Category Archives: Design Inspiration

Special Bedroom: Glamorous

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Would you like your bedroom to echo the glamour of old Hollywood? You can create a space to make you feel like a star by using certain techniques. Here are a few suggestions.

Use silver: The cool shiny metallic look provides a mood that resembles Hollywood in its heyday. Look for furniture in silver gilt or something mirrored for a similar effect. Wallpaper like the one shown behind the bed in this image also pull silver into the room. It’s a sophisticated look.

Bring some bling: Notice the sparkly chandelier-type lighting fixtures on either side of the bed. The crystals provide the feel of diamonds in the space. The mirrors on either side of the bed reflect the lighting, doubling the light and the bling. Adding a crystal-laden light or two to your space – either as chandeliers or wall sconces – recalls a past era of glamour and poise.

Take advantage of texture: The soft white rug in this room contrasts well with the silver-coated leather covering the bed’s feet and the headboard. The shimmer of the headboard is emphasized by the old-style tufting provided by the buttons in a diamond pattern. The draperies are ceiling-high and drape gracefully on the floor. The floor itself is polished to a brilliant sheen to add another layer of texture and shine to the space.

Keep colors subtle. Silver, lavender, white and gray carry out the sophisticated theme. The subtleties of the color scheme express the feeling that this room is special and unique. It’s easy to imagine this room as the set in an old black-and-white movie. Make your bedroom a glamorous space and you can feel like a star every day.

Special Bedroom: Luxurious

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In home decorating, often our bedrooms get short shrift. Since they’re only for family or personal use, your focus may be on comfort rather than looks.

With the arrival of chilly nights, this is a good time to snuggle into our bedrooms and make them special spaces just for us. This week, we’re looking at three rooms and ideas you can use to take your bedroom an extra step forward.

It’s the combination of browns and creams that help make this bedroom feel luxurious. Think of it as milk, dark and white chocolate and you’ll understand the appeal. The maroon tones of the floor add just the right richness.

Notice the position of the rug. It’s far enough up to provide a soft place for your feet to land, but by putting it under the bed it doesn’t take over the room. The table and chairs would work nicely for morning coffee and reading the paper. The bench at the foot of the bed would be handy for dressing.

Want to make your bedroom feel more luxurious? Look for opportunities to layer color and texture. The cream rectangle behind the bed up against the dark brown wall, for example, and the brown and cream art over the bed, as well as the ceiling contrasts and the drapes, all provide layers of light and dark.

Layers of textures include the throw tossed on the bench, the rug on the wood floor, and the tray on the bed. Add softness with layers of draperies and throw pillows. With a minor investment in linens and accessories, you can make your bedroom a more inviting and luxurious place to spend your nights.

Winterize your Décor

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It’s starting to get cooler at night and with the holidays coming up this is a good time to create a more wintery look in your home. Here are a few suggestions.

Bring on the sweaters: Create a wintery feel by adding a couple of throw pillows made of old sweaters. If you don’t have any of your own, shop in a thrift store for one you like. Just decide on the pillow size and sew an edge around the front of a sweater about a half-inch wider, then cut. Cut the same size from the back of the sweater to make up the back of the pillow.

Add a few holiday colors with accessories: This room to the right is filled with light neutrals, but by adding a few touches of red, it has an immediate winter holiday feel.

Once again, pillows add warmth. Look for colors that add warmth while working with your home. Consider adding a throw on your sofa to coordinate. Bookshelves are a great place to add holiday items. Small toys and accessories can be placed right in front of books.

Take most or all of your normal accessories off your coffee table before adding Christmas items. That way you are ready for the holidays without having your home look cluttered. If you keep all of your holiday items in the same color theme, they will all connect and make your home’s

Setting a Lovely Thanksgiving Table

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For most people, Thanksgiving is about food and family – generally in that order! But with a few extra minutes of time, you can also make it about the beauty of the season.

There’s a saying that people eat first with their eyes, and building a Thanksgiving table that captures attention and represents the best of autumn can make even a rather dry turkey taste better.

