Pump up the Volume

But that's OK. The house of girth is what we desire-extra large space and bigger stuff to fill it. America is pumping up the volume on the homefront. Now homebuyers just need to know how to enjoy such an embarrassment of riches. All that luxurious extra room requires professional help in terms of buying and placing furniture and effectively using paint and patterns, flooring, ceiling and window treatments. The objectives are comfort, beauty and hopefully a couch that lets you plant your feet flat on the 24 x 24-inch tiles of limestone that cover floor.

Lisa Ficarra (ASID), a designer with the esteemed Naples firm of Holland Salley, is a petite woman used to guiding homebuyers through their cavernous new castles. Most of her clients have moved to the area from another state. They are buying second or third homes and are paying between $1 and $9 million for a domicile that ranges anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 square feet in a prestige neighborhood. Southwest Florida luxury homes are characterized by ceilings that soar upward to 24 feet in the entrance foyer and living rooms and settle down to 14 to 16 feet in the dining room, bedrooms and kitchen/family room areas of the home.

"Nearly all my clients buy new furniture," Ficcara says, "and a lot of them are initially amazed by the size of the stuff. They'll tell me a chair or sofa looks huge, but once we get the pieces into the house, they look quite normal. Most of my clients wouldn't really know how or what to buy for these big volume spaces."

Normal in a big-volume house means that a comfortable easy chair in the family room needs to be at least 42 inches high and often higher. The standard height is 36 inches. A sofa must be oversized and the coffee table in front of it should measure a minimum of 48 x 60. Some are 72 inches long. Ficarra likes to shop for oversized camel back sofas because that gives her additional height as well as heft.

"Most of these new homes have a fireplace in the living room and the fireplace is tall in order to remain in proportion to the dimensions of the room," explains Ficarra. "The mantels I'm working with now are as high as seven feet and they are long. That means huge candle holders, immense flower arrangements, and giant mirrors and art work. You've just got to readjust your whole outlook to big. Table lamps need to be a minimum of 36 inches tall. The trick is to scale everything up and keep everything in proportion. It's a matter of having an eye for it, which is why most people who buy these new huge homes will seek the help of a designer. It's just too hard otherwise."

The quest for huge started in the gimme-more 1980s when the American appetite for extravagance in real estate recognized no boundaries. The upwardly mobile demanded more elbow room as they reached for the sky as well as spreading out to the right and left. The push was felt in The Hamptons, where seaside prim white cottages were bulldozed and mega-mansions ?la the Gilded Age bloomed in their place. The shove was observed in Naples where urban waterfront condominiums exhaled through existing walls, gobbled up the apartment next door and morphed into 10,000-square-foot custom high-rise residences with bathrooms as large as ballrooms used to be in Colonial times. The results were felt in neighborhoods such as Port Royal, where 5,000-square-foot homes were either dismissed as tear-downs or skillfully enlarged into something of at least 9,000-square-feet. This trend sailed right through the '90s, fueled by a high-flying economy and dot com millionaires eager to put their money where their home computers were.

Soon, the height of ceilings, the dimensions of rooms and size of furniture began expanding and exploding as though the everyday components of our environment had eaten one of Alice's mushrooms and just grew overnight, sometimes defying the traditional relationship of personal objects to the proportions of the human body. When you sing in your gigantic multi-head marble shower today, there's enough echo to make you sound like a quartet.

Mass market furniture, the kind you select from floor displays at Robb & Stucky, began to get puffy in the '80s and it happened first in California, according to Kris Kolar, director of design at Robb & Stucky. "Marge Carson, a designer and furniture manufacturer in California, was the first to identify a desire for overstuffed and bigger pieces," she says. "She popularized that relaxed casual lifestyle that concentrated on deeper, softer, bigger furniture, the kind you just slouch into. I call it the big blonde look because it featured lighter woods and light neutral fabrics. But soon, virtually all the manufacturers of upholstery pieces and case goods went bigger-Century, Henredon, Drexel. For some manufacturers it became a value-added thing. They could make an item a lot bigger and only charge a little more money. Buyers felt they were getting a bargain."

