Ep: 472 Mastering Scale & Visual Balance with Sarah Vaile

How to Decorate - Ballard Designs

Sarah Vaile shares expert insights on mastering scale and visual balance in interior design, drawing from her journey and practical techniques used in real projects. The podcast explores how size, volume, and proportion

Key takeaways

• Scale affects spatial harmony and emotional response

Transcript preview

Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline, I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taren and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz, I head of the creative team. We're your host. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for designs for tips, tricks and tails from interior designers and other talents in the design world. Plus we'll answer your decorating dile at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions so don't Now on with the show. So today's guest is Sarah Vale, principal of Sarah Vale design. She's known for her bold use of color, her fresh traditional style, and making classic spaces feel lively. After training with design icons in New York, she launched your own Chicago-based firm with projects coast to coast. Today we're going to tackle one of designs trickiest topics. Scale. Sarah, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. This is my first ever. podcast. Oh, well, yay, I listen to them all the time, but I've never done one and I'm like, I feel like this this is gonna be so fun. So I'm really excited. You are welcome to it. It's not. It's not, it's not. Although, yeah. Yes, no judgment from us. We'll pretend I'm in Europe right now. Our first, how many episodes in before we drink every time because it was it was in the evening. We recorded all of our first episodes. every time. So we get it. Now we do them more during daytime, but. Yeah. Yes. You have the most fun job. I love listening to them, but I'm like, oh, this has got to be so fun for you all. It is, we get to ask super talented people like yourself, all of our burning design questions and help us with our own homes. So that's perfect, just like we were talking about. Oh, yeah, it's a great. We're like we were talking about. Yeah, yeah, it's a great. We were like, we were like, we were like, we were like, we were like, we were like, we were like, yeah. Yeah, we were like, we were like, yeah. this free advice. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. Exactly. Before we talk about scale because that is our topic of the day, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your background, how you got into design. We know you worked with, you know, at a couple very well-known design firms before launching your own, but kind of give us a little rundown. Oh my gosh, this could take up the whole hour. It's like when someone's like how did you make your husband? I'm like, well, how much do you want to know, how much do you want to know? It's cool. I like I feel like hopefully this can this can resonate with a lot of listeners because I fell into design in my quarter life crisis I was 27 and I thought I was so old and hadn't just hadn't found my my career path yet and I was still single wasn't married and I was like well shoot I could be doing this for a long time I'm gonna find something that I love and kind of just re-awo woke with this passion for design. So applied to go to Parsons, picked up, left my advertising, corporate world life after, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine like, you know, you're on your own and then all of a sudden you're like a student in New York City I was just like the country mouse in the big city. I just went in so excited and I and I wrote down and I said okay I'm gonna leave here and I'm going to start my own business. I'm gonna do the one year I'm gonna do the accelerated program I'm gonna leave here with my own business in exactly one year. And then it was all of a sudden October 2008. So the world came crashing down. And I'm like, hmm, this is kind of, this is interesting. Now we find ourselves suddenly in a recession. And I'm like in the middle of, you know, the heart of it in New York City. So I actually found that in moments like that there's opportunity. I was basically free in the beginning. I was like, just let me have a chance with your project. And so I was out to dinner with friends and then their friends and one of the gentlemen said, I need a designer like tomorrow. And I was like, well, call me in a year. And he's like, no, I need one like now. And so I woke up the next morning at five in the morning and googled how to start your own business. And I was like, okay, we're off and running, I guess. I guess. And then my next email was to the family accountant and I was like please keep me out of jail. I think that was the subject lying. And I walked into Chase Bank and I was like, okay, I need three accounts like I mean designers and math we don't go together. I was like I need clients money which I cannot touch because it will make me feel very rich but it's foe rich and then my money like for the business and then Uncle Sam's money which I also cannot touch because I really don't want to go to jail. literally how I started my accounting was just like basic like I had