Are you drawn to wood floors with the rich colors and variation shown here? It may seem complex to decorate a room with this floor, but this dining room takes full advantage of the color and feel of this floor.

When you choose a floor like this, it will always take a front-and center position in your home. Your best design decision is to let it shine, and use your furniture and accessories to accent its strong and inviting personality.

Choosing black for the primary furniture finish allows it to pop against the lighter flooring. Red cushions pull the red shades from the wood. Together, the black and red feels as though the two colors are actually a breakdown of the wood tones from the floor. When you add rich colors to rich colors, everything plays off everything else, creating an inviting expressive combination.

Using ivory walls and white baseboards keep the rest of the room toward the background of the design. Red shows up on the curtains and accessories, but the choices are simple, allowing the flooring and furniture to take center stage.

You could reverse the woods and create an equally-dramatic room. Consider ebony-finished wood flooring and dining furniture in rosewood, cherry or another vivid wood. A rich area rug with lots of red could add that extra burst of color. On this floor, an area rug might work also, but adding another color such as a dull gold or ivory to coordinate with the walls may be the way to go.

When you’re decorating a room, start with the flooring you love and let your design flow from there. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

BUILDER USES RETAIL APPROACH TO SATISFY HOMEBUYERS

When Fulton Homes opened up their 13,000 square foot Design Center, in Tempe, they concentrated on using a retail approach to the merchandising of options as opposed to a “Builder Approach.”   Brand names are very important to buyers, so they selected quality brands such as Shaw, Mohawk, Moen, Kohler, GE, GE Profile, GE Monogram, Viking, Sony, OnQ- LeGrand, Jeld Wen, Therma Tru, and Hunter Douglas.  “We are constantly evaluating our performance of options, and adding new items as well as deleting items that buyers may not want”, says Dennis Webb, Vice President of Operations.  “In the past few years we have re-merchandised nine kitchens and three bathrooms in the center as we stay in tune to what our customers are looking for.” notes Douglass Fulton, CEO of Fulton Homes.

When purchasing a new home, recent studies indicate the homebuyers want a large selection of options in order to personalize their new home.  Fulton Homes offers over 6000 options to accommodate the discerning buyer.  Other builders offer a few option packages in their “Builder Approach” so that the construction of the house is less complicated and easier to build.

Fulton Homes also offers the first online options selection program called “Design Online.”  Here buyers can view thousands of options on line from their own living rooms.  The information on the online site is provided by over 200 manufacturers and contains rich content including pictures, warranty information, product specs, and dimensions.  Buyers are far more prepared for their Design Center experience when they are familiar with the options online.  Fulton also opens up their Design Center on the first and third Thursdays of each month from 5:00 PM to 8:00PM for “Browse Night” so that people can see, touch, and feel the many available items that might be difficult to imagine in an online only experience.

Recently, three brand new items have appeared at the Design Center.  A revolutionary new bathroom product called “Forza Stone” of which Fulton Homes is the first builder in the country to offer is a shower and tub surround that is manufactured in sheets, and is natural stone.  Because of the sheets, there is no grouting involved.  So the buyer gets the look of natural travertine or marble, but with no grout lines that makes cleaning a snap.  Another new product is by Therma Tru and Jeld Wen doors where within a patio door, an adjustable shade screen is housed between the dual pane low E glass.  This makes privacy and light adjustment simple without having traditional window coverings moving around the interior of the door.  The third item which is exclusive to Fulton Homes in Arizona is the introduction of GE Monogram’s new 30” convertible refrigerator.  The top of the unit is a refrigeration unit, the middle section is a freezer complete with icemaker, and bottom portion can be either a refrigerator or a freezer.

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Fulton Homes is planning grand openings in three new communities this fall.  Monterey Bay at Victoria Estates and Mendocino at Ashcreek will debut in Queen Creek, while Shoreline at Fulton Ranch will open in Chandler.  For more information on Fulton Homes, visit www.fultonhomes.com.

This cool bathroom was designed by Sarah Richardson’s show, Sarah’s House. It has a lot of wonderful and stylish design elements that all come together to make it feel polished and styled. Let’s take a look at the major elements of the bathroom.

Use of natural stone. Both the floor and counter top are white marble with gray veining. This is a classic choice of hard surface for bathrooms. Using the marble on both the floor and the counter helps unify the design in a relatively small space.

The glass shower enclosure also helps the small space feel bigger. A shower curtain would close off the space and make the shower feel smaller. The glass opens up the shower space and lets it flow with the rest of the room.

Mosaic tiles are used in an interesting way. Creating stripes of color with glass mosaic tiles makes a bigger impact than using all one color or even having a random mosaic pattern. Horizontal stripes help to widen the feeling of the room. The tile is also a nice way to introduce color into the room.

A non-traditional bathroom mirror over the vanity is a nice way to add style to a small bathroom. The round mirror also echoes the round vessel sinks. Both circles break up all the linear shapes of the room.

Silvery sconces complement the silver frame of the mirror as well as the nickel bathroom fixtures, including the faucet and showerhead.

In a small space, such as a bathroom, all design elements need to be well thought out to make the room feel bigger than its small footprint.