Merging Indoor and Outdoor Living

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merging-indoor-and-outdoor-livingwLiving in Arizona, we’re lucky to be able to spend more time outside than in other parts of the country. That’s one reason why it’s nice to look for a home that allows you to merge indoor and outdoor living.

Whether you’re entertaining or just enjoying time with the family, it’s a pleasure to be able to move from inside to outside as you wish. It might be that your family enjoys breakfast outdoors once the temperatures drop enough to spend early mornings with doors and windows open. Some family members may just prefer to take their coffee and the morning paper outside.

If you have houseguests who come from the East, chances are they’ll take advantage of any time they get to spend out in the sun. How about a lunch of cheese and fruit on the patio? Or you could offer different cold cuts and potato salad or coleslaw. With this home it’s just a few steps from the kitchen to the back yard, so it’s easy for people to fill their plates and go back for seconds.

Maybe spending time outside gives some family members a chance to enjoy a little alone time, settling down in the yard with a good book or relaxing on a lounge chair for a nap. Have you considered putting up a hammock? It could become a popular feature in your yard.

With this generous sliding glass door that also includes two floor-to-ceiling windows, the outside is always calling and the inside is always near. So choose your spot. Going from one to the other is a breeze.

 Make Room for Art

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make-room-for-artwWhen decorating a home, many people focus only on the big items such as furniture and then slowly add accessories over time, and this is a good approach. But while you’re furnishing your new home, be sure to include art in your plans.

If you’ve been living in an apartment, you may find that your current collection of wall art looks rather small in your new larger rooms. This photo shows one way to deal with this – by hanging two smaller pieces together. This way the art takes up more space. Two or more pieces like these – with the same size, the same kind of frames and the same feel to the art – work well as a team on the wall.

Don’t limit your art thinking to walls. Notice the book set on the stand on the counter to the right of the photo. With the luscious photo on the cover, this book positions itself nicely as another art piece. In fact, if you didn’t look closely, it could be a small canvas set on an easel. You may have books or other elements that can double as art in your home if you take a look around.

If you would like more art on your walls but your budget is limited, consider photographs. Visit the Library of Congress photo collection online to view a rich choice of historical and other photos. You can have these reproduced for a minimal cost and frame them to create instant art at an extremely reasonable price. And family photos can be enlarged at your closest warehouse store at good rates.

Thrift shops and consignment stores are also a great resource for art at good prices. This is also an excellent place to pick up inexpensive frames. Just replace the art you don’t like with something that you do.

Take advantage of all your options to add art to your home. It can contribute color, interest, style and personality to your décor.

Plan Your Next Outdoor Event

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Patio-fire-PitwIt’s fun to plan parties and get togethers for family and friends. This time of year it’s tempting to plan an outdoor event. This backyard, one of those visible at Fulton’s Cooley Station, makes entertaining especially inviting.

First, you have an interesting water feature along the back complete with sculptural pots and edges made for sitting. Then the elongated fire pit encourages guests to enjoy the flames, either cooking up marshmallows for s’more’s or just sitting along the edge and warming in the heat.

Outdoor areas make better party places when they offer various centers for attention so that different groups of people can enjoy either fun activities or quiet conversations. This space has a number of sections, allowing guests to self-select the group that suits their style and mood.

Notice also the comfy upholstered outdoor furniture. Having chairs with ottomans rather than one-piece loungers gives your guests more seating options and leads to flexibility as different pieces can be moved around the yard. The warm earth tones of the upholstery fit well with all of the stone hardscaping in place, and plants and fabric soften the feeling of the yard.

Finally, the table in the foreground – the dining chairs are just visible at the front of the photo – provides a place for appetizers and drinks. Consider adding a few side tables to enable guests to set their plates and drinks down as they wander around the yard. The potted geranium is a nice touch on the table, and you could also add fresh flowers and greens to the décor.

Just by incorporating food and drinks, this yard is ready for company. What do you need to change in your yard to set things up for your next event?

Kitchen Clean-up Center

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kitchen-clean-up-centerwFew people really enjoy cleaning up the kitchen, but if you have dirty dish duty, it’s hard to beat this kitchen clean-up center from Seaboard at Cooley Station. Let’s take a look at the advantages offered with this savvy layout.

