Accent chairs are a great way to create a colour scheme or decorating aesthetic in your room. Should accent chairs match? Don’t make this common mistake when choosing an accent chair.
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This post is written by my Senior Colour Designer, Tricia Firmaniuk while I sit by the pool in Positano!
Cobalt blue accent chairs bring this room by Miles Redd to life
My pet peeve about accent chairs is always the fabric they are covered in when you buy a set in a big box store. Always some weird swirly, modern fabric that cannot be coordinated with ANYTHING.
Left a bossy generic pattern, Right a timeless, versatile print from Ballard Designs
My advice is DON’T DO IT.
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Read on to find out what Tricia has to say:
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The word “Accent” according to Oxforddictionaires.com, is “A feature which gives a distinctive visual emphasis to something”.
And in my mind, an “accent chair” is a piece that draws attention in a room, an emphatic expression of the colour scheme or aesthetic of the space. Makes sense right?
Pink accent chair in Natane Boudreau’s NYC Apartment
Was I ever shocked and dismayed when I had to go to a half dozen home decorating stores recently in search of a fun, colourful accent chair for a vignette I wanted to create.
Let me just tell you that I was met with a bland wash of shades of taupe, gray and linen chairs on offer everywhere.
Now of course, if I was shopping online, and I had some time to order something custom, I would have had options, but I wanted to buy it, toss it in my truck and create my vignette. I was on a mission. I know there is much to be said for patience and planning, but you know, sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way ????
The image I held in my mind was of a pretty print of some kind, maybe in blue or green, pink or coral, something with some colour and interest that I could base my image on like this fun chair below.
Ok, this is probably too fabulous to find off the shelf but one can dream. Giant Peony by GP & J Baker
But by the third or fourth store I was becoming despondent. The best I could find was a grayed teal.
Here’s the vignette I came up with which was much more demure in colour than I had hoped (below).
My favorite sculpture by artist Susan Owen Kagan, modern brass pharmacy lamp here. Chair from Homesense
It took my mind reluctantly back to Economics 101, you know, basic supply and demand? And I got all contemplative and thought, people must just not be buying colour and prints, otherwise, surely, the stores would be offering them?
Just a theory guys, tell me it’s not true?
Yalani Stripe Angelina Chair Anthropologie
So here’s the thing, let’s say you decided to go with a safe, neutral sofa, (I admit I have a big space in my heart for a classic light canvas colour sofa, and warm cognac leather ones too), and now you need a pair of chairs to go with it (because we all know better than buying the matching loveseat right?)
What do you do? It looks like a good lot of people (according to my hackneyed interpretation of a highly oversimplified theory of economics) must be deciding, “I know, I’ll get pair of gray/linen/taupe accent chairs”, and I assume it’s because committing to blue/green/pink ones seems terrifying right? But this is false logic (according to my patchy recollection of Logic 101), because gray/linen/taupe is a colour too!
And you’ve just committed to it. And what’s worse, you now have diminished opportunities to introduce a more interesting and happy colour into your room! Ack, that wasn’t the idea!
If you’re still with me, here’s the thing my colour designer heart wants to share to save us all from too much gray and taupe: before you buy your main pieces for your room, it’s a good idea to dream up some idea of the colours you would like to use, not after you buy the bulkiest pieces that will take up the most visual space.
And this is because when I see a gray “accent” chair, I see a missed opportunity for delicious colour or pattern.
These blue chairs make this room by Jeffery Bilhuber
Can a neutral sofa and neutral chairs work? Of course they can, but it’s harder to pull off and it’s much more fun to make a statement, ahem, create an accent with some colour or pattern I think ????
If your heart is sinking reading this, because you’ve just bought all neutral furniture, don’t despair! You can still get some large scale colourful art or a nice area rug in colour, all is not lost. However, it’s not likely that you will get enough colour to make your room feel pulled together out of a few pillows and vases.
Source
Maria has said this many times on the blog, and that is to introduce an accent colour successfully, you will need to add it in large, medium and small gradations.
