Ann Moore Spencer

Three is a crowd. That's a pop­u­lar say­ing. But in dec­o­rat­ing, 3 is es­sen­tial. For you next dec­o­rat­ing project, just re­mem­ber the rule of three. Every­thing looks bet­ter in 3s. The cen­tral con­cept be­ing that arrange­ments or group­ings in odd num­bers are more ap­peal­ing, mem­o­rable, and ef­fec­tive than group­ings of even num­ber of ob­jects. Don't get me wrong, the clas­si­cal pair­ing and bal­anc­ing of 2 el­e­ments is a very com­fort­able and sym­met­ri­cal bal­ance that looks and feels right. Odd num­bers, how­ev­er, can be more vi­su­al­ly in­ter­est­ing. If you are look­ing for a more so­phis­ti­cat­ed, com­plex and pro­fes­sion­al fin­ish to your dec­o­rat­ing re­mem­ber the rule of 3.

In de­sign, the rule serves as a tool for build­ing dra­ma and pro­gres­sion in a space. It is al­so more func­tion­al. Con­sid­er the work tri­an­gle in a kitchen, the tri­an­gle arrange­ment of am­bi­ent light, colour se­lec­tions in a room, pat­tern choic­es, for in­stance. All built on a foun­da­tion of 3. To en­sure a well-bal­anced room, one of the tricks I use is to di­vide the space in­to 3 ver­ti­cal­ly. I con­sid­er the floor lev­el, mid­dle lev­el and the zone be­tween the eye­lev­el and the ceil­ing. I en­sure that there is enough vi­su­al weight in these 3 zones; I en­sure that colour dis­tri­b­u­tion is bal­anced in these zones, for in­stance. I al­so con­sid­er a hor­i­zon­tal split: the right, left and mid­dle of the room. I en­sure that there is bal­ance in each sec­tion.

Now this is but one dec­o­rat­ing rule. There are many oth­ers. Please do not try to arrange every­thing in your home in groups of 3s. What I have pre­sent­ed is mere­ly a guide­line and may not be ap­plic­a­ble in all cir­cum­stances. In fact, oth­er rules may be more ap­plic­a­ble. But most im­por­tant - What you love, what feels right, what makes you hap­py � that is the most pro­found rule of all.

Colour

I am sure you re­mem­ber my rec­om­men­da­tion of cre­at­ing in­ter­est in a space by us­ing 3 colours in the 60:30:10 pro­por­tions. Use the main colour on your larg­er sur­faces such as the walls or floors. Use the sec­ondary colour on large ac­cent pieces or fur­ni­ture, such as the so­fa or bed. The ac­cent colour can be used in ac­ces­sories such as pil­lows, vas­es and paint­ings. The ac­cent colour is what gives the room that 'prover­bial' pop of colour. But to suc­cess­ful­ly use the 'pop of colour' con­cept, that colour should be pop­ping at least 3 times in the room. Space the items out in the room to en­cour­age the eye to un­con­scious­ly trav­el around the room. Ac­cent walls are some­times used to achieve that pop of colour. For that ac­cent wall to feel one with the space, and not stick out like a sore thumb, you should re­peat that colour 2 more times in the space. So look for op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­peat­ing the colour with ac­ces­sories such as ac­cent chairs, lamps, vas­es, etc.

Odd Num­bers

In dec­o­rat­ing, the rule of three ex­pands to odd num­bers, so group­ing to­geth­er items of 3, 5, and 7, is a good guide­line. If the sur­face or space you are work­ing with is larg­er, switch the num­ber from 3 to 5 items when ac­ces­soriz­ing. If you have col­lec­tions of things you love con­sid­er 3 groups of 3, 5, or 7. The group­ing of 3 even num­bers al­so looks ok. Con­sid­er 3 group­ings of 2 lights over a large kitchen is­land. Per­son­al­ly, I would just pre­fer 3 larg­er pen­dant lights. In the pho­to ob­serve the vi­gnette com­pris­ing of 3 group­ings of 1 starfish, 3 vas­es (3 dif­fer­ent sizes and height), and 5 flow­ers in a vase. Odd num­bers just work. When work­ing with odd num­bers noth­ing is pre­dictable. As long as the weight of the ob­jects is even­ly dis­trib­uted the arrange­ment will be pleas­ing to the eye.

Ac­ces­sories

The com­mon group­ing of 2, while ef­fec­tive, can be very pre­dictable and 'matchy'. It is a sol­id group, but less in­ter­est­ing. Add an­oth­er el­e­ment to the group­ing. Try group­ing your ac­ces­sories in 3s. You can add a bowl or a plant to the pair of items to avoid mak­ing it look too 'matchy'. Use 3 dif­fer­ent sizes, heights, colours,etc. In this pho­to, the clas­si­cal 2 vase arrange­ment is var­ied by in­sert­ing a 3rd vase in an­oth­er colour. This ad­di­tion makes the group­ing more in­ter­est­ing.

Arrange­ment

The vas­es are of dif­fer­ent heights. In the case of the clear vase, height is added with the sub­tle use of a book. The vas­es are al­so of 3 dif­fer­ent sizes, im­per­cep­ti­bly adding to the com­plex­i­ty and in­ter­est of the group­ing. While ar­rang­ing the vas­es in a line is a valid op­tion, no­tice that the tri­an­gu­lar group­ing adds more depth and im­por­tance to the group­ing. Look fur­ther and you will no­tice that the vi­gnette is ac­tu­al­ly an arrange­ment of 3 � the mir­ror, the set of vas­es and a flo­ral arrange­ment, bare­ly vis­i­ble on the side. In gen­er­al, seek to add depth by lay­er­ing items (short in front) and en­gage the eyes with var­i­ous ma­te­ri­als, shapes, sizes, tex­tures and colours.

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