Top 5 Mistakes in Space Planning

12:06Alice:Yeah.

12:07Brittany:So you're a collector. You're a collector. That's one of my favorite things. So the chairs are easy to acquire. You can get them, you know, at thrift stores, vintage market, you inherit them. If you're collecting good ones, I'm a good chair collector.

12:18Alice:Yeah.

12:18Brittany:You know, I collect art and I collect chairs because they're easier than bigger pieces of furniture. But seeing them all together, I'm like, what a party. Yeah. My chairs are having with each other. It's the cutest.

12:28Alice:We'll often say too that the chairs are the character of the room. Sofas are large enough that you can't always get a ton of character in them. Now, granted, pattern sofas are starting to come into play. And so they're fun. They are fun. They're a good time. We've been in the land of solids for a very long time. So the only way to really get style points was through your interesting chairs and that was their job was to bring the party to the room so certainly become a great chair collector and get those things on angles and get the conversation going

12:59Brittany:I like that you said the thing about the pattern sofa because now more than ever is like pattern on pattern hero on hero such a thing and so I dare say I'm just just start collecting the heroes as you build your collection of furniture for your home you know now through the next five or ten years 15 years you're going to have pieces that you keep forever and some pieces will kind of go by the wayside but as you start to collect you start to tell a really interesting story full of space planning heroes it's the best the mistake i've always made in my mind i have to have a spot for something so for years i've just been oh i don't know where i'm going to say this one thing i'm trying to change in 2026 is i'm just going to buy it and i'm going to figure it out later.

13:40Alice:Yeah, you are. So yeah, that's good advice to everybody, by the way.

13:43Brittany:Just buy it. Solve for it later. If it's good, it has a home. If you fall in love with it, it has a home. Yeah. If something about it attracted you to it, you'll find a spot for it. And honestly, look at art galleries. It's so sparse. You have things on the wall and you might have one cool, beautiful bench and that's it. You have one rad chair. I would get rid of all your ugly sofas, put one rad chair and they're in call an art gallery for a second while you collect. Truly. Yeah, 100%. This is my opinion. You float that too. Don't put that against the wall. Yeah, I would much rather have an over-furnished home than an under-furnished, kind of going back to the other one.

14:19Brittany:And then when I see furniture pushed up against the walls, it makes me think of stepbrothers when they build their own bunk beds. It's like, so much room for activity. That's not, it's a joke and it's funny. That's why I laugh about it. But that's what I hear in my head every time I see that. but really those rooms aren't cozy and they don't feel like home and that's what we're after and that's why we're discussing space planning right now so when I think about February I think about how am I going to show a little bit of extra love this month and one way to do it it could be in

14:51Alice:self-care and indulge or you can give the most thoughtful gift it will be loved all season long and I always think about cozy earth when it when it comes to this first up I have to say the pajamas are such a go-to gift for me. They are really soft. They are temperature regulating and they drape so beautifully. So everybody looks good in them, feels good. And what's most important, sleeps great in the bamboo pajama set. The other one I love is their classic cuddle blanket. This looks so rich and plush and expensive at the foot of a bed. I've got it on my daughter's beds. that we've been giving them as gifts lately.

15:30Alice:Everybody loves receiving this blanket. It's so indulgent. It's so gorgeous. And you really do truly feel cared and comforted. If you want to share a little extra love this February and wrap yourself or someone you care about in comfort and truly feel special, head to CozyEarth.com and use my code DEARALICE for up to 20 % off. That's code DEARALICE for up to 20 % off. And if you get a post-purchase survey, be sure and mention you heard about cozy earth right here and we live in a really nice neighborhood

16:00Brittany:with a lot of really large estates and our home's probably one of the smallest for sure but i darren i hope that like my kids friends are like man is the hall's home cozy wow one of his friends came in and he's like you always have a candle burning mrs hall i'm like you betcha you remember that like you take that home with you that's my life advice team son you know but like make yeah that's what space planning does that's what evokes these feelings these habits you know of just storytelling and conversation and kookiness and memory points because that kid's going to remember that for the rest of his life yeah he's going to smell that Julie I don't know what it is he's gonna be like oh the halls and some girl in his future is gonna love that he knows that and you know that's something he'll carry she's gonna be like you you know what a true dawn candle is?