The drapes give a large dose of green in this otherwise neutral room Source
What qualifies as large? Your sofa, drapes, an area rug, a piece of art that is almost as tall as you, or yes, a pair of fabulous accent chairs!
Medium? A piece of art the size of my dog Mabel, a decent sized collection of vases (like 5 or 7), an ottoman, an accent table, a set of toss pillows.
My sweet Mabel
And items you can call on to represent your accent colour in small doses are smaller artworks, single vases or vessels, a lamp etc.
But if you ask a bunch of small and even medium pieces to add colour to a room, you will end up with colour that looks bitty, and comes off tentative and uncommitted.
Colour is a commitment, once you walk through that door, there is no going back (at least for a few years), but it’s better to make a choice and open a door than to stand in the all gray lobby which really is nowhere yet.
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Thanks Tricia, I couldn’t have said it better myself!
There is much more of course to choosing an accent chair such as shape and scale, but first, it’s important to be thinking about colour.
If you would like help pulling together your room, check out our Get Me Started eDesign decorting package here.
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There’s always a lot to think about when it comes to classroom seating arrangements. Should you arrange students in pods? Separate them out in a grid? What about flexible seating? Is it a hot trend you should avoid or jump right in on?
How will your classroom seating arrangements affect student learning, and what the heck do you do when a new kid (or kids) moves in and changes the number of kids in your room?
Take a breath! The teachers on the Teach Starter team have examined the science behind seating arrangements and popular student desk set-ups. We’ve also considered the rules and regulations around preferential seating to ensure that your students with IEPs are best served by their spot in the classroom. Read on for suggestions for setting up your classroom desks, tables and more!
At the end of the day, this is the question teachers always ask, isn’t it? Will moving little Johnny or little Shante’s seats be a good thing for their academic success?
As you know, seating arrangements in the classroom are about a lot more than picking a style that looks aesthetically pleasing or even picking one that works with the size of your class list and the size of your classroom. Studies have shown that where a child sits in class can affect everything from their motivation to their class participation, as well as their relationship with you as a teacher, relationships with classmates, and — of course — learning.
How you set up your classroom desks can also affect your own pedagogy. Thinking of setting up stadium-style seating? You may not mean it, but the studies show you could end up spending more time lecturing to your students with less involvement from them. Thinking of a roundtable-type seating arrangement? The opposite is likely to be true — your students will likely be more actively involved, and your classroom learning environment will be more student-led.
So how do you choose? We’ve put together some seating arrangements to consider in your classroom — from pods to the increasingly popular flexible seating — along with how they might work (or not) for you.
Before you plan out any seating arrangements for your classroom, it’s important to first take a look at your students’ IEPs. Does anyone in your class have stipulations about where they should be seated for the best learning environment?
Often called preferential seating, these accommodations are made to give students with specific needs the ability to see, hear, and participate in classroom activities in the same ways as their peers who don’t have disabilities. A child who has a hearing disability, for example, might be required to sit nearer the teacher to be able to hear what’s being said, while a child who is easily distracted might need a spot out of the line of sight of the classroom door. These seating arrangements for kids with IEPs aren’t just suggestions. It’s a federal law, so make sure you abide by them.
It’s also wise to consider the needs of students who do not have IEPs when planning your seating. A child with glasses, for example, may not have an official plan, but you may realize they really need a seat closer to the front of the classroom.
Likewise, there may be students who really should not be seated near one another, whether it’s because they’re too likely to talk or simply do not get along. If your class is brand-new to you, these are things you’ll find out as the school year progresses — don’t be afraid to change up your seating arrangement!
Once you’ve taken students’ individual needs into consideration, how do you arrange all of those classroom seats?
Here are some pros and cons to eight different classroom desk arrangement ideas that have been tried and tested by teachers in the know. Obviously, there are a number of factors that will influence the seating arrangement that will work in your classroom. The main struggle is, of course, considering the size of the classroom, number of students, and the furniture you have.