Plenty of counter space: With room on both sides of the sink, dirty dishes and pots can go on one side and clean items can fill a drainer on the other. Which side? Why don’t you pick? There’s plenty of room in either direction. With a dual sink, use one for rinsing and the other can be filled with hot sudsy water for things that don’t go in the dishwasher like your sharp knives.

Silverware drawer: A drawer for your silverware right on the island is a real step-saver. Clean silverware can move right from the dishwasher to the island drawer to the table when it’s time for dinner. Or maybe you prefer that drawer closer to the table for silverware? Then how about using that drawer so that your sharp knives and other prep utensils are always handy?

A nice view: A sink that faces the wall may make the person who draws clean-up duty feel isolated. But this island location helps keep the cleaner entertained with an easy view of the television or other activities in the family room. It’s more fun if you can make chores a family event.

One final wipe of that appealing stainless dishwasher door and you’re ready to head out of the kitchen for the evening. It’s not so bad getting clean-up duty when you’re working in a space like this one!

Inviting Open Kitchen

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Inviting-open-kitchenwWhen you have room for an island in your kitchen, the end result is an open space that makes spending time there cooking and cleaning more pleasant.

Kitchens that are totally enclosed feel limiting. Very few people fit in such a space and often you find that more than one person working leads to awkward movements as people try to stay out of each other’s way. Holding a conversation can be difficult as there is no good place in an enclosed kitchen to put someone who is not working.

But with an open kitchen like this one, there are a number of convenient places for people to sit or stand, whether they are helping out or not. Park guests on the other side of the island and position some cheese and crackers handy. The cook has plenty of uninterrupted space to work yet he or she can still have a great conversation with family or friends.

If you have helpers in the kitchen, an open kitchen design like this gives you plenty of room for them to work in the space, yet you never feel crowded. This kitchen has lots of task lighting, but you also have a generous amount of ambient light because there is no wall blocking your access to all of the open floor plan windows.

Kitchens tend to be the warm center of a home, and this open and friendly kitchen certainly encourages everyone to spend time in it or nearby. To see this and other inviting open kitchens, visit the models at Cooley Station.

Inviting Open Kitchen

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Inviting-open-kitchenwWhat makes a kitchen pleasant? Stylish cabinetry helps, along with lovely countertops and lighting that pushes the envelope like these pendants. It’s also fun to have your own walk-in pantry to make it easy to grab your ingredients as you need them.

Hard-core cooks really appreciate the advantages of a kitchen island. That wealth of counter space without any upper cabinets to block your view makes it easy to prep meals. There’s enough space with this island to throw two or three sous chefs around chopping up vegetables and fixing a salad of an evening.

For the non-cooks in your life, a comfortable stool or two on the other side of the island gives them just the perfect perch for chatting while you whip up a quick snack for everyone to munch on till dinner’s ready. And it’s only a step or two after the meal for them to help with clean-up, which is only fair if they didn’t pitch in before dinner!

Clean lines, luxurious appliances, good lighting and a smart layout – what else could you ask for in a kitchen? Well, it helps if it’s attached to a well-built Fulton Home. Come on out and take a look at this one and others at our Cooley Station community. Visit: http://www.fultonhomes.com/our-communities/cooley-station for more information.

Integrating Space in an Open Floor Plan

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integrating-space-in-an-open-floor-planwLiving with an open floor plan has so many advantages.  The space works well for families and entertaining and arrangements can be modified to expand and contract living and dining areas to meet specific needs. However, open architecture does present decorating challenges. Here are some tips to make your open living space work well.

Define living areas: Use furniture, area rugs and artwork to define each living area. Without walls you can have the back of a sofa, a bookshelf, or a table set limits for a particular space.  Notice in this photo from the Cooley Station community how the sofa defines the end of the dining area and the start of the living area. Large pieces of furniture like sofas are some of the best tools for defining each space.

Create transitions: The plants on the kitchen counter and the floor and artwork make a softer natural transition between the kitchen and the dining area. Without these, the adjustment from one area to another can feel too abrupt. Having two larger houseplants in the dining area also helps define that space and keeps it connected.

