Dining Room Summer Tabletop Vignette
The girls and I spent a wonderful day this week shopping. I found this amazing lamp at Goodwill. I knew it had a home in my dining room and would be create a good learning lesson for me in my endeavors to understand vignettes better. So this will be a step by step post on building a vignette, namely a tabletop vignette.
Number One – The Focal Point
From my research I read over and over that for a tabletop vignette the recommended focal point is something large – more times than not a source of light – such as a lamp.
Using the Golden Ratio Principle
Starting with the largest decor item, the lamp the next step is to add elements that will ‘spiral down from tallest to smallest giving your eye an arc of interesting things to look at’.
Basically, the following items should reduce in size by approxiamtely half. So, next to the lamp the item should be about half the size of the lamp.
I tried two blue and white objects
The first item I tried was this medium sized blue and white planter – I had chosen a selection of blue and white decor items for my ‘summer theme’ throughout the house.
The second was this blue and white butterfly filled egg-shaped decor. I liked it in scale to the other three items, but it was too short in comparison to the lamp.
Solution for short items
Build them up! I added a book with a neutral binding to sit the egg-shaped decor item on. Not quite enough.
Build more and maybe the other items as well
I added another book which brought the egg shaped item too high for the bowl so I added a white planter turned over to bring height. This worked wonderfully, because it not only adjusted the height for the egg-shaped decor, but also for the other bowl. This brougnt my blue and white decor items into scale with the lamp.
Odd number of items
In addition to the three blue and white decor items, I brought in three silver tea items. This works well in a dining room setting as well as adding another texture element of a metal.
Adding interest and unity
To bring all the elements together I added greenery to the blue bowl, the silver dish in the front and alongside the lamp.
The completed look
I like the way this looks. The colors and combination of items are pleasing as well as the arrangement. I can see how using the ‘Golden Ratio‘ also known as the ‘Golden Mean‘ in decor can be very helpful!
Recap
Add a Focal Point
Vary by height – scale
Group in odd numbers
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