I’d like to address a little something I know many of you struggle to do in the rooms of your home. I know this because I struggled with it before I studied design and started working in the business over a decade ago.
Over the years I’ve come to learn that the mistakes I used to make in design are often the ones you’re currently trying to overcome. So, I feel you, and I’m here to help.
The issue I talk about is negative space. Or, why you feel compelled to overstuff your rooms with things. Now, this is no means a lecture in minimalism. It’s more a chat about how embracing negative space in a room can actually make it look a thousand times better.
I’m also introducing you to the 360 degree spin you can do it your room and how it can help. Plus, I’m using a room in our recent contemporary country makeover to illustrate my point. Let’s go on the journey…
What Is Negative Space In a Room?
In short, negative space is the area of the room that you leave unfilled. It’s either a section of blank wall in the room, or a section of the floor you’ve not not filled with furniture.
Why Does a Room Need Negative Space?
Every rooms needs a focal point. It’s the thing in a room that your eye is drawn to when you enter it. If you don’t have some negative space in a room, then there are too many ‘visual highs’ and not enough ‘visual lows’. That leads to you not being able to appreciate the focal point and risks the room becoming chaotic.
I’ll expand on this below.
The 360 Degree Spin: Discovering Visual Highs and Lows
If you stood in the middle of a room and slowly spun a full 360 degrees, your eye should take in both visual highs and lows. The highs are the moments that dominate, the lows are the calmer things in the space. Ideally you go from one to the other as you spin.
Another way to think of this is the ‘loud’ and the ‘soft’ in a room.
For example, as you spin in a bedroom, the art might be the visual high, then sheer curtains the low, then the bedspread the high, then a blank wall the low.
If you don’t have enough negative space, then as you spin around there will be too many visual highs. If too many of these dominant things are fighting for your attention then you can’t truly appreciate the beauty of them because there’s nothing for them to contrast again.
Real-World Example: Negative Space in a Bedroom
When I posted the photo above from one of our design projects on our Facebook page, a reader asked me if there was more art coming for the walls. And I get it from their perspective; one of the walls is bare and to them it needed to be filled.
But that’s where the rule around negative space comes into play. The wall was left bare intentionally. It was a decision that needed careful consideration though.
The angles of this room were challenging in some respects. The bed is on the right wall, there is a wall adjacent to it, but then you have a third wall angled out almost facing the corner of the bed. And so comes the decision around which walls to dress and which to leave empty.
Why The Centre Wall Had to Be Left Bare
Another piece of art would not work on the wall; it would take attention away from the art on the left wall, and make the walls feel crowded.
Another piece of furniture would not work either. It would dominate the area and take your focus away from both the calming bed moment and the sideboard with art above it. Not to mention, it would greatly restrict your ability to walk around the bed.
A mirror, sure. Perhaps a wall-mounted mirror is the answer. But we had a mirror mounted not too far away in the clients walk-in-robe, and so functionally it would become redundant here.
Negative Space Allows You to Appreciate What’s There
Embracing the negative space in this bedroom is what allows it to feel so calm. And whether you personally like the style or not, you can’t argue that this bedroom doesn’t feel calm. There’s an understated moodiness to it as well. A refined less-is-more approach.
This concept around negative space can be applied to any room in your home. The best way to think about it is this: giving the main design moments in your room space to breathe is key. If you put three attention-grabbing things too close together, each one loses its beauty.
This rule works regardless of design style and regardless of whether you’re a minimalist or a maximalist. It works regardless of the size of the room too; even tiny rooms need negative space in them for the key pieces to breathe.
Now, It’s Time to Try the 360 Spin In Your Space
I’d love for you to give the 360 degree spin I mentioned above a try in your room. Take in what you’re seeing and discover how many visual highs and lows there are in the room. Think about where the negative space is, or where you might need some.
You might discover your room is overstuffed, and pieces need more negative space around them. Or, you might find that the room has too few visual highs, and you need to include some more show pieces in the room so it doesn’t feel so empty.
Give it a try and drop me a comment below. I’d love to know what your spin discovers!
Great read Chris. Our bedroom is 6.5 x 5.5, plus dressing room and large ensuite. I have followed your guidance over the past 5 or so years and did the 360 thing and am happy with the setup…..but I HATE the tv in a bedroom, especially how it never gets turned on!! Don’t argue with hubby, its there JUST IN CASE.
Oh Chris that was lovely, yes it all makes sense and you have put a name to it. I feel photos flatten out the room and your idea of visiting your room will do it. It’s memory I have of walking into a display home many years ago, before computers, and feeling awe and joy and the wow, when each room was presented for the eye to drink in. The bedroom is for sleeping and unwinding, so it makes sense to have calming colours and less clutter, all you want to see at the end of the day is that soft, sleepy cocoon feeling in the welcoming bed, it is the hero!! also I dont like all white, when everything is the exact same colour, my eye is frantically going around the room trying to anchor onto something, so the colours of the above room lend to a relaxed gentle movement of the eye which also relaxes the body.