Add Focal Points to Your Home and Garden
Friday, August 24, 2007
I think the key to having an attractive home and garden is misdirection. We all have good and bad parts to our homes and as hard as we try the bad parts will always keep showing up. So I believe the secret is to attract attention to the good points and detract from the bad ones.
How I accomplish this is through focal points. We all have them in and around our
homes. They are what you see when you walk in your front door, when you walk through a backyard gate or even when you are sitting in your favorite chair. They are the spots you view from the places you occupy most frequently in your home. Next time you are sitting on your deck or walking in your front door, look around and see what your eyes focus on. The first things you see when walking into my house are the stairs and the wall immediately above. So in order to make an impression I put something interesting at the top of my stairs like a big colorful painting or a nice ornate mirror with a recessed eyeball light highlighting it. This is what I want people to focus on when they come in my house and not pay attention to the dirty floor they are standing on.
Notice the trellis arch is what would be seen first when looking out of the homes windows. That is a focal point.
My backyard is the same way. I have three areas where I spend most of my time. Walking through the
gate, on my deck and on a small plateau in the back corner of the yard. So I am spending time not only making those locations as comfortable as I can but also highlighting the areas I view while spending time in those locations. One example is while playing with my dogs I always end up sitting on the plateau in the back corner of my yard. It is elevated a little so I can survey the entire yard while I watch my dogs wrestle. But while sitting there the first thing I would see is my second story deck and the dirt underneath . Not the most attractive thing to look at while relaxing in the sun. So, being a fan of Mediterranean design, I chose to add a trellis on each post of the deck, some silver lace vines and a small, pseudo pergola attached to the front edge. Now, when I relax, I no longer have to look at an aging old deck. Now I look at a beautiful Mediterranean terrace with vines covering the side instead of an aging deck and dirt. (The best part about it is that whole project cost less than $100)
What I like to do is to display a favorite feature that attracts attention. A wall niche, a painting, a topiary, an antique or, my favorite for outside, a simple fountain. When you do this you give people something attractive and unique to focus on and enjoy that otherwise would have been bland and boring. The point here is to take the areas that you and your guests view day in and day out. The ones you can't hide and make them special. Turn them into spaces you want people to see and worry about fixing the not so great areas another day.
This is the arched niche I added to the end of my main hall way. You can find the tutorial here on the site by clicking on the image. The vase is just there for demo purposes and is not as  eye catching as what should be there.