Finding Balance in Your Home
 
Balance is that ineffable quality that allows us to maintain the middle path in life. It protects us from going too far in any one direction, and keeps us at the apex of all choices. Finding balance in the home is important, because environment affects action and thought. Failure to maintain equilibrium in your personal space is an invitation to chaos and excess throughout your life.
 
Balance in the home can refer to a number of things. There is the tender balance that must be maintained between the various people who live in the space. There is also the physical symmetry of each room, and the way objects are placed within a setting. However upsetting balance almost always has the same effect, chaos and confusion.
 
When attempting to create balance between the needs of the various people in a home you will have to employ powers of both compromise and choice. Compromise is best when it employs creative solutions to make all parties happy. For instance, if the kids want to leave their toys in the living room because they want to use the space for a play area, but the adults want to keep the room peaceful and empty, a good compromise would be to use attractive hardwood toy bins. These can house the toys when the adults need to relax, leaving them easily in reach for when its time to play. It is also a good way to teach the kids responsibility for keeping their toys picked up.
 
Unfortunately you won't always be able to reach such an agreeable solution. In some cases you will have to make a choice, deciding between two parties in a relatively absolute manner. This is important however, because space is a limited commodity in the home, and if you try to please everyone too much the whole house can become cluttered and messy.
 
The other major type of balance in the home has to do with the physical location of objects. If a room doesn't have a vague sort of symmetry to its layout, the space will feel lopsided, and be disorienting. Try to imagine a space where everything was piled up against a single wall. It would be a really weird room.
 
You can achieve exact balance in a space by simply having two's of every item, which you can place opposite one another in the space, kind of like creating a mirror effect. This is a traditional decorating principle, and throughout history has often been the ideal of decorating specialists. 

However, today many decorators are moving away from exact symmetrical balance to a more complex asymmetrical system. This involves creating balance by using items of different heights, shapes, and colors. Large items are balanced against smaller ones which are given greater decorative "weight" through the use of rich textures, or dark colors. You can also balance multiple small items over a stretch of space against a single large object on an opposite wall.
 
Balance is a vital element to a healthy and happy life. In the home, balance will consist of finding the happy medium between the needs of different people, as well as achieving symmetry in the physical items within the space. By ensuring that your home has a happy balance, you will help to instill moderation and clarity in both yourself, and those you love.
 
This article was written on behalf of PebbleZ's line of rustic stone home décor products, and was written by artist and style philosopher Joey Pebble.