Furnishing Living Room Spaces
Feb 24th
There are many styles of furnishings to choose from when decorating living spaces. Selection of patterns, colors, functionality, and their proper fit are some things to consider.
Creating Uniqueness
Most living spaces are typically known as; the living room, family room, lounge, sitting room or den. Some choose to furnish their spaces for the sole purpose of catering to others, and some prefer to have their living space completely off limits. Alternative approaches to furnishing your living space can include having a vision or theme, enabling the freedom to express some inner creativity.
Consider renaming your space to something new such as; “the drama room” for a theatre type atmosphere, or “the retreat lounge” if creating a serene and relaxing oasis. If you are planning on hosting a wide selection of events within your living space, the “Jamboree Hub” might be appropriate. Whatever the choice, a new title for your space will help bring your vision to life as you create an environment filled with unique qualities.
Clearing the Clutter
If your current space has you feeling haunted or unimpressed, it may be due to some visual clutter disturbances or serious dust issues. It might even be the spooky inherited furniture carrying negative memories within its tattered floral or checkered patterns. You should feel happy and delighted when entering your living space, so if the room is filled with furnishings that feel wrong or do not seem to fit well with your new theme, these items should be relocated, cleared out, returned, sold, or left on the side of the road for collection. Trusting your instincts will certainly help with the de-cluttering process, as even Grandma’s old sofa could become the next founding inspiration of a glamorous furnishing theme. Some existing furniture may have just the right shape or potential essence that fits well into your theme. If you want to simply change the color or texture of the fabric, consider having the pieces altered or reupholstered.
After you have made your decisions and the clutter is cleared, you can fill your space with fresh items to liven up your living space.
Selecting Furniture
Select well-made durable furniture to create a safer environment and choose appropriate fabrics according to comfort level and stain resistance. Seating area furniture makes good focal points within a living space. The larger pieces and accents such as tables, ottomans or lighting fixtures can be easily added; unless of course you are planning to create a desert theme, needing only rocks for seating areas as you sit around the big palm tree that has become your main focal point.
Selecting appropriate colors and textures of furniture also add life to your theme. Having cool toned and eco-friendly furniture for a natural theme, or bright coloured furniture with slick leathery textures fill the room with drama.
There are many places to find unique and interesting furniture, you may even find that special something after your neighbour has cleared their clutter away, leaving behind some unique pieces that you have been longing for and know just what to do with…
Decorating During A Recession
Jan 28th
The economy is definitely going through a rough patch at the moment, but why should that put a damper on decorating your home? Are you buying a new home, or are you simply in desperate need of a change but are sadly stressing over your budgetary restrictions? Well fear no more, I have come up with a few different tips and creative thinking that will benefit you. Fortunately, the love and work you put into decorating can be a success while you’re on a budget. Being on a budget momentarily doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice the type of style and décor you want for your home. A tight budget does not need to prevent you from creating a chic space; whether you are looking to sleek up your bedroom, dining room, kitchen, or bathroom.
Vibrant Vases – Invest in a pottery shop that will allow you to make your own vase. This is very cost efficient and will bring out your own sense of uniqueness due to the different types of shapes and textures you can create. Paint your vase with the trendy colour of the season.
Painting your walls & add a decal – If certain areas need some sprucing up to change the feel of the room, I suggest picking a warm yet chic colour. It is certain that updating the colour of a room will instantly reinvigorate the surroundings. Additionally, you can add decals to your walls to give them an extra sparkle.
Home Furnishings – Changing the theme of your room is the most costly purchase you can make, and many individuals do not have the funds to render. Therefore an easier way to give your furniture a fresher look is by buying a sofa cover. This is a great idea because you already have the furniture and you can simply change the look or material of the sofa by adding a different cover.
Window Coverings and accessories – Giving your room a different type of curtain or window covering can do a lot for your space. You have so many options to choose from with a simple yet inexpensive investment. When choosing a window covering you should think about different types of styles, fabrics, and colours. As for accessories, you can add small details on your pillows, bed spreads, blankets, frames, shelves and decorative objects around your home.
Lighting & Modern pieces – Brighten up your room with different lampshades, or better yet purchase a retro/contemporary lighting fixture. By just changing the lightening in a room it will give you a different sense of tranquility. Why stop there? While you’re doing that, purchase different items to create a theme, something rustic or modern at a low cost that no one would expect to be inexpensive. Items such as shells, dried flowers or marble stones can be put in your pottery vase.
Storage systems – Are you tight on space and want to kill two birds with one stone? Well, all you need to do is buy multipurpose furniture. For example, depending on the setting of your room, buy fixture’s that match the type of look you are going for but also serve as storage space. A TV stand does not necessarily have to be for a television. Instead, use this stand for storage as it is beneficial and cost effective.
Economical Fall Décor – Grab a clear vase that you already have at home –or purchase an inexpensive vase– and place items that incorporate autumn. For example fill up your vase with colourful dried fruits and nuts or add pine cones with a daisy on the top. Another idea is to spray paint your items for that fall rustic colour. You can also purchase pumpkins to make different figurines out of them. You could use the pumpkin as a floral bouquet holder or buy little pumpkins and use them as candle holders.
