The ceiling or floor can be a focal point, as can a beautiful piece of furniture.

You could place a cabinet or entertainment center at an angle in a corner. Then look at another corner -- add a chair with a standing lamp.

You could hang a vertical row of painting, prints or photos.

Add a ceiling medallion to a chandelier.

You could add a wonderful area rug with a seating area. Add a coffee table with a pretty bowl filled with flowers.

Why do you need a focal point, really? What you want the focus of the room to be is the fulfillment of its purpose.

So,if it is a living room, I am thinking that this is a place where people gather to converse/socialize. Arrange your seating so that you have a main grouping of seating that says to people ”Come on in, sit down here and let’s talk”. Make in comfortable and welcoming, at touches of color and interesting lamps, art, etc and you are set!

Of course, if you have a television around which your seating is arranged, and that is a major activity in the space, there is your focal point. :-)

Hi Kjmama.

Les917 asks the right question: why do you need a focal point? Sure, some successful rooms have them, but others don't, and they're certainly not a requirement of a good looking room--or a beautiful landscape, or whatever. Ask yourself: what is the focal point of a flower-strewn meadow? Or a pine forest in the snow? When is the last time you heard someone say about a sunny beach "It's nice, but there's no focal point." It doesn't matter, and anybody who thinks it does has been been watching too many TV decorating shows.

Often, though, when people talk about a room's focal point, what they're really talking about is just a big piece of furniture or a big painting or a fireplace, but as Les917 points out, in most homes, the actual focal point--versus the alleged focal point--is the TV anyway, and if you don't believe me, stick the TV at one end of the room & the fireplace at the other end and watch which way people turn their heads. Let's face it, Real Housewives beats burning logs any day. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's a fact. Might as well face it.

So if the fireplace with its a careful arrangement of wooden candlesticks, wood box & scrolly iron clock ends up an also-ran in the attention department, don't worry about it. Stuff happens. And if you don't even have a fireplace for people to ignore, well, that's one less thing to fret about. Besides, here's what Nancy Lancaster, one of the biggest names in 20th Century English decorating had to say about focal points, even though she uses another term: "You never want to have only one 'mouvement' thing like the Savonnerie rug that would stand out. You must have 'mouvement' everywhere." In other words, keep the eye moving. Let people focus on whatever they want. They will anyway, so you might as well give 'em permission.

Let's take as examples my two most-recent places. In the living room of my former apartment, there was a camelback sofa with a Rococo-style mirror above it centered on one wall. Another wall was centered on an eight-foot-high bookcase; another wall had a Chippendale-style table flanked with farthingale chairs, with an arrangement of paintings hanging above everything in the middle, and the fourth wall had a triple window in the center, in front of which I positioned an antique daybed. It was all very calm & orderly, but with a major symmetrical arrangement centered on every single wall, which wall was the focal point? Actually, none of them, because I don't do focal points. At least, I don't plan them. They just happen. Sometimes, that is, they happen.

Anyway, like I said, that was my old place. My new apartment has more or less the same set up that you face: four walls, each of which is centered on a door or a window. There's not a single unbroken wall. Oh well. Which means the pieces of furniture that used to be set against the walls are either floating in the room for the simple reason that there isn't anywhere else to put them. or they've been banished to another room, and other, smaller pieces have taken their place on either side of the openings. And you know what? It's OK. Likewise, if you concentrate on making your own room comfortable & attractive, no one will even notice that there's no focal point.

Magnaverde Rule No. 16:
Decorate for the life you really have, not the life you wish you had.

Regards,
Magnaverde.

I agree with Les and Magnaverde. I've had many tell me I need to make "such and such the focal point" and I always wondered, "why?"

To me the whole room is a focal point with the eye absorbing all of it, not just one particular item.

And that's the way I feel about my LR.

A door on each wall? Can you draw a quick plan of your room?

Do you have any windows? Are some of the doors to the outside? French doors, patio doors, front door?

Also, how big is your room? I think we can help you more, with a few more details :)

If you have a floating seating area, an absolutely gorgeous, colorful rug would lead the eye right to it. If you can put a glass coffee table on it so you can see the rug through it, even better. The broken-up walls can still be decorated with wonderful art, and a really great wall color could make this a very beautiful room.

Thank you everyone. This is helpful. You guys are so great! I think I will start a new thread with some pics. We just moved in, and I'm trying to arrange a seating area....maybe then we can get some beauty and "mouvement" going:)

Here is a link that might be useful: new thread with pictures

A room is going to have a focal point whether you want it to or not. There is going to be something that draws your eye first. So why not choose the focal point YOU want? I agree with others re: a lovely seating area, a beautiful piece of art, etc.

tina