This is not to dismiss the value and fun of swiping through these images, just take them with a grain of salt. The important thing to remember is that your space should be designed for living, first and foremost. If you are designing for a two-dimensional vignette, part of the spatial ambiance is lost. We live in three dimensions, so your space should be considered in such.
Movies are a little better indication of space because stories, as in real life, are the main show. Movies track movement in real-time and show space for what it really is: background. It’s not the main event. It can assist and enhance, but it is not the focus.
As you move around a room, flat backgrounds morph into dramatic angles, objects in the foreground may momentarily drift across your view, light bounces off of things in different ways from different vantages. The time of day changes how a space looks too. So watch some movies and see what you like.
And by movies I don’t mean design-y favorites like Diamonds Are Forever and Gattaca, unless you are designing your own personal lair. I mean regular movies or TV shows. Like ModernFamily or Parenthood. Of course, movies also stylize and fetishize space, featuring dark backgrounds that don’t clash with the actor’s eyes or some other vague metric. But it’s a little more accurate than a still shot.
So even better yet, experience some friends’ homes that you like and have a conversation about what works. The architecture should almost be invisible in spaces that are really great. All you may notice is comfort, light, and the people you’re with.
Adapted from an excerpt from House to Home: Designing Your Space for the Way You Live by Devi Dutta-Chowdhury (Roost Books, an imprint of Shambhala Publications © 2020)