How Furniture and Décor Tell Your Story
Our furniture is a witness to our everyday lives, celebrations, conversations, and our growing up and leaving home. The furniture we grew up with connects us to home, family, friends, and reminds us of our dreams, our moments of triumph and the pains we’ve encountered along the way. It has stories to tell. If you’ve inherited old furniture, you know it’s true sentimental value. We don’t often think about how much our physical surroundings interplay with our way of life and impact how we think and feel.
Have you ever entered a room and felt warmly welcomed and at home? Whereas in others it may feel clinical, impersonal, and cold? Then there are the rooms which get the blood flowing, with items that pique curiosity and bring forth the desire to share reminiscences and stories?
What drives those very different visceral reactions? Let’s Break It Down to the 5 Key Components:
- Color Scheme
- Type of Furniture
- Amount of Furniture
- Inclusion of Art
- Type of Art
Craft your event’s story with our furniture and décor rentals: Catalyst Ranch Event Rentals
Color Scheme
Colors have a lot of power. They have a very important role in our lives. It is a visual language understood throughout the world. One of the first choices in decorating is to decide whether you prefer warm vs. cool colors. There is no right or wrong, because the debate over warm vs. cool colors comes down to a matter of preference.
Warm colors: Warm colors are reds, oranges and yellows. They evoke a warm feeling reminiscent of fire-like elements like the sun. Cool colors: Cool colors are violets, blues and greens. They evoke a cool feeling reminiscent of earth elements like water or greenery. In design, cool colors tend to be calming, relaxing and soothing.
The color palette you choose for your home or workspace should be based on your personal color preferences. They should reflect your personality and they must make you feel comfortable when you are using the space. Don’t worry about this season’s color trends. But be cognizant that the color combinations you choose will evoke a different mood and energy. So, you may want to consider how you use the various spaces and the type of energy you would like them to have. Many people worry about picking the wrong colors. I think that we should have some fun. Play with colors – the combinations are infinite. You may find that by doing a bit of experimenting, certain colors make you feel a specific way that you didn’t realize before.
Type of Furniture
The types of furniture in any given room will also impact how someone feels when they are in the space and using the furniture. The first consideration is the material itself which tends to fall into 3 main choices – wood, metal or plastic. Wood in general, tends to make the room feel warmer and cozier. But once again, color matters. A lighter wood evokes one emotion whereas darker, heavier woods tend to take you to the opposite end of the spectrum. Metal furniture tends to scream industrial and cold and generate totally different feelings. And plastic falls somewhere in between.
The second consideration is the shape of the furniture. Rounded edges or sharp corners? Very different moods arise when surrounded by sharp-edged pieces as opposed to rounded items.
Lastly there is scale. The size of the piece of the furniture will stoke different emotions. Smaller and more delicate pieces tend to be perceived as feminine vs. large, over-sized one that signal masculine.
Our collection of unique furniture spans all sizes, eras and origins: Catalyst Ranch Event Rentals
Amount of Furniture
The next thing to consider when designing a room is the amount of furniture that will be needed. You need to make sure that the furniture provides not only a sense of stability, but also a piece of mind and functionality.
According to interior designers, before you even think about furniture, you need to consider the other sizing factors in the room, that includes the ceiling height, window sizes, as well as any doorways that present themselves.
Typically, some like to feature a focal point (where their eye is immediately drawn to) which tends to be the biggest feature. This item could be a picture window, fireplace, or even a built-in bookcase, that’s depicted in the picture below from “Plank & Pillow”.
Once you start acquiring those selected furniture pieces, you’ll then need to figure out how not to feel so cramped in the room. For instance, let’s say you find yourself in large-scale room, you’ll want to typically avoid making the room double the length within that space. You don’t want to be shouting to your friends from across the room, that would be really uncomfortable. As an alternative, just try to visualize your loved ones seated in the furniture and place them where the conversation will feel at ease and can provide everyone with a sense of feeling of ease, and cohesiveness.
Inclusion of Art
Art is an incredible way to add creativity into your home. Not only can it make your room pop, but it can also be interpreted into a million different ways and is appreciated by everyone. Art can also add that pizzazz and make the room feel more complete.
