Category Archives: Design Inspiration

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!

Design Inspiration – Coffee

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Interior designers, and clothing designers, often find inspiration from things that are totally unrelated to homes and fashion. Colors, shapes, images and ideas can lead to unique design thinking.

In this week’s blogs, we’re going to take a look at three different types of design inspiration and how they turn into room designs. By the way, this week’s blogs were inspired by the kind words of one of our subscribers in Winnipeg, Canada.

This designer chose the photo of a steaming cup of coffee shown to the left as the basis for creating several hotel rooms. With a limited budget, he was still able to make an impact. The colors reflect the rich brown of the coffee beans with the flooring. The walls and bedding are represented by the warm light browns and creams of the stoneware coffee cup and saucer.

The designer also used the shapes of the steam rising from the coffee cup as an inspiration for the curving wall murals in each room. The furniture also curves to coordinate with the rounded cup as well as the oval mirror shaped to resemble the top of the cup in the photo. Even the chair looks like a cylindrical coffee mug missing the handle.

Although there is no actual image of the photo in either of the rooms, if you have the opportunity to compare them, the source of inspiration is clear.

What else would you add to this room to make the coffee imagery stronger? How about a jar filled with coffee beans or a do-it-yourself small coffeemaker?

Take the time to look at photos on the Internet. Do any of them inspire you to design your own space?

Warm Up your Dining Table

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With autumn bringing family holidays, adding some special touches to your dining table or buffet can turn a simple dinner into something special. A fall-themed centerpiece or other elements also provide additional warmth to your home. Here are a few ideas.

Table runners: Catalogs, home shops and even discount stores all can be great resources for lovely table runners. Place a runner on your table and add a couple of candlesticks and brighten up your dining room very simply. Add placemats and dinner is ready. Table runners also work well to embellish simple tablecloths. Switching a runner is one of the fastest ways to change a room’s mood.

Flowers: Chrysanthemums – either in a pot or a vase – say fall easily and inexpensively. Place a few pots on either side of your buffet or one large vase in the center of your dining table. For a simpler and easy look, cut flowers shorter and put in a series of juice glasses. Use rubber bands to hold the stems together – making the small flower arrangements appealing and organized.

Centerpieces: Don’t limit your ideas to flowers and candles. Gourds, a bowl of mixed nuts, fall leaves – real or silk – and some apples or pears can be combined with baskets or pottery bowls and platters to create a tablescape that catches the eye. Just add place settings and you’re ready for a party or family gathering.

Candles: Whether you choose tall tapers or small votives, candlelight adds warmth and charm to any room. if you are concerned about fire and small children, look for battery-powered LED lights that mimic flames.

With just a few minutes and a little thought, you can turn your dining room from a place to eat to an inviting and appealing space. Take the time to make your dining table special and your family and friends will appreciate the result.

Build your Dream Room, One Piece at a Time – Accessories

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The fourth and last piece of this series on building your dream room focuses on the smaller elements. Now that you have your main pieces of furniture in place, it’s time to add the extras that make a space truly yours.

Think about the larger accessories such as lamps and side tables first. These require attention to function as well as aesthetics. Make sure every seat has a table nearby and that your lamps light up any darker corners. Create a comfortable place for reading with a floor lamp behind an easy chair.

Now, consider the pure design elements. This may include a few books on one corner of your coffee table, candlesticks and photos on a mantel or just a simple glass bowl on a side table. If you have accumulated unique pieces on your travels, they can make a room more intriguing. Or if you have a collection of small objects, they can gain new importance by grouping them on a table or shelf. Vary size, color and height where you can to add interest and personality.

If space and accessories are limited, you can display one or more of your serving bowls or platters. Combine with a vase for flowers or a few candles and you have an appealing look using things that you can borrow from when you have guests.

Accessories are the best opportunity to showcase your personal taste and interests in your home. They give your guests a chance to get to know you better. Take advantage of your choices to represent ideas, places and choices that you love. Once your accessories are in place, your dream room is finished.