Throughout architectural history, few structures have been as ubiquitous and persistent as the mighty column. Its primary use has mainly been to provide structural support for buildings. However, there are also tons of ways they can be used as design elements to enhance the aesthetics and functionality of your construction. Here we share with you 9 tips for incorporating columns in your architecture.
1. Consider the Room Design Plan
If you building your own home, consider discussing with your architect how you will use the space in your room and see if they can incorporate the columns accordingly. This will prevent the predicament of having a finished home where the columns are stuck in the most importune of places. Not only would that look and feel aesthetically unappealing but also hamper proper furniture placement. This brings us to our next tip.
2. Make the Columns the Focal Point of Your interior Layout
In exterior design, columns tend to take the center when it comes to attention to aesthetics. There is no reason why the same philosophy cannot be applied to your interior layout. Think of columns as a defining feature of your indoor space.
Instead of leaving them bare-boned and jarring to look at, consider coloring them and utilizing columns wraps that complements the overall aesthetics and flooring of your room respectively. For example, if you have a room with red walls and wooden flooring, consider painting your columns black and using wood for your column wraps that extend one-third of the whole structure.
In addition, consider aligning your furniture around the columns to reduce the conflict within the overall aesthetics.
3. Align the Column Design With the Theme of Your House
To reduce the risk of aesthetical conflict in the design of your home, it is vital to consider that the columns you are incorporating match the theme and style of your home. After all, who would find it pleasing to place brutalist columns at the deck of a gothic mansion?
While most people won’t make a mistake of such extremes, it can be very easy to not notice a subtle difference at first between two competing architectural styles and end up choosing columns that don’t feel aligned with the rest of the design.
Consider asking your architecture or a home design expert on what type of columns will best complement the theme of your entire home.
4. Consider the Material
Just as with the architectural styles, the materials used to build the columns can be just as important in making them blend with the look and feel of your home. For a modern and urban loft, steel columns are most suitable while for an old Victorian residence, wooden columns feel most natural indoors.
Due to its affordability, longevity, and ability to match the look and feel of other materials, fiberglass is quickly gaining popularity as a building material. Fiberglass columns enjoy wide acceptance with many architectural themes today.
5. Add of Dose of Luxury to Your Interior
Just the proper placement of intricate columns with decorative capitals and elaborate detailing can greatly help in giving your room a more opulent atmosphere. Of course, this doesn’t mean purchasing expensive and heavy columns made of marble or stone: synthetic stone columns can mimic the appearance of these more premium materials while costing you many times less.
6. Make it Green
Columns can also make excellent vertical spaces to grow your plants on. There are plentiful ways you can use columns to add a green touch to your home exterior. You can allow vines and ivies to grow around the columns and create with them a living green wrap the structure. You can also hang potted plants on them and enhance their appearance. Or, you can even do a combination of both!
If you are unsure on what plants would be right now to grow around your columns, consider taking the help of a landscape designer for the purpose.
7. Don’t Be Shy of Employing Faux Columns
While the main purpose of columns is to act as a support structure, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be employed purely for aesthetics. Columns are superb design elements for enhancing the looks of entryways and foyers and add definition to large indoor spaces such as halls. For the outdoor, use them to create beautiful colonnades or employ them as visual focal points to break up spaces.
8. Think Outside the Box
Creative architecture is all about letting your imagination run wild. Need a place for putting all your books? Turn your indoor columns into one! Don’t have room on the walls to create an entertainment center? The column is prime real estate.
9. Understand the Permanence of Columns
Unless you are placing them outdoors as freestanding structures, columns aren’t something that you can just remove and place elsewhere while renovating your home. When installing columns, keep in mind that they can be difficult and costly to remove without presenting the risk of damaging your house structure in the process. Incorporate columns in your home design in a way that adds versatility so that you don’t end up regretting them later if your personal taste and preference change with time.
Need high-quality columns for your home or gardens? Royal Corinthian is at your service! Call us today on our toll-free number 888-265-8661 or email us at [email protected] to learn more about our great products or any queries that you may have.
