Decorating: How to Frame a Picture Perfect View
A photo or painting looks best in a frame, and the same is true of a wonderful vista or long perspective, inside or outside your home...
Whether you look out over a courtyard garden, a city skyline or a wide ocean horizon, the view from your home can be enhanced with clever framing. Just as mounting artwork inside a frame improves its appearance, so framing a view helps us to enjoy and appreciate it more. This can be as simple as painting a window surround or fitting shutters, but the effect can be surprisingly dramatic. When you create a boundary that contains a beautiful view within it, your eye can focus on it more readily and the scene becomes a living artwork.
Of course, views exist within our homes as well as when looking from the inside out, and even something as straightforward as a set of double doors or some bespoke shelving can help the eye make sense of an interior by framing the spaces within it.
To inspire you, here are 13 fantastic views – framed!
Of course, views exist within our homes as well as when looking from the inside out, and even something as straightforward as a set of double doors or some bespoke shelving can help the eye make sense of an interior by framing the spaces within it.
To inspire you, here are 13 fantastic views – framed!
Frame with wood
Keep the nature of your view in mind when working out how best to frame it. The simple wooden walls and window frames of this office space, built in a garden room, are a natural fit with the green garden dotted with trees.
Keep the nature of your view in mind when working out how best to frame it. The simple wooden walls and window frames of this office space, built in a garden room, are a natural fit with the green garden dotted with trees.
Frame with simple shutters
Solid shutters, as opposed to slatted plantation ones, bring a touch of tradition to a home, as they have been used since Georgian times for both privacy and security. Here, simple white wooden shutters provide a neutral frame for the street view.
Discover versatile ways with window shutters
Solid shutters, as opposed to slatted plantation ones, bring a touch of tradition to a home, as they have been used since Georgian times for both privacy and security. Here, simple white wooden shutters provide a neutral frame for the street view.
Discover versatile ways with window shutters
Frame with symmetry
Symmetrical elements in a room bring a sense of calm and order, and dark doors that evenly frame a scene help to give it a neat feel. Here, the view over a small courtyard garden is not wildly exciting, but the glass doors frame it beautifully, with the clock on the garden wall bang in the centre, making the whole effect more grand and elegant.
Symmetrical elements in a room bring a sense of calm and order, and dark doors that evenly frame a scene help to give it a neat feel. Here, the view over a small courtyard garden is not wildly exciting, but the glass doors frame it beautifully, with the clock on the garden wall bang in the centre, making the whole effect more grand and elegant.
Frame with a statement light
When the views from your bathroom are this spectacular, there’s no need to gild the lily. That said, without the statement chandelier, this space could look overly minimal, with the view trampling all over any interior design ideas. Installing a decorative chandelier helps remind us we are indoors, with the view a beautifully framed backdrop.
When the views from your bathroom are this spectacular, there’s no need to gild the lily. That said, without the statement chandelier, this space could look overly minimal, with the view trampling all over any interior design ideas. Installing a decorative chandelier helps remind us we are indoors, with the view a beautifully framed backdrop.
Frame with restraint
Making the most of a knockout view like this is a priority, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the interior should prostrate itself in front of the view! The two can exist beautifully together if you frame the view, however subtly, to highlight where the inside stops and the panorama starts.
Making the most of a knockout view like this is a priority, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the interior should prostrate itself in front of the view! The two can exist beautifully together if you frame the view, however subtly, to highlight where the inside stops and the panorama starts.
Frame with books
Built-in shelving can be installed up to the ceiling and even around a door for a framing effect. Here, even radiators are framed with bookshelves, while black painted doors help to lead the eye through to the dining space beyond.
Explore creative ways to display your books
Built-in shelving can be installed up to the ceiling and even around a door for a framing effect. Here, even radiators are framed with bookshelves, while black painted doors help to lead the eye through to the dining space beyond.
Explore creative ways to display your books
Frame with coloured doors
The blue of the sea is such a feature of this wonderful view, it would be a shame not to pick up on that shade and draw it in. These folding doors have sea-blue frames, helping to blur the boundary between the inside and the vast views beyond.
TELL US...
How do you create perfectly framed views in your home? Share your tips in the Comments below.
The blue of the sea is such a feature of this wonderful view, it would be a shame not to pick up on that shade and draw it in. These folding doors have sea-blue frames, helping to blur the boundary between the inside and the vast views beyond.
TELL US...
How do you create perfectly framed views in your home? Share your tips in the Comments below.
A view isn’t always about looking out – it can exist within a house. Rather than solid walls and doors, this living space has a wall of windows and glass doors. This creates a view through the house, from one room to the next, beautifully bordered by the black steel frames.