Theresa Sebastiano
Writer, Style.ca
Colours With Meaning
Dec 29th
Picking a colour to paint your house can cause a lot of stress, especially if you don’t know what you want. Below are some colours and what they mean and represent. If you are thinking of painting your house, look below to see which colour says what!
- Red: Maintaining health, strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection. This colour is widely used in defensive magic. It is the colour of the element of fire. Red is associated with blood (and thus, life and death), birth, volcanoes, and intense emotions.
- Pink: Love, friendship, compassion, relaxation. Pink is symbolic of calm emotions and of emotional unions. It’s less powerful then red.
- Orange: The colour of general attraction and energy. Orange is a lesser aspect of red.
- Yellow: Intellect, confidence, divination, communication, eloquence, travel, movement. Yellow is the colour of the element of Air and is the colour of royalty.
- Green: Money, prosperity, employment, fertility, healing, growth. Green is the colour of the element of the Earth and symbolizes our planet’s fertility (it’s the colour of chlorophyll) as well as life itself.
- Blue: Healing, peace, patience, happiness. Blue is the colour of the element of Water. It is a symbol of the ocean, sleep, twilight, and the sky.
- Purple: Power, healing severe disease, spirituality, meditation, religion. Purple was once a European symbol of royalty; today it symbolizes the divine.
- White: Protection, purification, all purposes. It is the Symbol of the Moon, freshness, snow, cold, and potential. Adds to spiritual strength, breaks curses or crossed conditions, represents faith, truth and sincerity.
- Black: Banishing negativity, absorbing negativity. It symbolizes outer space and the universe. Black is the absence of colours. In some cultures, black represented fertility (as in quite fruitful black earth); in others, wisdom. In our culture it has been curiously linked with evil, due to religious associations.
- Brown: Animals. Brown represents soil and, to a lesser degree, fertility of the Earth.
So what is the best colour for your home? Here is your chance to express your own taste and style and see which colours work within your life!
Choosing the Best Colour for Your Home
Dec 29th
Time for the big question: What colour paint should you use for your house? This may seem like a simple question, but the answer is complex.
Have you ever tried looking at the small details in your house? A lot of factors should be considered when choosing the kind of colours that you need in your home. Depending on what you want to focus on, you can select various colours to be painted on your walls, ceilings, windows, columns, dividers and decks. However, take note that using too many colours can be distracting to the eyes. Most interior designers will tell you to stick to one colour family when painting your house. Be aware of using contrasting colours that can clash the look of your house. If you think blue is perfect for you, try using lighter or darker tone of blue for an accent instead of having a completely opposite, dissimilar colour.
The right home colour for you does not necessarily go by any rules. The bottom line is that you can express your taste and personality through these colours.
The big home décor statement these days: Global
Dec 4th
Nobody can deny that the economic downturn in recent times has ravaged everything on its path including spending on home décor. This is best illustrated by the conservative nature that seems to have crept in. Lavish extravagance on the home front is becoming very rare.
Still, overriding style statements in style trends these days are all headed in one direction. And that direction is best described as global styles.
It seems so fashionable and elegant these days to take international influences from far flung places to create a personalized, interesting and sometimes provocative décor in the home.
This trend is hardly surprising considering that we live in a global village, thanks mainly to easy and rapid global air travel and the World Wide Web. These both have helped a great deal in quietly promoting more travel around the world.
The result is that when home décor stylists seek international influences these days, no continent is spared. We all frequently come across Asian, Australian, European, African and American furniture trends in the home.
For instance, prints mainly portraying animals that can only be found in Africa have been popular for quite a while now. There is no denying that some pretty interesting things can be done with leopard and cheetah skin for example. These can be used both with antique and contemporary furniture in the home and still bring out some wonderful results in both extremes.
On many occasions animal prints have been used in conjunction with leather. It is fascinating how leather has taken a new prominent role as an ideal accent on wooden and fabric prices. Used in small dozes it tends to bring out the best in a wide variety of situations.
Home décor trends head for green
Dec 4th
The big emphasis these days are on stuff that is environmentally friendly, and home décor has not been spared. After centuries of destroying and damaging this wonderful planet we have been privileged to live in, the human race it seems has finally woken up to reality. And it’s about time.
And so, designs that use recycled materials or repurposed products are sizzling hot on the home furniture front as of now. If for some reason you do not like it, then the bad news is that it seems to be here to stay.
But why should you not take to green home décor? You may be behind the times if you think that this is still the ugly duckling it once was with few repetitive and boring options. Nothing can be further from reality. The truth is that if you want to be friendly to the environment you do not have to sacrifice style. Lots of interesting new options are available in the market today and you will be amazed the minute you decide to give this closer scrutiny.
To go with “the green” is a brand new big trend that seeks to save space as eagerly as the environment is being protected. This trend is for multi-purpose furniture. It is no longer good enough just to have beautiful home furniture and décor, you need to ask other questions like how functional it is. Does it save space? How much easier does it make life for you than by having space occupied by extravagant furniture? Style with utility seems to be the new catch phrase creeping in and it is amazing what can be done in great comfort and luxury in a very small space. That is if you have organized it well.
