How To: Pairing Furniture - The Legs Matter
Hundreds of decisions go into designing a space that looks right, feels right and is perfect for you and your family. We realize this can be extremely overwhelming for many of you, so today we're attempting to help your decision making process go a little more smoothly as you're selecting furnishings for your home! Furniture legs. This is a topic we feel isn't addressed as much as it could be, so here are our two cents on the matter (thanks for asking).
Furniture bases and/or legs that work well together are based off of three things: the height of the leg, the shape of the leg, and what the material is. A successful furniture plan has a mix of these three categories.
HEIGHT
Varying heights of sofa, chair and table legs are essential to create a well balanced space. Try finding a piece with a solid base that goes all the way to the rug, a couple of pieces that are raised about 6" off of the ground, and lastly a couple of pieces (like side tables) that have a lot of height under them (maybe around 20"). Doing so will keep your eye moving and the space won't feel claustrophobic.
SHAPE
Try to pay attention to the shape of the legs and look at whether they're turned, straight, tapered, cabriole, etc. Selecting pieces that mix a couple of these styles of legs will help your space feel more collected, and less like you bought the same line of furniture for your whole living room (please don't do that). If all the legs are straight in your space right now, try switching out a few pieces here and there that have a tapered or turned leg, it will go a long way!
MATERIAL
Lastly, the material is of extreme importance. If you have a nice mix of shapes and height in your furniture legs but they're all in your favorite Java finish from that favorite company of yours, you're going to want to mix things up a bit. As with any design element in a space, keep the legs of your furniture cohesive with everything going on around them. If you have some chrome, black oak, and antique rubbed brass accents happening, consider choosing similar finishes for the legs of your furniture pieces; this will tie all the elements in your space together and give you that beautiful cohesive look you see in the pages of Elle Decor every month.
