by Janette Peel

Created on: January 08, 2009

Mixing a good balance of rough, matt surfaces with smooth, shiny ones around your home looks extremely stylish and adds enormously to the visual interest of each room.

The balance of textures in a decorating scheme is as important as the balance of colors and tones. Just as you blend and contrast colors with care, so you need to consider including a good mixture of textures, rough with smooth, matt with shiny, soft with hard, over the various surfaces in the room.

To some extent, this happens almost as a matter of course as you decorate and furnish a room, matt walls, glossy woodwork, soft carpet and a mixture of wood, metal and glass furniture all collaborate in the overall impression.

Accessories play their part, too, in introducing textures to a scheme.
Consider the effect of fluffy towels set against shiny glazed tiles, a mirror against an ornately molded frame or tapestry cushion scattered on a glossy leather sofa.

To understand the qualities of different textures, it helps to draw up a list of rough versus smooth, matt as opposed to shiny and soft or hard materials and surfaces.
Walk around your home placing each surface in one of the groups. You could end up with two lists that are something like this:

Rough/matt

Plaster

Wicker

Sisal flooring

Toweling

Untreated wood

Stone, slate

Damask

Hessian, linen

Unglazed

Terracotta

Smooth/shiny

Glass

Ceramic tiles

Mirrors

Laminates

Polished wood

Marble

Glazed cotton

Chrome, brass

Polished leather

Gloss paint

If you also made categories for soft and hard textures, the list would even be longer.

A varied mix of all these textures is generally stimulating and satisfying, but professional designers often deliberately set out to emphasize one particular quality for maximum effect. One look they go for is a glittering metallic effect to reflect light from every surface around the room, or lots of rough matt surfaces for a more rugged, rustic feel.

Roughness prevails in a rustic kitchen, with iron hinges on the cupboard doors adding a tough, hard element to contrast with warmer wooden furniture and sisal flooring.

Broken color paint treatments like color washing and ragging are often referred to as textured paint effects. Certainly the mottled paint finishes on the walls and perhaps, fireplace and mirror framing give an impression of gentle roughness. The mirror, and glazed ceramic ornaments and plant pots and a glass topped coffee table will supply diverting areas of shine.

Trends in interior design concentrate on creating clever contrasts

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>