16:50Brittany:Yeah. It's going to be like, darn right. Totally. You just scored that dude a date in like 10 years. That's awesome. You're welcome, Wes. Okay. The next one is that scale is usually off. Oh yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent of the time. Yeah.

17:05Alice:Okay. I'm going to go so bold as to say the sofa is too big and the tables are too small or there are no tables and the rug's too small.

17:13Brittany:Almost a hundred percent of the time the rug is too small. The rug's like a sample.

17:18Alice:It's not even. it's not even oh it's hilarious and the room just feels so tiny and they feel so terrible together

17:25Brittany:the two small rug with the oversized sofa oh that this is you you're not alone yeah it's everyone

17:32Alice:so yeah for sure usually the side tables are forgotten there's like windows in the mix and the wrong pieces are just shoved up against them it's probably a love seat just shoved up against a huge window and then the sofa's on the biggest long wall and there's no table in between them a relationship and they're too far apart to even have a conversation but they're like i don't know what to do i put them against the wall where they go you know really just pulling those things off the wall and starting to get them to have a relationship where where that chair and that sofa are almost touching in legs and then you have a void there to be able to put your side table in get a really beautiful big lamp cast some light on that conversation other scale things that we see that are wrong usually the light fixture is yeah a flush a boob light boob lights for sure

18:18Brittany:like so you don't have any interaction between the ceiling eye level yeah like we see that a lot I'm gonna say art art's always small and I think art just like again to your point of graduation you know you see like the sofa the sofa table the lamps the art or that thing that backdrop should be prominent that should be a really large scale most people have something that's small and it's hung too high so pull that down grow it even if it's something that you love I guarantee you your frame can grow that thing you know and make it more proportionate to the whole seating room yeah you know seating arrangement yeah so art is usually a foul lighting in general like not only the lamp is too short I think in a living room 30 inches is kind of our gold standard oh for the height of the height of a lamp yes 30 inches is you can have nice even cast I'm not going to walk by it and be able to see into you know the harp the harp and everything like you don't want to see the mechanics of that and so the 30 inch is just the perfect height I love that and then usually the chandelier it either didn't have it's either boob light or it didn't wasn't ordered with enough chain and the diameter's off so anyway these are all just little things to consider as you are starting if you're ready to buy anything research it really understand what the scale should be for that room yep so and then what are the other players and even if they're not permanent players how can you arrange them so that it's more lovely yes yeah i love that okay the next one is not measuring before designing ugh yes oh my gosh okay i'll give a quick story

19:54Alice:so i was going on this antique buying trip in august and i knew i wanted to get something i was trying for something original over my mantle. So I thought, okay, what am I going to need while I'm out shopping to be able to make the very best decision? So I stood back at the back of my living room and I took a picture of my mantle wall. I was like, that way when I'm looking at art, I can pull out my cell phone and just have the picture right in front of me and stare at the art and see if this is a good marriage. Because let's remember and keep in mind, or if you're new here, I decided to paint my grass cloth walls this dark peacock teal color this past summer and my windows and my mantle so everything is teal the ceiling is peach so it's kind of a vibe and the art has to be just the right thing to get along okay so I take a picture um standing back so I can hold it up and I was like oh you know what well I've got this photo open I'm just going to use a little pencil tool you know how you can have tools and so I just selected the pencil and I'm just going to measure the space between my sconces because I could write it in notes but I'm a visual person so I just drew a red line on the picture itself and then I drew in what the dimensions were between the sconces.