Use lighting: Chandeliers such as the one over the dining table also help create a specific mood in one area of a large living space. Often the family room will have a ceiling fan. Our brains turn those light fixtures into room definitions.

Use color: Pulling the same accent colors throughout the space helps everything feel integrated. Throw pillows, area rugs, artwork and accessories in this room all use dark rust and peach tones to tie this living space together.

Guest Bath with Color

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Guest-Bath-with-ColorwYou don’t have to put color in your permanent elements to make a room colorful. Let’s take a look at the savvy choices that make this guest bathroom something special.

Tile mosaic: Although this mosaic contains only neutral tones, the variety of dark and light tiles open the space for color. When you add bright color near neutrals with strong contrasts, the colors will reflect onto the neutrals, pulling color into their space. Take a look at this photo. It looks like the backsplash mosaic has some color in it although it doesn’t.

Art: Art is one of the easiest ways to add color. these two canvases are different yet link together by color, style and subject matter. It’s smart to start choosing your color palette in a room like this one by choosing art. The rest of the color can be drawn out of the selection of prints or canvases you choose.

Towels: Today you can get towels in any color range from vivid almost-neon tones to soft muted shades. It’s smart to choose two or at the most three colors for a bathroom towel set so that the colors work well together yet provide enough contrast to make the space interesting.

Shower curtain: If your bathroom needs a shower curtain, consider adding a floor-to-ceiling decorative curtain like this one. This pulls the colors from the art and towels to another location in the bathroom and adds additional patterns to the mix. Altogether a nice addition to the space.

Accessories: The flowers are a bright spot in the bathroom. You don’t need a lot of accessories for this bath. Just enough to add interest and one more spot of color.

When you decorate your bathroom, don’t be afraid to add color wherever you can. You will also be adding warmth, personality and interest.

Dare to go Dark

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dare-to-go-dark2wJust how daring are you willing to be with your master bedroom’s look? How about painting a wall this dark? It may seem scary but it works remarkably well thanks to several thoughtful decisions.

Natural light: This wall comes between two generously-sized windows. The dark dark wall provides an inviting contrast to the natural light on either side. This is further supported by having curtains on only one side of each window, allowing the dark wall to seem as if it is part of the entire window display.

Light bedding: Yes, there are darker pillows, but the primary bedspread color is cream. Once again this places light right near the dark wall. The pillows pull that spread and the wall together, serving as an effective transition.

Rich color scheme: By bringing rich colors into the room, the dark wall feels like a natural continuation of the color choices. Rich and dark tones complement each other.

Gold: Gold always works well with black. In this case the trim on the nightstands and lamps combine with the dark wood to create a warm rich feel.

Plenty of light: Even at night the ceiling fan with lights and the matching lamps on either side of the bed will keep the room well lit.

Would you like to have a bedroom with this look of drama? How about considering a dark accent wall? To see this room in person, visit Fulton Home’s Cooley Station.

Comics Influence Boy’s Room

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comic-books-influence-boy's-roomw - CopyIf you’re having trouble coming up with a good theme for a boy’s bedroom, take a clue from the comics. With their bright strong-contrast colors and powerful graphics they can quickly turn a room into an attention-grabber. Let’s take a look at how this room became a comic-book lover’s dream with very little effort or cost.

Bedding: Children can shift interests often, so it’s smart to choose lower-cost theme items for their bedrooms, allowing you to change things out in a few years as their tastes evolve. Bedding is one of the quickest and easiest ways to make a change. A bedspread, shams and a throw pillow start the theme off with recognizable yet relatively generic comic-book images such as stars and lightning bolts. The black European shams on the bed work well with the look yet can be recycled when your child moves on to other interests.

Paint: The red stripe on the wall behind the bed does double duty. It operates as a visual headboard and it dramatically links all the vivid elements together with their common red theme. This is also an easy-to-replace choice. Simply paint the wide stripe in another color or paint the entire wall.

Art: If you have a talented artist in the family, then you can have them create images like these on blank canvases with acrylic paint. If not, look for the right art in comic book stores and poster shops. You might even want to frame some favorite comic book covers or pictures of heroes to personalize the room.

This is a fun theme, so have fun with it. You could add shelves for action figures or table space for piles of comics. This could be your comic-loving child’s best dream come true!