Emily Jackson's Family Room Scale

Our friends at McAlpine Tankersley once gave us a practical piece of advice: "Whenever you make a grand gesture, always do something humble right next to it." 

When approaching Emily Jackson's massive family room, we took that nugget of wisdom to heart—over and over again.

As mentioned last week, the volume of Emily’s family room is double story, meaning we needed to tone down the grandeur and let every piece hang out at a lower altitude. We kept the furniture low so nothing competed with the soaring windows. We wanted to let the windows and incredible views do their thing—and boy, do they ever.

Due to the space’s large footprint, we also knew we had to scale the sofa, cocktail table and side tables perfectly. We didn't want any piece of furniture to be too grandiose or too modest. It all needed to sit just right.

To compensate for the room's volume, we pushed together two sectional halves to create a super sofa—more than 13 feet of paradise. It’s deep design fits the entire family.

PSA: If you have a sofa that is really deep—Emily's is over 3 feet deep—a standard side table won't work. It will look like dollhouse furniture.

We chose a side table that not only matches the depth of the sofa, but is equipped with an oversized angular base that diagonals outward, making it appear even bigger.

We topped the table with an impressive lamp for an extra bit of oomph.

The fireplace was another area we paid special attention to when it came to scale. The towering fireplace adds a wow factor to the entire room so we knew we needed to accompany its grandeur with a really simple chair.

The result? A black iron, hair-on-hide chair added the perfect dose of humility to the fireplace moment and ended up being Emily's favorite piece of furniture in the room. Win, win.

Although scale may be the last thing on your mind when pinning your favorite designs or dreaming up house plans, it's one of the first things to consider. Perfectly-scaled furniture, rugs, mirrors and accessories will elevate your space and make it feel like home sweet home.