I look at a lot of photos of other people's rooms. Enough that I've stopped being surprised by what's usually wrong with them.

Eight times out of ten, there’s just too much going on.

That's a hard thing to tell someone, because every piece of design advice they've ever been given points the other way.

Room feels flat? Add a plant. Feels cold? Add a rug, some cushions, a lamp in the corner.

The whole industry runs on the assumption that a room you're unhappy with needs another purchase.

Sometimes that's true. Plenty of the time the room already has everything it needs, and the real problem is that none of it can be seen properly.

Photography by Madeleine Burke (left)

When everything competes, nothing wins

Think of a shelf in your house that's carrying a bit too much. You probably couldn't list half of what's on it from memory, and when you walk past, your eye slides over the lot without stopping anywhere.

Now think of a big vase sitting on a console on its own. You can picture that one straight away.

Nothing about the vase is better than the things on the shelf. It just isn't fighting anything for your attention.

That's the whole point of negative space. You decide what you want noticed in a room, then clear enough space around it that it actually gets noticed.

Everything you leave in that doesn't earn its spot is quietly taxing the things you love.

Two places this is easy to try

If you've got a big blank wall, you're tempted to fill it to the brim. Go the other way and hang one large piece instead. Let that one piece shine.

For surfaces, use the styling trick that changed how I work. Take everything off, right down to bare.

Then put back the single most substantial piece that means something to you, whether it's a big vase, a photo, or a lamp.

Step back, look at it from across the room, then add one more thing and look again.

Keep going, and you'll reach a point where the next item you set down makes the whole arrangement worse instead of better, and that's where you stop.

Most people never find that point, because they never clear the surface in the first place. They just keep adding to what's already there.

The Japanese have a word for this

Ma (間) is roughly the interval between things, the pause between one object and the next.

Japanese design treats that emptiness as a deliberate part of the composition, worth as much thought as the objects sitting either side of it.

Western decorating instinct tends to read a gap as a job you haven't got round to yet. That difference is most of why some homes feel calm, and others feel like they're shouting at you.

Editing beats buying

The awkward part is that adding feels like progress. Taking something away feels like you did nothing at all, even when it's the move that actually fixed the room.

But it costs you nothing, you can do it this afternoon, and if you're wrong you just put the thing back.

So before you buy anything else for a room that's bothering you, walk through it with an empty box and take the five things you'd miss the least. Stick the box in a cupboard for a fortnight.

Some of it will come back out, and that's fine. Whatever you don't go looking for was the thing making the room feel wrong.

Fashion worked this out long before decorating did. Coco Chanel had a rule about getting dressed: "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off."

She was talking about a second necklace, but it works just as well on a mantelpiece.

Cheers,

Reynard