A traditional living room sofa measures 84 inches long and 38 inches deep. But for the big Mediterranean estate homes of Quail West, Kolar is selling sofas that are 95 to 120-inches long and up to 52 inches deep. "It's all a matter of room size," she says. "If you have ceilings that are 20 feet high and rooms that are huge, you need big and bigger furniture to make those spaces comfortable and right."

But Kolar maintains that the trend is not for everyone. "In our Gracious Living galleries at the store where we show period furniture such as Louis XV and damask fabrics rather than chenille, I'd say 60 percent of the furniture is of the traditional smaller size. This furniture is selected by people who live more formally and perhaps reside in a condo in the Remington where the ceilings are not so high and the rooms not so huge. Here in Florida the market is balanced between buyers who want big furniture to fill big homes and buyers who need to furnish rooms that are more manageable and traditional. And I always tell people to look at themselves. A woman under five feet is going to get lost in one of the big sofas or chairs. It wouldn't be appropriate."

Expansive rooms with imposing objects in them were a hallmark of the Georgian period in England, starting in 1714, lasting until 1820 and encompassing three kings named George. That architecturally rich period, like America today, had a booming economy, a new middle class and a strong interest in the arts and design. Decor was high-spirited and status-conscious. Touring homes was a serious hobby meant to elevate one's levels of taste. Sound familiar to you Parade of Home groupies and charity home-tour ticket buyers? The Georgians invented card tables, wall-to-wall carpeting and slip-covered chairs. They used wallpaper on a grand scale and designed tables just for tea time. They loved surface embellishments and temple-like facades on their big houses. Their gardens were extraordinary.

But the Georgian homeowners also appreciated harmonious proportions and they were strict about scale and balance. They understood that when rooms got taller and wider, furniture had to be larger, patterns bolder, fabrics richer. Those house-proud Georgians were the role models for the Gilded Age rich of Newport and the Georgians could be the patron saints of what is going on today at gated communities such as Grey Oaks, Bonita Bay and Bay Colony. Many of the huge antique reproduction pieces of furniture, mirrors and paintings are inspired by what the Georgians had in their own mansions.

Designer Lisa Ficarra, like the Georgians, tames high ceilings in several different ways that she says humanizes the space while still celebrating the lofty beauty of ascending ceilings. "I often paint the ceiling a dark color and add lots of architectural detailing like layers of molding," she says. "And I like to call attention to the ceiling and visually bring it down a bit with beams or with coffered or tray treatments. Painting a mural or a trompe l'oeil scene is another way to make the ceiling a focal point. When a high ceiling is such an important feature of the room, you must address it."

One of the newer overscaled furniture success stories is the chair-and-a-half. An overstuffed offspring of the armchair, it can take the place of a love seat or a wing chair in a family room. It's often sold with a matching ottoman. Great for snuggling with a sweetie or reading to a small child, some of these pieces are sold as mommy-and-me chairs because the piece of furniture comfortably accommodates one big person and one little one.

How to use the chair-and-a-half? Robb & Stucky designer Kris Kolar says to put one in a reading nook for a getaway. Install one in the kitchen and snuggle down with the newspaper and a morning cup of coffee. Position a pair at angles in front of the fireplace. Order an extra one for the master bedroom suite instead of a chaise. Some versions of the chair-and-a-half convert into single beds, making this piece of furniture a truly utilitarian option for a home office that doubles as an extra guest room. "The chair-and-a -half is one of the most versatile and comfortable pieces you can own," she says.

The gigantic armoire, either built-in or free standing, is a mainstay of living large. The French and German antique ones can be enormous and quite functional since they were originally constructed to be practical portable closets. For closed storage that meets all the requirements of elegance and for filling a big space an armoire is impeccable. But the vintage ones don't speak to the aesthetics of those with a contemporary attitude toward decorating. Modern built-ins with niches just the right sizes for today's electronics, computers, televisions, and VCR equipment fill that need. "Traditional armoires measure about 84 inches tall," says Kolar. "The new ones go up to nine feet tall and can definitely fill a space as well as provide great hiding places."