20:58Alice:So I knew for sure the frame had to land in between that. And then I gave myself what the height was above my mantle. And so when I was art shopping, it was so helpful just to have that with me. It would be nice for you to have a picture of your room if needed. If there's a sales associate or a designer working there, you could share what you're doing. Generally, a picture is going to be worth a thousand words. You might not have the vocabulary that they have. And so just being able to share an image will give them ideas when you're out shopping, or even will just jog your memory about what's in the space and if this new side table when you're out vintage shopping really will be just the thing to collect it so as you're working on a room i would say take a few photos of the room as it sits and what you're solving for um i mean you can be like cory too and just if it's rad bring it home go for it you'll find a place suz is great at doing that with art i knew i needed a piece that had to fit within the sconces and that had to fit my new vibe I did not come home with anything but I also didn't come home with something that didn't fit because of the one piece I did love I would have had to have removed my sconces to make it fit and so anyway I'm glad that I'm glad that I had that with me and I still have it on my phone so always bring a measuring tape I always keep a ribbon measuring tape in my purse it's on me at all time and then whatever I'm solving for I usually now have pictures with measurements

22:17Brittany:I think what's also fun to do understanding the width and depth of the room yes so if you do stumble upon a really cool rug yeah and it's a 10 by 14 you can't skip me I can fit that in my room yeah so because that's what happened to me yeah I was like oh gosh you I don't know if I can fit a 10 by 14 and lo and behold I had my measurements I was yes I can that's great so anyway and it made

22:38Alice:my measurements do you keep them in your notes on your phone yeah yeah yeah no I have a folder that

22:42Brittany:It just says Call House. And so I'll take a picture. And I usually just use the write-up one where you doodle on it. And so if I have a tape measure in a room, I'll just make sure I have those things on hand. Because it will bite you when you find something that's great. And you're away from home and no one's answering the phone to confirm that. And then someone else buys it and you lose.

23:03Alice:And everybody has one of those stories about the one that got away. Y 'all. You know? Yeah. Oh, there's so much regret. There's so many. And not getting the thing that would have just absolutely brought your entry to life. Yeah. We'll never know. Because we didn't have a measuring tape.

23:18Brittany:Our last point today is not considering the vantage points. Oh. Which I think is the next level from the things that we've been talking about since.

23:28Alice:This is what the pros do. They're definitely going to be solving for getting the right seating arrangement in there. But they're really considering what that room looks like at the approach of the room. where you're going to experience it for the first time. What does that look like? This might be news to people out there. I don't think my dad would even think about things like, I wonder what that would look like from the back. Or if I'm standing at the kitchen island and viewing this room, what does that look like? You know what I mean? The vantage points are really just that first payoff to a really beautiful room and something that we're often solving for, especially if you're going to be seeing two scenes at once.

24:05Alice:Maybe you can see a dining table and beyond that a living room. You really want to understand what those vantage points are. And it's just really, really important to the space plan. I think a master at space planning, if you want to do a study on it, is Thomas O 'Brien. Sue and I will often go to Sentry when we're at market just to walk into his room because he space plans his own room. It's funny, you can often walk through showrooms and they're not always beautifully considered. but when you get to Thomas's space it's like a reverence comes over us just because just stop and study the space planning it's the most beautiful mathematical arrangement of art and

24:43Brittany:design and things fitting effortlessness feels like a party was just had and he left the building yeah yeah and you can see where people have been talking because they're a little just at the angles that things are turned it's not like you're laying it out in CAD yeah where things are at the square and I might throw this on a 45 but like it's it's really something like a tactile art

25:04Alice:it's a lifestyle yeah you feel the lifestyle of of the way somebody would live when you walk into his scene I think Baker does another really masterful job at space planning and it's just an art to just stand in a doorway and just consider the vantage points consider what's happening in front of you and then off to the sides and they're often big open spaces because they're showrooms but they create small conversations within it so there's multiple scenes and we've been able to do this with some of the large spaces that we've worked on for homes we just completed an install and the living room is so vast it has I don't even know how many how many groupings are in it one two three four yeah yeah this is where it really is in art it

25:53Brittany:could grow to six if the party was right move things around and I want to say today the homes

25:59Alice:have gotten bigger and there's there probably should be more than one space plan in a lot of rooms that we see where they just think they can solve for it with one big sectional and getting a couple of chairs really when you're having a conversation you're really just talking with somebody whoever's close by you you could even be having somebody on a sofa next to you who's having a different conversation with someone so the more space plans or the more little groupings you can have the more intimate and cozy even a large room can feel and this is a real missed opportunity in a space so I think vantage points obviously being important and then considering some of those arrangements for conversation is going to give you that real art of the lifestyle I should