This list has something for every teacher and every classroom … we hope!
Grouping of student desks in a variety of numbered groups is often known as seating students in ‘pods’.
This setup, of course, lends itself really well to a classroom that does a lot of group work and collaboration. Also, if you are a teacher who finds the competition of ‘group points’ works well to keep your students on task, this desk layout is a winner!
Browse our classroom organization resources for posters, worksheets and much more!
Cons to ‘pods’ desk configuration include:
Let’s face it, in a classroom of 30 or so students, there are going to be a variety of learning styles and learning requirements. One way to combat this is to mix up the desk arrangement and try to cater to a variety of learning styles and needs.
Another classroom management technique using this desk configuration is to not have ‘set’ desks.
A bit like flexible seating, students can move around to the desk configuration that is going to work for them for different subject areas. This may be more teacher-directed than student-directed. If you have a small group of students that need a lot of teacher assistance for one subject area you can get them to sit in a desk arrangement such as the small U shape and position yourself in the middle of the U.
The obvious con of this arrangement is that students may not like to be sitting in a different configuration from their peers. Also, can you cater to every students’ learning needs?
Flexible seating is not a new concept. Teachers either love this concept or they don’t. Again, it really depends on the students in your class and what works best for them.
Flexible seating gurus say that this form of classroom ‘un-seating’ better reflects the hyper-connected and ever-changing world we live in. It inherently requires students to master skills such as flexibility, creativity, problem-solving and collaboration.
This kind of seating arrangement is an absolute classroom change. If you are thinking of changing to flexible seating, it may be an idea to have a bit of a trial period to see if this sort of layout is going to work for your class. Have one ‘different’ flexible seating option available and see if it’s something your students will be able to cope with and will improve their learning environment.
This layout is one that I often used in my classrooms. It had the benefits of easily managing small group work without students being squashed together and meant they had a bit more personal space.
This layout was also beneficial for me, as the teacher, as I could easily go around and check work and check in on individual students. I would often position my chair in the middle of one of the ‘U’ shapes to have small discussions with each group when needed.
Again, a con to this set-up would be you will have some students not ‘facing’ the whiteboard and others that are facing the whiteboard, however, may have other students’ heads in the way of their viewing of the whiteboard.
The traditional desk in rows is still an option, especially if you do a lot of board work.
Obviously, this layout doesn’t cater very well to small group/collaborative learning. However, if you have space in your classroom, you may be able to set up a variety of other group work areas in the classroom and save the desks for individual work. All students in this desk layout will face the board, and it lends itself to easily moving the desks to cater to test conditions if required.
When the desks are in rows, it is often easier for the teacher to see who is on task as well. However, if you do have a lot of students in your class, this layout could put some students a fair way away from the whiteboard and the front of the class.
A slight deviation to the desks in rows, stadium-like seating is another option that may work, particularly for older kids. This classroom seating layout again makes it easier for the teacher to see if all students are on task as the desks are angled to one point in the classroom. This layout also uses less floor space and, as we know, some classrooms are very, very small. The more floor space you can get the better, am I right?
This layout won’t suit a classroom that does involve a lot of group work/collaboration, and it can often turn the teacher into a lecturer.
This desk arrangement concept was another one of my favorite layouts for the classroom. This classroom seating layout caters well to whole-class discussions and enables students the ability to easily see their classmates and interact with them during discussions.
This layout is similar to the small u-shapes in that each desk is easily accessible by the classroom teacher. Again, this layout doesn’t work well for small group work, but students can still work in pairs with the person beside them if required.
If you are struggling with a small classroom, this Double E shape may just be the desk layout that will work for you. This desk configuration creates two smaller carpet areas in the middle of the desks, which would provide some space for small group work as well.
Again, this layout makes it easier for the teacher to get around and help out individual students. This layout also allows for a little flexibility in that if you have particular students that really need to face the whiteboard you can make sure they are facing the front of the classroom.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website Double Student Chair.