Accent Furniture Shopping Guide

A room just isn't finished without decorative accent furniture. Sure you can have all your main furniture pieces, but unless you start adding a few special decorative pieces, it might as well be a showroom floor instead of the place where you live. It's those finishing touches that really make a room your home, and not just a page in a magazine.

There's a balance to choosing decorative accents for your house. If you overdo the accents you are going to look like the old curiosity shop, with things piled all over the place, and not looking quite right.

You need to make sure your accents create a home, not a mess. Before you start shopping, look around the room. What does it need? What areas of the room look sterile, stiff, or cold? These spaces need a little bit of softening up.

If there is a large portion of a wood or tile floor that is open, you may be able to soften it, and accent the room, with an area rug that goes with the style of the rest of the room.

Too much open wall space can make a room look as if you haven't lived in the home long enough to put anything up. In addition to pieces of art or family photos there are plenty of other things you can use to take up a little wall space. What about a decorative accent piece such as a tribal mask for a room that has a safari theme? If you would like the accent to be functional, as well as beautiful, what about adding a nicely decorated clock?

Unless you are going for a modern décor theme, you don't want too much open floor space in the room. Sure you can have an open floor plan. We're not suggesting cluttering your floor with items just to fill it up, but near the edges of your furniture you may want to add accent pieces that leave a soft finish to your furniture groupings. Decorative chests, a large vase, and other items of the sort will fill this role.