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in this video i'm going to show you how tofix two of the most common decorating mistakes using visual triangles. of course, first i'm going to need to showyou what a visual triangle is. this is a more advanced strategy, but stickwith me because it will make decorating so much easier for you and i know you can dothis. welcome to home styling 101. i'm jackie hernandez and in this series, i'mgoing to teach you how to arrange your home dã©cor and home accessories. a visual triangle is a way of thinking aboutarranging your dã©cor so that when you look
at it head on, it creates the shape of a triangle. i've got three examples for you here. our three finials are creating a visual triangle. tallest in the middle tapering out to thesides. our stack of books with an object on top isanother type of visual triangle. back here, we've got the globe, the candle,and the vase, that are also creating a visual triangle. you can use visual triangles like these tofix dã©cor that looks haphazard or cluttered. one mistake i often see people make with theirdã©cor is arranging a bunch of things together
that are all too similar in height. the result is a very boxy arrangement withouta lot of visual interest. we want to use the concept of visual trianglesto fix this dã©cor mistake. i'm going to use one of the tricks that ishared in the video about elevating your dã©cor. in this case, i'm going to use two differentheight candle sticks to change the height of these jars. once i've done that, we can rearrange thisdã©cor like so and with that simple change, we've taken what was a boxy lifeless arrangementand created a really nice visual triangle. the second mistake i often see is what i callthe mountain range effect, where all of your
dã©cor is lined up and it goes up and downand up and down creating a mountain range. it's simply because you don't know how tovisually arrange the dã©cor. nothing is wrong with any of the dã©cor uphere and it can all look great together, you just have to know how to arrange it. this mountain range effect happens a lot onshelves, mantles, and when you're trying to work in picture frames. let me show you in this example how to usevisual triangles to fix the mountain range effect. you want to start with your tallest objectin the center and then you're going to taper
out to the sides. we're going to take the second tallest finialsand move him over here. in this scenario, these frames are basicallythe same size, and i want to change it up a little bit, so i'm going to use a platerack to give this guy a little bit extra height over here. when we do that, he becomes the second talleston that side and we're tapering out. we'll put this guy here, and you don't haveto quite be literal about putting the shortest things on the ends of your arrangement, youcan layer them in the front a little bit, but we still have an overall visual trianglehappening here.
just with those few teaks, we already havea much better looking arrangement. once you get your basic visual triangle figuredout, you can play around with the staggering and don't be afraid to stagger your itemsand layer them a little bit to create some more interest and depth in the arrangement. that's how you fix the mountain range effectwith visual triangles. there's two more advanced tips i want to quicklytouch on about visual triangles. when i taught you to create a visual triangle,i showed you how to make a symmetrical visual as you get more practice and get a littlemore advanced, i want you to try creating asymmetrical visual triangles as well.
that's where your tallest item is off to oneside and you taper down to the other side. this type of arrangement also looks reallygreat. the second type is for arrangements that youcan see from all sides like on a coffee table or a dining table. it's helpful to think of a visual cone insteadof a visual triangle. put your tallest item in the center and thenyou want to taper out radiating around that piece creating a visual cone. visual triangles bring visual order to yourdã©cor. i want you to try using visual triangles everywhere.
from your night stands, to your dining table,to your book shelves. this video was just an introduction to visualtriangles, and we're going to talk about them more again later in this series. now, download the try this at home stylingrecipe with detailed instructions so that you can try this tip in your home.