Archive for February, 2011

Using Color to Update a Room Design

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

When looking for an affordable and easy way to update the appearance of a room, employing the use of color is an excellent way to get the job done, whether you hang a colorful kitchen wall art over the kitchen table or a vintage painted metal art above the fireplace. Colors come in and out of style, so just swapping outdated colors for newer trends is a really quick way to freshen up the look of a room. Or, if a room is too neutral and lackluster, adding color can transformative from a design standpoint. Here are a few color ideas that can help brighten any room.

Revitalize with Color

If avocado green or mustard yellow are primary colors in any room, it is way past time to update the colors in the room. If the budget is tight, cover furniture with slipcovers in more modern colors, paint walls and swap out accessories to create a fresh look in a room that desperately needs to move into this century.

Choosing Colors

Beige is the ultimate neutral and it is just about the safest color on the planet, which means that it blends well with any other color. The unfortunate side effect of being so versatile is that beige is also one of the most boring colors in the world. When it comes to ordinary, beige is the winning color. Sometimes by achieving the goal of being neutral, the room is versatile but has no particular character. The solution is simple, just punch up the design with a few bold pops of color. These accent colors can be virtually anything, because the background is invisible beige. Limit the accent colors to three or less, and spread the color throughout the room to keep the design feeling balanced.

Furnishings

Unfortunately furnishings also get outdated, and it may not always be practical to replace larger pieces of furniture on a whim; however, covering any piece of furniture with a colorful slipcover instantly updates its look. Add a slipcover that helps pull an accent color around the room, or make an outdated color, like mustard yellow, disappear by adding a beige slipcover to a piece of furniture. Slipcovers should only be used when furniture is in good shape; when a piece of furniture begins to fall apart the best solution is to replace it.

Striking Accents

One of the easiest ways to update color in a room is to swap out the accent pieces, like candles, throw pillows, wall decor and frames, for new options in modern designs and colors. Choose pillow patterns that include a sampling of each accent color found in the room, because they will help to tie the room’s décor together. Mix solid color and patterned pillow coverings to infuse a neutral couch with color. Update groups of candles displayed in the room to include fresh, new colors, and even pictures on the walls can mirror the new colors being spread through the room.

Final Tips

Stay away from furniture that is trendy, because it will become outdated too quickly. To create a trendy look in any room though, find furnishings with traditional shapes and neutral colors, and then simply add slipcovers and throw pillows to pull new but fleeting trends into the room’s design. Then when these new colors become outdated, simply swap out slipcovers and accessories for fresh colors to give the room an entirely new look.

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Choosing the Right Fabric for the Right Location

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Although you can certainly find a wide array of fabrics to choose from when you decorate your home, it’s important to understand that not every fabric is equally suitable for every use, just as you wouldn’t choose to hang a large restaurant wall art in the kitchen when there’s only room for smaller kitchen wall hangings. You’ll often find that your decorating successes and failures will depend heavily on your choice of fabric. If you’re not sure which fabrics are best suited for different decorating uses around your home, here are some tips you can use to make better choices.

Cotton Fabric

When choosing fabrics for decorating purposes, cotton is a basic. You’ll find it in a wide variety of patterns, colors, styles and weights, allowing you to make the perfect selection for many of your home decorating needs. As an added advantage, cotton fabrics are usually quite affordable. These fabrics will work nicely for window treatments, pillows, bedding and tablecloths. Although it’s hard to deny that pure cotton is luxurious, cotton blend fabrics are often preferred for many home decorating needs. For example, when cotton is blended with polyester, the resulting fabric will have more wrinkle resistance and resilience. In order to reduce the need for ironing, choose cotton or cotton blend fabrics that have wrinkle resistant properties.

Linen Fabric

Linen can be a great fabric to use for your home decorating needs. However, because it has a tendency towards wrinkling, it is better used for tablecloths or window treatments instead of for upholstery. However, if you want a few pieces of purely decorative furniture in your home, linen can work wonderfully. It has a classic and crisp look that will blend beautifully with almost any style of décor. Linen has a wonderfully appealing texture, which will add a charming look to your home. However, in order for linen to look beautifully crisp, you must keep it neatly pressed.

Silk Fabric

If you want to add a beautifully luxurious touch to your home, silk can be the perfect choice. It’s lovely when used for pillows, bedding, curtains and other accents around the home. Although it is more expensive than many other fabrics, it has an exotically beautiful look that just can’t be beat. Although you probably wouldn’t want to use silk in your home’s high traffic areas, it can be the perfect choice for decorative accents. It’s a great choice for pillow cases and bed sheets, because it feels so wonderful against the skin.

Denim

If you want to add rustic appeal to your home, rugged denim could be just what you’ve been looking for. You’ll find plenty of colors from which to choose, besides just the traditional blue denim shade. Denim is often a great choice for casual family rooms, children’s rooms, or the kitchen. If you want to add an attractively rustic look to your home, try adding one or more denim accessories. Denim blends nicely with casual, country or rustic decorating styles. Because it is so durable, it will also work well in the children’s playroom.

Synthetic Fabric

Never overlook the versatility of synthetic fabrics when decorating your home. Synthetic fibers can add a lot of wrinkle resistance, durability and fade resistance to fabric, whether combined with natural fibers or used alone. Synthetic fabrics are also a great way to add inexpensive style to your home, since they are frequently more affordable than natural fabrics.