The photo to the left shows a fully-planned table. With fresh sunflowers, votives, tablecloth, plates, napkins and napkin rings all coordinated to create a Thanksgiving feeling, it looks like a decorator was hired to fix it.

If you have the skills, budget and time to put something like this together, that’s wonderful. But many of us don’t have the Martha Stewart gene, and are rushed just trying to get the dinner on the table let alone make it look this fancy.

Instead, consider something like the photo on the right. A simple gold tablecloth, one or two interesting candles, a pumpkin or two and some apples and pine cones and you’re finished.

White or neutral plates allow you to decorate for any season without needing closets full of dishes. Add the good silverware and some nice glasses and you have a beautiful table with minimal time and effort.

If you’re going to present Thanksgiving buffet-style, how about a simple display among the dishes? A few fall leaves, a couple of candles, one of those mini-pumpkins and some nuts and dried plants and you quickly add charm to your buffet table. Walk through your yard or visit a hobby shop and pick up just a few special items that you can use and rearrange every year to make your Thanksgiving table as special as the holiday itself.

Thinking about Walls: Pattern

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Wallpaper seems like an old-fashioned concept, but today’s patterned walls are anything but dated. Take a look at the image to the left. These oversized leaves create a dramatic and original accent, which is emphasized by the more traditional art.

In most homes, walls serve as a background to the furniture and accessories, but your walls can play an active role in your decorating plans. You are only limited by your imagination.

The room shown to the right demonstrates how walls can take over a room, creating the basis for the total design. This is difficult to do well, but in this case everything works.

To begin, every bit of architecture has its own highlight. The coffered ceiling receives special attention thanks to the dramatic large crystal chandelier. The window nook also has its own wallpaper; the black, grey and white offer an effective but curious contrast to the soft beiges 0n the walls in the rest of the room.

One thing that makes this wallpaper feel more contemporary is the large format of the patterns. The two choices on the back wall – separated by some white molding – complement each other because of the size of the patterns and the colors. Using two different wallpapers emphasizes the separation created by the molding.

Notice how the simple furniture keeps a focus on the walls. The clean lines and pure light tones allow the patterns to shine. The only other pattern comes from the cushion and rug in the foreground – which are also large format and bring some pink and green into the space.

How do you feel about bringing pattern into your home this way? Are you willing to be this creative with your walls?

Thinking about Walls: Dark

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How daring do you want to be with your walls? Would you risk painting your walls this dark?

As you can see, it’s a dramatic look that works very well here. Let’s take a look at the choices that make a midnight black wall work in this room.

To start, plan to paint multiple coats to get this rich a tone. When you choose a dark shade, at least three coats are generally needed to build depth of color. You may be able to get away with two if you use a tinted primer, but don’t hold back – an extra coat or two will really make a difference.

Next, take advantage of contrast. The bright white sofa and chair upholstery help the walls pop and make the room feel light. Take a look at the mirror frame and the curtains. Once again, the pure white works well with a dark, dark wall. Adding the brown pillows provides a contrast on top of contrast. This contributes to the drama of the space.

Make sure the lighting lets the space feel open and inviting. During the day this space stays well lit thanks to the two large windows. At night, look for lighting options that pull light into corners and highlight the shine on this luscious floor.

Notice that we’re working with white, black and brown here. There are a few plants, but they play as neutrals rather than color because they are living elements rather than accessories. A splash of color – yellow, red or orange – would make a fun element.  Are you ready to take a chance?

Thinking about Walls: Yellow

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Yellow can brighten up a bathroom or kitchen, or make a bedroom seem extra sunny. But it is the most difficult paint color to get right. The wrong choice can make a room gold instead of yellow, or turn a space into egg yolks rather than lemon. If you want to bring yellow into your home, take these steps first.

Go lighter: Yellow dominates a room much more than you would expect. Whatever tone you want, choose one at least two shades lighter. The color strips available at paint stores make this easy. Don’t worry that it will be too light. Yellow reflects off every wall and the color naturally intensifies.

Test test test: Buy a sample of two or three possible yellows. Paint poster boards, one in each color, and try them close to each other. If one of the yellows has an orange or green cast, you’ll be able to tell thanks to the contrast. Choose the purest yellow you can find. Also, put the painted posters on every wall of the room and then see which works best. Yellow changes its mood depending upon the type of light, so check in daylight and artificial light.