A big mirror leaned against the wall is another Kolar favorite for instant relaxed sophistication. "You need a framed mirror of more than six feet to make it work," she suggests. "Then just find the right wall and rest the mirror against it." Designers say to make sure the mirror reflects something you want to highlight so placement is crucial. A mirror placed on the floor will also gather light, making it a wonderful accessory in a room that is skimpy on natural light.

And, of course, the couch that ate Connecticut is a must-have. These oversized, overfed, overbred sofas of chenille, velvet or buttery leather are generally the first item on the purchase list for homebuyers. Designers often prefer to start with a large area rug that sets the mood, patterns, and colors for the entire room. But homeowners (especially men and particularly younger men) lust after that gigantic sofa.

One of the first things that southwest Florida home-buyers of mega-homes realize is they are not home alone for long. How quickly all that space turns into a vacation destination for grown children and grandchildren, friends from up north, relatives you saw once a decade in Ohio who are now your best buds. But that's fine; large rooms require lots of guests and most kitchens in mega-homes have at least two dishwashers and a big butler's pantry. These big luxury homes are built for entertaining both formal and casual, both inside and around the pool. What good is a wonderful space unless you can share it with the people and pets you love.

Designer Lisa Ficarra believes in the end it all comes down to people. "I recently moved into a much larger house myself," says the design professional. "And for a while I didn't quite feel like it was my house. I'd wonder around the rooms not really comfortable with the enlarged spaces. Then at Easter I had all my family come for the holiday and to stay. That did it. Filling the house with people I love made the place mine and I've been happy and completely at home ever since."

Designer tricks for small rooms

Suppose you are madly in love with a home not blessed with soaring ceilings. But the home has other great features on your wish list and you intend to buy it. Here are several ways to make the space overhead seem loftier.

. Raise the doorways at least six inches.

. Hang drapes from ceiling to floor.

. Paint the base molding, walls and crown molding all the same color.

. Install vertical mirrors and tall floor lamps.

. Remove about 20 percent of what you think is necessary in a room. .

. Lay tile on the diagonal. It will visually add width to a narrow space.

. Consider a skylight.

. A floor-to-ceiling mirror visually doubles the volume of a room.

. A single big piece of impressive furniture makes a small space grand.

. High base moldings make walls seem taller, like a woman in high heels.

. Invest in very good lighting.

. Avoid displaying small objects. Use big, sculptural pieces for accents.

. Upholster furniture in light shades-buttercream, natural linen, fawn.

. Leave some empty spaces. It is restful and visually increases volume.

DESIGNER TRICKS FOR LARGE ROOMS

. A sofa will appear taller with large toss pillows lined up along the inside back.

. Hang a collection of quilts. This works especially well in a double-volume room ringed by an upstairs open gallery.

. Commission a mural or trompe l'oeil scene to be painted on a wall to raise it or on the ceiling to bring the ceiling down a bit.

. Group or "gang" three to five bookcases into a single massive unit. Top it with a lavish arrangement of dried flowers, greens and vines.

. Hang a big vertical picture above the sofa and group two rows of smaller art works on either side.

. Create a horizontal band around the room at the height you want the eye to stop its upward glance. This can be done with molding, shelving, artwork, even a border of paint or wallpaper. The idea is to visually lower the ceiling.

. Investigate bold, dramatic colors for the walls and patterns for the window treatments. A big room can take impressive colors and large scaled patterns.

. Faux trees of varying heights grouped together in a corner instantly fill a space and help even out the scale of the furniture.

. If you are moving from a home of 8 foot ceilings to a home of 15 footceilings, realize that you are just going to have to buy some new furniture. Scale and proportion demand it.

. Walk tall. Assertive posture says you own the room, not the other way around.