every check I'd get I was like okay this is the profit move it there this is for the furniture keep it in there this is for the tax move it here and that was all I did and needless to say we started a new accounting software a few years later but and then I got my first job and it just like took off and then one led to another led to like a project outside of Richmond Virginia and old plantation have been cut up and it was a couple that was a little older and I'm kind of like are you sure you really want to entrust your project to me and they're like we love that you're up and coming this is so exciting and so yeah that was kind of how I went pro so it sort of just happened and then in the meantime I like my last like stars aligned moment is when I first got to New York City I wrote down okay I really want to work for either Kelly Worsler or Celery-Kemble. And then I walked past this hair salon every day on the way to the new school and I'm like, oh, I can't afford this. I'm just like a broke student. And one day I kind of ventured in because they had like some amazing deal, like, you know, 50% off. And I was like, can you highlight? Can you keep me blonde, natural blonde? And I started going. And I said, can I ask who designer salon? And I love it? Celery Kemble? And I'm like, and like, what is like, what is the chance out of like, and I'm like, and I was all of New York City that all of a sudden like, well can you put us in touch? And she's like, yeah, sure, I'll never say no to free help, you know? And all the sudden I'm like in front of my idol just sitting there. But it was such a great training ground, but all these wheels were kind of moving simultaneously where I was just sort of watching her and you know she's got all these kind of like celebrities and big projects and I'm like my biggest takeaway watching her is, she's so nice. deal and still be nice which was not how it was in the advertising world so I was I kind of like modeled so much after her where the girls just loved her and it was such a great camaraderie almost had like a sorority vibe she'd probably agree with that it's been years since I've seen her but but I still keep in touch with the girls that I kind of trained with there and it was a great training ground to kick it off so hope so there are we done is that the whole No, we have so many more questions. No, that was great. I, you know, I think so many people love the work of Salary, um, celery Kimball and there's a lot I think that is reflected in your design too, you know, this ability to make traditional design exciting and fun, um, and to use materials and maybe, um, shapes that we recognize, but to do it in a way that feels, um, different somehow and fresh. I love that about your work in particular. Well, thank you. Yeah. Well, let's talk about scale because this is, you know, we kind of wanted to focus on this for the episode and it's a topic that we get a lot of questions about and I think not only do our design guests bring it up as something that's so important, but our listeners bring it up as something that they struggle with and maybe haven't quite cracked the code on how to master it. So let's start there. You know, why is it that scale is so important? And what does that really mean when someone says, you know, you have to get the scale right? That's kind of the touch to whatever uses. I was laughing. I saw somewhere that like a designer said, all you have to get is the scale right and everything else falls into place. like telling a scientist all you gotta do is figure out electricity and the rest is easy like skill is the single hardest part of design in my opinion like we're still we still I still go into installs and I'm like I wonder if it will all turn out as we envisioned or if there will be a piece that suddenly is in our tag sale is in our spring tag sale which we do account for actually funny enough I finally I don't know if any of you saw breaking bad But there's this one scene where he they get robbed and you know of course it's a very different industry drug dealing and he's like it's breakage you have to account for breakage and I finally like I was like you know what let's just assume something might be off with all the work we put into it and then and then usually whenever you go into it assuming it it turns out perfectly you know it's like the rule of whatever but It's there there are a lot of techniques to get it right, but I don't know if I would say there's it You definitely become more comfortable with with How to spot it and I think most people with the design I can spot if scale feels right because it's basically the balance of shapes? you have the balance of pattern and then you have the balance of shapes and you obviously can't have one giant one that dwarfs one small one so I think most of us can sense when it's right I think the hardest part is knowing how to order it so it's right just probably what you guys are hoping to get for your listeners today I also just think size you know like those size questions of like you know sometimes something needs to be over-scaled to really carry the you know the focal point or the seating arrangement or whatever but then sometimes things to things need to be not you know not