Combine with white: Don’t be tempted to use too much yellow. Paint the ceiling white and don’t add yellow cabinets or furniture. Too much yellow quickly takes over a room. White areas help the yellow look brighter without becoming overwhelming.

Yellow can be gorgeous or a real problem. Doing your homework at the start will give you a space that uses yellow at its best.

Unique but Simple Halloween Decorating

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If you want to decorate the outside of your home for Halloween but would like to create something much more unusual than the choices available in stores, here are a couple of ideas to spark up the front of your home that rely on imagination and creativity rather than a lot of effort or dollars.

This first choice requires you to expand beyond the standard rounded pumpkin. Look for pumpkins, gourds and squash with unusual shapes and colors such as the three elongated ones shown here. You could also add one of the newer white “ghost pumpkins.” You only need to carve a few of them, but create unique faces. Set in front of a group of uncut pumpkins and gourds, you create a gathering of Halloween creatures.

Another option that is a bit more complex but very entertaining is placing two pumpkins together to show a conversation between them.

The pumpkin on the right has a more complex carving approach. There are directions and patterns on the Internet to help you create one of these, but you could stick with the standard carving style and still get an interesting vignette.

The stick hand on the right pumpkin also pushes this Halloween display out of the ordinary. Adding hands and feet to your carvings adds personality and charm.

You could add fall leaves to these arrangements, use props such as hats or other accessories, and even tell a simple story with your pumpkins. Halloween provides a terrific opportunity to stretch your imagination by thinking outside the squash.

Design Inspiration – Chandelier

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This chandelier provides a great inspiration point for a formal dining room. This last blog on using different inspirations when decorating focuses on creating a mood.

First, notice that the chandelier below is not an exact match with the one in the dining room. The photo shows an antique chandelier that was quite beyond the budget of the couple whose room is shown below.

Instead of trying to reproduce the specific chandelier, the goal was to reproduce the feeling the piece invokes. This photo combines drama, sparkle and old-style elegance, and the dining room below captures the same feelings.

Let’s look at the style of this dining room. The classic chairs and table immediately recreate that old-world look. Notice how shiny the table top is, allowing the crystals to reflect on its surface.

The colors chosen for the room are in the champagne family, echoing the rich shades established by the bowl of crystals at the bottom of the light in the photo.

Extra touches such as the curtains pillowing on the floor and the faded but lovely Oriental rug echo the old-fashioned luxury represented by the original chandelier photo.

Although the chandelier in the room is different from the photo, it has the same circle of candles, additional crystals at the bottom, and the same basic shape. The large gilded mirror and the small ornamental shelves also fit the mood and message this dining room demonstrates.

Perhaps you prefer a dining room that is more simple or contemporary. But no matter what style you want, a light fixture provides a perfect starting point for your design plan.

Design Inspiration – Colors

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Color provides a terrific design inspiration for a room’s décor, and there is no room that can take advantage of color better than a child’s room.

In our second installment on using various inspirations to start your design plans, we’re taking a look at a seven-year-old’s bedroom. She and her mother visited a contemporary accessory store and she chose the colors you see here for her room. Her mother snapped a photo of their choices and shared it with the designer.

If you look at the final room below, you’ll notice that the colors aren’t a perfect match. In order to create a space that would grow with her, the designer added warm brown furniture and the softening influence of light blue. She also turned to a yellower green for accents.

However, in terms of mood and message, the colors in the photo are present in this space. Once again, don’t think of an inspiration as an exact reproduction in a design. Instead, it’s a starting point.

The final room also picks up the floral elements from the original photo without going overboard. The diagonal blue-washed wood flooring is an interesting variation on the whitewashed wood floor in the photo.

With a sophisticated color palette such as this one, a change of paint and bedding can help this bedroom grow as the child does, making it work well into her teenage years.

Are you drawn to certain colors and color combinations? How about visiting a favorite furniture, fabric or accessory store to experiment with new color combinations for your home? If you like the way they look in a small format, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy them when moved up to room size!