November 8, 2024, 5:52 pm | Read time: 6 minutes

A sideboard is more than just a storage cabinet. The storage surface is perfect for displaying candles, vases, or pictures. But be careful: there are a few points to bear in mind when decorating your sideboard. With these 4 tips, you can create a harmonious look and turn your sideboard into an eye-catcher.

What is special about the sideboard?

The sideboard is distinguished from the chest of drawers, which is primarily storage and is usually equipped with drawers. However, there are also mixed forms. The highboard is a variant of the sideboard, which is closer in appearance to the chest of drawers but is also used as decorative furniture on the side walls. It is between 110 and 130 centimeters high. The height of normal sideboards, on the other hand, is usually less than one meter.

This brings us to the next point: a sideboard can be recognized by its shape, which is usually wider rather than taller. To be considered a sideboard, a piece of furniture should be at least 120 centimeters wide. However, there are also many sideboards that are two meters in width and upwards.

The lowboard is also wide but very low. This version of the sideboard is usually used for the television and, therefore, as a TV board.

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Decorating a sideboard: 4 tips

As already mentioned, a sideboard is not just a piece of storage furniture but also serves as an eye-catcher on empty walls. Whether in the bedroom, living area, or next to the dining table – a sideboard can complete the room and set stylish accents. How can you decorate a sideboard attractively?

1. Consciously choose a style

The sideboard is not the perfect place to just put any leftover decorations, hoping they will somehow fit in the end. In fact, sideboard styling is often underestimated. To make it work, it’s best to start at the very beginning: with the overall concept. The following questions can help:

• What furnishing style do you follow in your home?
• Which colors dominate the room?
• What are the immediate surroundings of the sideboard like?
• Do you want to decorate your sideboard in a harmonious and discreet way, or do you want to add splashes of color, contrasts, and striking accents?

First, determine the style and color scheme you want and choose each item you want to place on your sideboard carefully and deliberately.

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2. Basic rules for decorating the sideboard

When decorating the sideboard, we can use a few clever tricks from the world of mathematics.

• Odd numbers: When arranging decorative elements next to each other, we should make sure that their number is odd. For example, instead of placing two candles next to each other, we should either add a third or place the two candles next to another object, such as a vase. Compositions of three, five, or seven objects look more harmonious than groups of two, four, or six.
• Golden ratio: The golden ratio is a proportion that our eyes find appealing and has been used in art and architecture since ancient times. A distance is divided in a ratio of 1 to 1.618, which corresponds to two-fifths to three-fifths. So when decorating your sideboard, don’t place flowers and the like right in the middle. Instead, use the golden ratio to place them in the right position.
• Skyline: Just like the other two rules of thumb, the skyline trick is basically based on creating asymmetry. Imagine the skyline of a city like New York or Frankfurt. The buildings do not resemble soldiers in an army but have different heights and shapes. The decorative objects on your sideboard should also follow this example. Instead of draping several identical scented candles on the shelf, you should create a composition of objects of different heights and widths. The smaller objects should, of course, always be placed in front of the larger ones.

3. Do not use the sideboard as a leftover ramp

We’ve all been there: well-intentioned gifts that just don’t suit our taste. When our mother-in-law wants to delight us with porcelain figurines for Christmas or our best friend tries her hand at creating abstract sculptures, we often feel obliged to display such gifts out of politeness. And where do these objects usually find their place? Of course – on the sideboard.

Enough of this! While the gesture is appreciated, decorations that don’t match the overall style can detract from your happiness with the space. And as Marie Kondo says so beautifully, we should only own things that bring us joy (“that spark joy”). If you don’t want to tell your loved ones straight to their face that you don’t like the gift, the sideboard also offers a suitable solution: keep a drawer free in which all unwelcome gifts can live out their lives. Simply display them temporarily during visits to keep everyone happy.

The same applies to mementos: Whether it’s the trophy from your son’s soccer match or the plastic rose that your loved one got for you at the fair – whatever brings a smile to your face, you are, of course, welcome to keep. However, these things don’t belong on the sideboard, as they rarely add any decorative value. It’s better to store such items in a dedicated chest, which you can browse through at your leisure.

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4. Keep things tidy

Last but not least, probably the most important tip: keep things tidy. No matter how beautifully decorated a sideboard is, if it is regularly cluttered with everyday items like keys, charging cables, or letters, the whole aesthetic is gone. It is, therefore, essential that you get into the habit of either storing small items directly in the designated place or keeping a drawer free for odds and ends, which you then sort out regularly.