under-scale but like right size so it's kind of like when when do we employ those I guess tactics and when are we when can we feel confident that the size is right and then you know the I don't know maybe is that wrong I always think of scale as kind of being more equated to like almost size and like volume right yeah like the volume it's like the balance of volume that's probably a better word see we're better at science and me probably be there but it's yeah it's interesting I think we have a lot of tricks we have a lot of tricks that we've learned over the years but it's yeah it's interesting I think we have a lot of tricks we have a lot of tricks that we have a lot of tricks that we've learned over And we rely a lot on CAD, a lot. We elevate, elevate, elevate, floor plans, elevate. But I realize that that's like, you know, the more technical side of design to have that ability in-house. And there were many years we did not have CAD in-house. So we figured out kind of all the other ways. And I, they honestly worked really well. And we used to go in and we used to go in-house, we used to go in house, we used to go in house and we used to literally tape out the floor plan in the room with blue painters tape and that will get you so far okay you're like okay this is the sort of layout of the room and not you know things generally feel like a good walking distance and whatnot but then there's to your point the volume of was this going to feel sparse compared to this and so then we kind of stepped it up a notch where we're like well it's fill the volume with like boxes or existing furniture where you literally have like chairs in a line that represent the new sofa coming in and then you can kind of be like it just kind of dwarfs a room or it leaves you wanting another piece of furniture or piece of the sofa and so I think like there are lots of sort of tricks. I actually want you was so smart as we heard of a designer who prints out all their light fixtures. Just one dimensional, nothing crazy, and they print it out and then they literally tape it like a sconce up on the wall to be like, is this the right scale for this room? Because light fixtures can be so, so tricky and they can be, you know, the, like, I remember when visual comfort now circle lighting, well no, actually, circle lighting, and, and they can be, you know, first opened a showroom. Oh yeah. We have that same problem with our product too of like how do you add scale to something so people understand when you know it is alone you know it's very obvious around other items that have a relative scale that people know but to your point if anything's up like big scale or small slurgeon scale you are you're like how do I make sure people know. Well I almost think like that there needs to be like a flag on the item. I know. This is larger than average scale. Yeah. We all, right? It's kind of like when you're buying clothes and they'll say like fits true to size. Yeah. Like it's so and for our job it's so hard because we mix a lot of antiques with newer pieces and we all know like the current fashion like the pieces currently being manufactured are at a much bigger scale kind of like restoration hardware and started this like California scale almost. So then you guys these pieces that can be like almost like diminutive when they're part even though the seed height and the dimensions can line up it's just like the feel of it is diminutive next to this almost like plush you know mass next to it and it's just yeah it's very tricky okay I have an idea I feel like you guys have what it takes that you could actually make this happen I'm like why don't they have a holog Imagine if you could put your floor plan in a like Icovias like the CAD that that anybody can access and if you put a floor plan and then you could go in the room like I'm going back to like Star Wars right and you just show me to have like a hologram and all your furniture is shown to real yeah amazing wouldn't that be amazing because it's the hardest part to envision and Yeah, I was like, somebody's got to do this. In the AI world, it can be done. Okay, ladies, we had an architect on the podcast, and now I can't remember who it was, but it was someone on the podcast and they were talking about basically casting their CAD drawings into like a virtual reality headset and then they take their clients into like this big warehouse and they were able to basically walk their product, they're able to basically walk their project, they're and walk the floor plan out in the warehouse so nobody bumps into anything. Right and like you could kind of see like oh this is how big the kitchen island is like this feels too. Mm-hmm because architecturally that's like one of the hardest to get right I mean we as much as like the drawings are produced we have a great architectural team we'll still go on site and be like this store frame feels way too big let's bring it down. but better if you can get it before you get to that part. Yeah, when you're still just in pencil. Yeah, that dirty word change order. So yeah, better if you get it before you get there. That's a cool technology. That would be. Bape though is such a good little like tip or trick though for every like people listening to