a room that has more than 4 walls, with 2 different colors (like an accent wall) - you should change colors at the concave corner (it's easier to change colors here)
Well, I was in a situation where doing that meant the same amount of each color and I did not want that. All I wanted was an accent color so I painted a wall from a concave corner to a convex edge.
An architect girl friend knows the rule and she pointed that out. I could not care less because 99% of visitors comment on how beautiful that wall is.

Hmmm, probably most of them.

I don't think the touch of black, like a touch of apple green is a rule as much as a tip.

IN general, I think classic design principles stay pretty true. I do like things in groups of 3 or 5, except when I don't, and then I like pairs or pairs of pairs.

And I agree with kitchendetective about the neutrals with shots of color. Sometimes I do this, and sometimes, I let the sofa with the pink and gold slipcover set the pace.

The one where they say there is a rule. I just go w/ what looks good to my eye.

Thanks, palimpsest! I'm so glad to hear your thoughts. I will say that one rule I almost never break, just because it resonates so much with me, is "form follows function". I had to make the various window treatments *work* in their spaces, above all, and then tried to find a way to make them work together. But, um, O.K., I planned out the mosaic valence first :) I really wanted to do it. But it works functionally as well as formally, right? :)

I'll post a related question on another thread.

I paint my ceilings. Not always the wall color, sometimes a different color.

I sometimes paint dark windowless spaces dark to make them even darker. I have a charcoal grey windowless stairwell. I don't think every space has to be light and airy.

I do whatever I darn well please in any room of my house.

That must break several rules, right there. I just do what looks good to me, and enjoy it without worry. :-) None of my dogs have ever complained.....

The use of 'rules" perhaps, is a restrictive word, but really, the people who say they follow no rules aren't quite telling the truth unless they can say things like

I bricked up all the windows in my bedroom.

My sofa is a bed of nails.

My bathtub has electric outlets in it.

I think what I was driving at is what is a current convention that you tend not to follow.

My curtains are not floor length. I just learned this rule a short time ago. :( Since I spent a couple hundred dollars on the curtains- they will stay. But now I find myself staring at them trying to imagine them floor length or as a stranger walking into the room thinking they look odd. I hope they don't start to drive me crazy!

There are really multiple drapery lengths that are all following the "rules": sill length, bottom of window trim length, baseboard length, to floor, and dragging or puddling on floor. Traditionally the most formal was dragging on the floor a Lot, but the floor length or touching the floor a little has become a norm even in casual settings more because of mass production than anything else. If everything is hemmed at 84",92",96" it is going to be floor length easy peasy.

So, you are following one of the guidelines, just not one of the "popular" ones:)

I thought of another non convention:

One of my friends in NY has a closet that is completely open to the bedroom. It is well organized, and because he works at a couture store and is expected to wear a black suit every day, his clothes are all beautiful. Then on top of that they are well organized. So the giant wall of clothes is really part of the decor. The room is so small that doors would have been impossible so he built a closet that could put things on display.

Actually that's a relief. Knowing I didn't break a rule, I just followed a currently unpopular one. Somehow knowing that I am completely at peace with the curtains now. Wow. I am such a sheep.

I embrace my flat screen tv insteand of trying to hide it.

palimpsest LOL...my bathtub...I concur with your point, though :)

Getting off track here, but Gamecock, that drapery length looks too long for short drapes and too short for long drapes. I would hem them so that they come to somewhere around the apron of the window frame.

My bedroom tv (not flatscreen) is sitting on an overturned plastic tub which is sitting on a tv tray. Now that's style!

natesgramma -- LOL!

For several years after I first moved in I had bubble wrap on the bedroom windows. In many ways it was an ideal window covering: light filtering but private, cleanable with Windex, perforated at regular intervals for a good fit. And recyclable as a packing material. I haven't been able to sell this idea to anyone else though.

Pal, you could probably pull off bubble-wrap-as-window-treatment stylistically. We lesser talents could not :) (Probably was a good insulator too)

"For several years after I first moved in I had bubble wrap on the bedroom windows. In many ways it was an ideal window covering: light filtering but private, cleanable with Windex, perforated at regular intervals for a good fit. And recyclable as a packing material. I haven't been able to sell this idea to anyone else though."

After a year and a half in our new house, we still have temporary blinds in the master bath.

Another one that has to be breaking rules...I have one counter stool in the kitchen. We don't entertain much and there is only one of us that would be using the stool at any given time (laptop). I decided to buy one, that was really nice, instead of two or four, that were cheap.

You could add a nice border fabric to those, gamecock. If they're not grommet style (which they look to be from here), I'd add a lining, too, if possible. More body and richer red without the light shining through the fabric.

Great thread, Pal!