As soon as you find that perfect sculpture or painting, it can help your innovativeness when it comes to deciding your room’s color scheme. The art piece can help enhance your room by being another focal point for you to consider. Again, as mentioned previously, the focal point is where your eye is immediately drawn to. You’ll need to assess the sizing of the room, so that the piece will make sense where it’s placed.
Type of Art
When it comes to ultimately deciding which art piece you’ll want to feature in your room, it really helps to examine your true persona. Art can literally transform your life and really tells who you are as a person to someone else. That person visiting your house can basically tell what kind of person you are just by seeing the art pieces that you have being displayed.
Like previously mentioned above, some of the predominant pieces of art that people display can comprise of sculptures and paintings. Paintings are usually the most considered. There are a variety of art genres to choose from and don’t worry about that. Just choose whichever art piece speaks to you. Because that art piece will be loved and cherished by you for generations to come and be appreciated that you chose to be its owner.
Now ask yourself: What sort of story does your house/apartment/condo and your workspace tell about you?
The above elements we just discussed can also be applied to the more ephemeral and short-lived social event. While it may not be a space you inhabit for more than an afternoon or an evening, the furniture and surroundings you select for your event will also weave a story for your guests.
With many event venues being blank canvases, you have the opportunity to create a special environment for your guests with one-of-a-kind furniture and décor. Your special event can be a rich and immersive experience when you tell your story through wonderful décor.
Our Evocative Event Rentals Add Spark and Story
At Catalyst Ranch we have spent the last 18 years collecting one-of-a-kind pieces – vintage chairs, tables, tableware, lamps, and ethnic rugs. We’ve traveled the world curating art from weavings, to carvings, to paintings, to puppets and ceramics. We’ve carefully picked colors to evoke certain feelings – Mexican hacienda colors in the hallways, joyful oranges and greens in the Jitterbug Room, sunny yellows and oranges in the Samba Room. With our furniture and furnishings, we hope to spark memories of childhood, tap into nostalgia and remind you of all the creativity and boundless imagination that you were capable of when you were young. Our art and ethnic furnishings are there to spark conversations and to encourage diverse thinking.
When we had to downsize our space a bit last year because of the pandemic, we found ourselves putting a fair amount of our collection in storage. Just for the time being. Until we’re in a position to add more space again. But, it’s such a shame for all these carefully collected items to just sit in storage, unloved, unused, forgotten. For many years we’ve been asked to rent out parts of our collection for those events that couldn’t take place at Catalyst Ranch – for outdoor weddings, large fundraisers, corporate events and weddings that exceed our capacity. So now is the right time to share and to help you tell a story at your momentous event.
We know not everyone has good design sense, so we’ve tried to make things easier by putting together curated packages such as:
- Retro ‘70s Floral Patio Set
- Mod Citrusy Kitchenette
- Velvet & Carved Wood Throne Lounge
- Mango Gilded Spindle Seating Set
But we love designing from scratch. So, feel free to tell us about yourselves, your visions for your event, the story you’d like to tell and we’ll put forward some suggestions. There are limitless possibilities of combinations, ensuring that your story will be uniquely yours.
Wheresoever the venue, no matter what the situation, we can offer you the following:
- Exclusive seating areas
- Reception areas & gift tables
- Memorable photo opportunities
- Extravagant lounge areas
There’s so much great furniture out there and you can have your choice of great materials. But, don’t you want to bring that same excitement from your house/apartment/condo and your workspace to your next great celebration? Catalyst Ranch is here to make your furniture event rental dream into a fun and innovative reality. Please visit rentals.catalystranch.com for more information.
See all our furniture and décor available: Catalyst Ranch Event Rentals
Amanda Pink is the Marketing Manager at Catalyst Ranch.
Contact us at (312) 207-1710.
Catalyst Ranch is a unique meeting and events space located in Chicago’s West Loop since 2002, offering Space to Imagine More and solutions for all your in-person, virtual and hybrid gathering needs, including furniture and décor event rentals for wherever your celebration is held.
