It’s so lovely to walk into a home and be welcomed by a decorative piece that is inviting and sets the scene for the rest of the home. Not only that, consoles are incredibly functional as well, so I’m going to share with you some ways to decorate and create a beautifully welcoming console in your hallway (or whichever room your console may be).
Some ideas on how to decorate your console table:
- The key is to create balance with height at one end and lower items at the other. It’s also good to collate things together in odd numbers. An idea is to use a tray for assembling pieces together such as candles, small trinkets or even a photo frame combined with other elements.
- Decorative lighting adds a really nice touch, so either a pendant light over the console as a feature piece (not centred), or a table lamp placed on the left or right of the console. This not only provides entry mood lighting, it’s a functional light to leave on when out, or when people are coming to your home. It creates a warm welcome.
- You can’t go past botanical elements – either greenery in the form of a plant, cuttings from the garden or flowers. They all add warmth, colour, and incorporating elements of nature in your home creates a sense of calm and homeliness.
- Stacked books with a trinket on top look lovely. They can be varied in size, and again, stack in odd numbers.
I find a console with practical features is imperative to make it work as hard as possible for you. I always suggest a console with storage (normally one or two drawers). As it’s normally the first (and last) piece of furniture people encounter when leaving or coming home, it’s important to store essentials such as keys, sunglasses and wallets in the drawers to keep them out of sight, and you always know where they are!
And above the console?
Above the console is also really important. The wall could be decorated with a feature wallpaper and act as the background to the decorative items on the console itself. A plain wallpaper with texture could be added, combined with something hung on the wall.
A painting or mirror is also perfect (be sure to hang it at eye height), and it doesn’t necessarily have to be centred! You can create height at one end, and then place the mirror or painting to the right of left of where the height is. This makes things more interesting with an asymmetrical layout.
A pendant light is also something that can be hang over a console (to one side, not centred).
Any of these pieces are the main hero piece, so balance is created by decorating around these hero pieces.
Have some fun with it by moving things around, try different items such as shells, vases, geisha dolls or other things from your travels. You can create a theme by clustering like items together.
Whatever it is, experiment, mix things up and enjoy!
