Focal Point Tips For Beautiful Rooms

A focal point for a room is an important element of design. Let's learn what a focal point is, how to optimize it by framing it and more! Here's how to create a focal point and how to keep your other decor from fighting with it. And how to create a beautiful room.

Every room needs a focal point. It is one of the basic elements of design and the star of a room! Creating a focal point in a room is so easy and with just a little design know-how you can create a focal point that adds tons of beauty to a room. Today let’s learn the focal point basics!

This post is part of the ELEMENTS OF DESIGN series to help home decorators, like you and me, understand basic interior design concepts that will help us be better and more confident decorators!

Today, we are focusing on tips for creating a beautiful focal point, and more.

Every room should have a focal point so let’s first chat about what a focal point is.

A focal point, like I said before, is the star of your room. When we come into a room a focal point is the most eye-catching item in the room! It’s usually what we see first like a bed or a dining room table with a beautiful centerpiece on it or a mantel.

When someone enters our living room, the first thing they see is our mantel and fireplace.

Because large architectural pieces in a room are often the room’s focal point it was easy to know that the mantel is the focal point of this room.

It’s all about dominance!

WHAT IS DOMINANCE AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO A FOCAL POINT

Dominance in design is very important! And it helps create a focal point in a room. And a focal point helps us enter into the room’s design and have a place to start making sense of a room.

Dominance creates a focal point, a focal point creates an entry place into the design of a room, and entering into the design of a room helps us to make sense of the room. And when we can make sense of a room we perceive it as attractive. And we want to have attractive, beautiful rooms in our home.

So you can see that this thing called dominance is very important to home decorators!

AN EXAMPLE OF DOMINANCE

Think about a wrestling match. The object of a wrestling match is for two people to wrestle and for one person to be dominant over the other and win!

The winning wrestler shows dominance over the other losing wrestler.

Now think of a room in your home. Walk into that room. You don’t want to have a wrestling match between all the furnishing and accent decor in your room. Without a focal point, all the decor in a room competes for dominance.

So to keep all the decor from battling it out for attention you want to pick something in your room that is dominant. It is going to be the winner. The only winner!

This winner is called a focal point. It is also the star of a room!

So how do you know the winner/star/focal point of a room?

It is usually the item that grabs your attention the minute you walk into a room.

A focal point can be …

• the thing in a room that has the most visual weight, or
• is the first thing you see when you enter a room, or
• an architectural element of a room, or
• something so interesting to look at, or
• the room’s best quality, or
• an outside view through windows or doors

So, what is a focal point?

A focal point is a thing in a room that has dominance over everything else in a room!

EXAMPLES OF A FOCAL POINT

Many rooms have natural focal points such as…

• a fireplace
• natural architectural elements like french doors, vaulted ceilings or bookshelves
• large art or something large on the wall
• large windows with a breathtaking view
• dining room table
• large piece of furniture, like a bed

These are all easy to find focal points because they are so attention-grabbing they have dominance over everything else in a room.

The first thing anyone sees when they come into our living room is the mantel/fireplace. It’s a natural focal point of the room!

WHY HAVE A FOCAL POINT IN A ROOM

A focal point is an important design element because it gives our eyes a place to start looking around the room and trying to make sense of it.

If our eyes can’t find a starting point then they get confused as they look around the room.

Our eyes and minds love order and things that make sense to them. And giving them a starting place to enter into a room’s design goes a long way for them to make sense of a room and deem it pleasing.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS NO CLEAR FOCAL POINT IN A ROOM?

This is such an important question to answer! Remember dominance creates a focal point.

When we do not have a clear focal point in a room and no one thing in the room has dominance then a room looks confusing. Too many things in the room are competing for our eyes’ attention. Our eyes cannot find a place to start to enter the room’s design!

Think of a play. There is a leading lady or a star. All eyes are on the star! And there are supporting actors. They all have an important part in the play but they support the leading lady… the star!

The focal point in a room is the star! It is the most important thing in the room. Other decor in a room is important too. But it supports the focal point.

Let’s say the actors in our play are feeling feisty during one performance. They all decide to be center stage. They have dreams of being the star and today is the day they are fulfilling their dreams. So they start to upstage and compete with the star…to be the star. Sitting in the audience, we find this odd. Maybe funny! But definitely not organized or attractive.

Now the actors start arguing because they want to be the star! And fists start flying!

When we don’t have a clearly defined focal point in a room all the other decor starts to compete and fight with one another for the focal point position!

And or eyes and mind will find a room very confusing and unattractive!

In our living room, we have a buffet that could be a focal point too. Keeping the color palette tight and not overdecorating it helps to keep it a supporting element and not the star!

Many home decorators overdecorate their homes. We want to show off all the pretty things we have so we pile it into one room. And this can be very confusing to our eyes because lots of pretty things in a room does not equal a pretty room.

You might like to read THE OVERDECORATING DILEMMA.

HOW DOES DECOR SUPPORT THE FOCAL POINT?

If any decor in a room is not the focal point of a room and does not have dominance then it is supporting decor!

Even within supporting decor, there is a hierarchy of dominance. Some things are more important than other things. But they are never more important than the focal point.

I see decor fighting with the focal point all the time! Here are some reasons they fight…

• no clear focal point has been established
• another area in a room has such heavy visual weight it becomes a second focal point
• something (like a coffee table or console) is so heavily decorated with layers of decor it cries for attention and take the attention away from a focal point
• The focal point is not framed

All your decor should support and not fight a focal point! That is why it is important to know your decorating style and color palette in a room you are decorating. Your decor will look more cohesive if they all work together and support the star!

The Curlacue chest is another example of decorating a piece of furniture to have a supporting role. I really wanted to add more decor but I knew that LESS IS BEST so used a light hand to decorate it.

HOW TO FRAME A FOCAL POINT

Framing a focal point is a way to draw even more attention to it!

In our living room, I framed our fireplace/mantel focal point by adding a pair of spindle chairs on either side of it.

The windows and curtains also extend the frame and call attention to the fireplace!

A frame is decor on either side of the focal point that enhances it and draws our eyes to it even more. This helps to easily identify something as a focal point.

Here are some common things that can act as a frame for a focal point…

• chairs
• plants
• windows
• curtains
• architectural decor
• mirrors and art
• nightstands
• plants
• more

WAYS TO CREATE A FOCAL POINT

Not every room has a built-in design element. Sometimes it’s better to create one of your own. That way you can position it to be the first thing seen when anyone walks into a room.

Here are some things to help create a focal point…

• wallpaper or paint to distinguish a focal point wall
• a large mirror
• a large wall clock
• a display of plates hung on a wall in an interesting pattern
• a gallery of art
• a large piece of furniture
• a spectacular vignette
• an outstanding vintage find

WHAT TO AVOID

Although a focal point is a pretty straightforward concept, there are just a couple things to avoid…

• more than one BIG focal point in a room
• a center of attention element that is so different from the rest of the room it does not make sense
• awkwardly positioned focus of attention in a room
• decorating without a clear style and color palette
• any supporting decor that is fighting for dominance

Creating a focal point is a decorating no-brainer! Easy to create and a must in every room. Check each room in your home and make sure it has a focal point!

You might like these other DECOR ELEMENTS OF DESIGN and how to incorporate them in your home…

• A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO REDECORATING A ROOM
• SPACE- ELEMENT OF DESIGN
• COLOR- ELEMENT OF DESIGN
• BALANCE- ELEMENT OF DESIGN
• SCALE AND PROPORTION – ELEMENT OF DESIGN
• RHYTHM- ELEMENT OF DESIGN