26:43Brittany:add this to my definition somehow but there's a romance yeah there's an absolute romance of space planning I think we've all experienced spaces where we've walked in why does this feel so good and like the lighting's right it smells incredible everything's just at the right angle because really by working with it live you know that the lamp that's casting light is going to hit the back of that chair like sculpture in the most perfect way and so there there is an art to it but I do think that it's something that can be learned yes by studying it studying it yeah yeah who are some of the greats who do you like to study for sure Thomas O 'Brien honestly I was thinking about vantage points and I and I know I talk about art galleries a lot but when you think about their room to rooms go to art galleries and they do a really cool job at how they center and that's with one facet of it right that's just with art they sometimes have sculpture and things like that but the way like I often study that where the center of a door is what is that lining up with three rooms down you know because that's considered the color of the rooms that's considered but in furniture for sure Thomas O 'Brien I think Ray Booth does a really good job I think he's probably a student probably of thomas o 'brien also i think kelly worser's just fun just because her her pieces are heroes it's a hero on a hero on a hero and i think that there's so many young cool designers that are coming you know to the forefront with those kind of profiles and it's fun to see these conversations between furniture pieces exist because i do think the whole like thrifted and bringing history with something modern is such a dynamic i'll say trend yeah you know that people are really adhering to and so but you feel it the rooms are what we're seeing right now it's a renaissance for interior design for sure and we've been in a really blah beige stage for a long time and we just needed a real strong injection of color and we're getting it and i think we're getting it on all facets not only color but profiles pattern texture the whole gamut and it's just kind of figuring out what is it that you love and that's how you dress your home yeah Yeah.

28:42Alice:Yeah. With stuff that matters. Yep.

28:44Brittany:And to kind of summarize all of that, I think thoughtful space planning is what separates the good from the great.

28:52Alice:Amen.

28:53Brittany:Or the great from the good rather. So.

28:55Alice:Yeah, I agree. And you know what, if you are an interior designer, I don't know how much time that they spent at the school that you went to on actual space planning. It seems like the technical parts are what's often taught the most, but there's a real decorating layer that comes in when you're building the lifestyle outside of the technicality and getting all of those pieces right and being really good at furniture. I think one of the things that Alice Lane has become is great at furniture because we had a furniture store first. We are always going to market and we are always shopping. We are always experiencing Ray Booth space and Suzanne Kassler space and Thomas O 'Brien's and seeing how furniture is an art form and how they use furniture because they are furniture designers and then also how they're dressing pieces this is a real art in itself and not every designer is good at every part so if you are a designer out there spend some time in furniture this year really make it a romance and and really study the greats and learn how to become awesome at space planning it's really how the house feels at the end of it because you can deliver a big beautiful empty new build but most likely they want you to furnish it and you don't want to phone that in you want to really really spend time romancing it yeah it matters yeah like it's the biggest i think takeaway

30:12Brittany:when you walk into a new home you're just like okay they spend all the money on the windows you know yeah you're gonna get the furniture but that's the stuff you get to live with you know like so really don't make make sure that you pace yourself to make that you can live beautifully at the end of that day yeah yeah agreed yeah so good well you guys if you have

30:33Alice:any episode ideas or questions for us, please send those into dearalice at alicelanehome.com. We'd love it if you'd leave us a five-star review. And go look at your space. See how you can up level it this year. See its potential. Look at those vantage points. Understand if maybe you're missing a lamp or a spot table. It's a really fun exercise. Don't be afraid to steal things from another room. It might just be sitting in, I don't know, a closet. I was so surprised to find a great pair of pillows in a closet the other day at my house or go shopping vintage shopping or otherwise or actually hit up the president's day sale everything's 20 off site wide at alice lane home.com and we'll catch you guys next time

31:27Alice:hey thanks for listening if you like our show please leave a five star rating