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Using Sustainable Designs in a Child’s Playroom

Friday, February 25th, 2011

If you are an environmentally conscious parent, you are undoubtedly aware of the various materials being used in your home. Perhaps you choose to decorate with wood or metal wall hangings from recycled materials instead of newly manufactured items from a metal wall art store.  A child’s playroom can often be especially challenging in an eco-friendly home, because of the number of toys and plastic items that are popular for use in these rooms. Fortunately, there are still some ways that you can utilize eco-friendly and sustainable materials in the playroom.

Cork for Floors and Walls

Cork is a great material to use in an environmentally conscious home. It works well as a flooring material, or on the walls to provide a child with an area to hang artwork. It can be easy to install, providing a lot of versatility to the room’s overall design. Cork can also be painted with low-VOC paint if you want to add a bit more visual interest and color. Cork works well as a flooring material for the playroom, due to its natural cushioning properties. As a result, your child will be able to comfortably crawl around on the floor without hurting their little knees. Although it’s not the most inexpensive flooring option, it is a great choice if you want to use a sustainable and environmentally responsible material.

Bamboo Flooring

Although you might not immediately think of bamboo for a child’s playroom, it is actually a very good choice. Bamboo is among the world’s most sustainable resources, making it a good choice for an environmentally friendly home. Bamboo grows to maturity in only seven years, at which time it can be harvested and used to make a variety of different products. Although bamboo is a grass, it has the strength and feel of wood. When used as a flooring material, it is scratch resistant, stain resistant, and very durable, making it a great playroom choice. You might also choose to add bamboo cabinets to the playroom walls to provide extra toy storage space. They will be durable, strong and beautiful, even as your child grows older.

Wall Coverings

When choosing wall coverings for the playroom, select only environmentally friendly choices. Although natural grass wallpaper can be a beautiful option for walls, it’s not a good choice for lower areas of the playroom walls where little hands can reach it. However, it is a good choice for covering the upper areas of the walls. Because it is available in a wide array of textures and colors, it’s great for adding visual interest to the room. Low VOC paint is also an environmentally friendly choice to use on playroom walls. Not only is this paint friendlier to the environment, but it will cut down on paint odors in the home when you are applying it.

If you use a bit of thought and creativity, it can be easy to use sustainable materials in the playroom. Think outside of the usual realm of children’s furnishings, shopping at specialty stores in order to find the products you’re looking for. By using sustainable materials in the playroom, you’ll be protecting the environment and teaching your children the importance of being environmentally responsible at the same time.

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Planet-Friendly Bedroom Ideas with Exotic Flair

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

The master bedroom suite is one of the most important rooms in the home.  Determining the best décor theme for the bedroom can be exhausting.  Many homeowners are getting on the “green” bandwagon and going with trendy new planet-friendly bedroom options that yield a bedroom that is not only good for the environment but that is also exotically styled.  The tips that follow can help you plan and implement earth-friendly ideas with a wild and exotic twist.

Texture to the Nines

An exotic bedroom calls out to be touched – whether it is running your hand down the walls of the room or feeling the textures and fabrics used in the linens.  You can add exotic texture to your bedroom walls by using a textured or even a faux finish to provide visual interest and the illusion of depth.  Choose low odor, low or no VOC paint in the bedroom; this will produce less indoor pollution while being good for the environment too.  Not looking to paint? Choose wallpaper instead.  Many homeowners think that wallpaper is an eco-unfriendly choice, but in reality, there are quite a number of very environmentally-conscious wallpapers on the market.  Choose a natural paper like natural grass wallpaper for an exotic flair and untold natural beauty that is touchable and gorgeous.

Tree-Hugging Flooring

No sector of the décor industry has grown as much as flooring.  You can find lots of eco-friendly flooring for an exotic look in the bedroom.  In lieu of traditional carpet, opt for cork flooring or bamboo flooring.  These are two wonderful and exotic choices that are a viable alternative to hardwood flooring that is not sustainable.  Bamboo is particularly durable and a big hit with designers right now.  Be sure that you also bring in some delightfully natural grass area rugs to complete the look as well as natural grass furniture pads that can protect your bamboo or cork flooring from the typically heavy furniture that is used in the bedroom.

Air Purification

Surrounding yourself with eco-friendly products in your exotic bedroom feels even more lavish when the air that you breathe is pure and clean.  After all, the bedroom is where we spend more than a third of our lives, resting, sleeping – and breathing!  Clean air can be achieved by installing a quiet-running air purification system, and then augmented by the installation of living, exotic plants.  Small ferns and potted plants are a wonderful way to clean the air the natural way as they provide fresh oxygen for the space.  Plants not only bring a beautiful ambience to the space, but they are also eco-friendly and make the bedroom “greener” literally.

Earth-Friendly Bedding and Accessories

Finish up the look of your eco-friendly bedroom with earth-loving bedding and accessories.  Choose organic cotton sheets, pillow cases, and comforters.  Organic cotton is ideal because it is grown using methods that don’t involve the use of toxic pesticides. This makes them better for your health, the health of growers and workers in the field, and for the environment in general.  Many, many companies now offer organic cotton bedding and accessories, which makes finding the style that you like just a matter of preference.

Now that the bedroom looks perfect, direct your attention to the kitchen walls and make them look equally great with kitchen wall decor or trendy cafe style restaurant wall art.

Photo credit to hotel_kursaal_ausonia.

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