Home Design For the Senses

[Joe Griffith]

When decorating interiors, homeowners most often rely on their sense
of sight to gauge how attractive a room is. Most, however, forget that
there are four other senses that the human body uses and these are as
important as sight. The best and most comprehensive room designs are
those that are able to engage all five senses and create a space
that's best experienced and not just seen.
Sight is where most homeowners and designers start decorating, mostly
because it's the quickest and easiest way to judge how a room appears.
There are two ways to visually engage a person - with colors and with
shapes. While solid colors are the safer choice for decorating a room,
colors that contrast with or complement each other make a room seem
much more interesting. At the same time, mixing up shapes and playing
with proportion can give a room personality and character. They're
effective enough on their own, but the best visual effect comes from
using shapes and colors in harmony.
Auditory senses should also be engaged by the ideal home. And while a
stereo system or a television could provide sounds, none of those
sounds say anything about a room. Compare that to, say, the tinkling
of wind chimes hung from a window or the gurgling of a small fountain
in a corner. Either of those two sounds help set the mood of the room
and give the space its own ambiance.
Your sense of smell, which is itself closely related to the sense of
taste, is one of the most overlooked of all the senses. Believe it or
not, the olfactory senses are some of the easiest to engage when it
comes to decorating a room. A set of scented candles will already be
enough to generate some interest with a visitor's nose. Add a pot of
potpourri or a small pot of heated aromatherapy oils to enhance the
experience and reinforce the ambiance that you want to achieve in the
room. You could even combine sight and smell together with, say, a
bowl of fresh ripe oranges as a centerpiece for the dining table.
Touch is a very strong sensory element and shouldn't be overlooked in
your design. Your skin can sometimes pick up messages that can't be
sent through any other sensory pathway, so your design should hold
something interesting for the sense of touch as well. Mix up textures
with curtains, throw pillows, various fabrics and the like. Different
materials often feel very different to the touch, so try to
incorporate a whole range of materials when designing the room so that
guests will be curious enough to explore your little world of textures
themselves.
Your floor, in particular, is a great place to add textures because
it's most often left as an unbroken and smooth expanse of wood, tile
or cement. A simple rug should solve that little issue by breaking up
both the texture and the color, giving your floor a whole different
look and shape. Whether you plan to use rich and plush rugs or rough
ones with short threads, they add a whole new dimension to what would
otherwise be a boring room.

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