Archive for the ‘Interior Design’ Category

The interior of a house or commercial place should complement the exterior, and vice versa. This can be achieved by creating an artistically balanced ambience by using decorative outdoor lighting fixtures at different angles and points. For example if for a small garden or deck canister sized lighting fixtures create a loud and crass effect. To get the right balance the area should be highlighted by using small lights closer to the ground, on tree trunks or eaves of structures around.

Light designers and manufacturers realizing potential of decorative outdoor lighting introduced shapes, styles and finishes in consonance with changing times. Decorative outdoor lights in neo-classical designs, informal or contemporary and stylistic create harmonious setting matching the interior with the exterior. Purpose also decides design of decorative outdoor lightings. For pathways, lightings with top covers or shades are preferred as light is directed out and down but not on the face. There is nothing worse than to be momentarily blinded by instant glare. One does not need a beacon on private property but a decorative light to focus on special features of the house as well as safeguard it. In commercial places such as malls, hotels, schools, colleges, clubs the decorative outdoor lighting should be artistic as well as utilitarian. Compact fluorescent lights, ground level moon lamps, post lanterns are some of the designs that help control glare and spill.

Another transformation from old to new is the use of decorative outdoor lighting with timers and photo cells. One can visualize the gas-burning lamps of 1800’s used to light streets. We have come a long way but nostalgia plays a hand as same idea is incorporated in electricity bulbs available in flame shaped designs. Whatever the design or style from diamond shaped to opal, antique lamp posts and shades, lights with frosted exterior, guests and visitors should not be inconvenienced by faulty placement and design selection. Instead of being influenced by neighbors, store catalogues or particular shape and color consider requirement, budget and appropriate lighting. If pathway is long and dark then hang Chinese lanterns or wanting to create a partition in the lawn then plant tiki torches available in different sizes and color.
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Decorative interior painting offers unlimited possibilities for customizing and personalizing your home. Apart from the task of choosing and mixing colors, you will have to arrange them into shapes on your surface. Gaining confidence in handling your material and equipment is all part of the pleasure of decorating.

Decisions about color are always going to require pause for reflection. You may choose colors because of the memories they evoke, for cultural reasons, or because they are soothing. There is no doubt that the best way to do this is to practice.

These choices are all personal, and only you can make them. Some designs can be helped onto wall or floor with stencils and stamps. Some design classic will always remain, but they can be adapted to suit the current look. The wall you are to work on should be well prepared and white.

These are an excellent way of controlling where your paint goes, as well as a means of covering a surface quickly. Whatever you do, always look at other interiors, at textiles, clothing, and painting, and take your lead from those you like.

Blue with green, for example, is perfectly acceptable. You may seek guidance in color theory, but understanding the spectrum and how to mix paint will not be much help in choosing which colors to use, although it can explain why certain color combination behave in the way they do.
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Fire has energy of its own and has always been a necessary element in human life. Building a fire has gone from a necessity to a luxury and with time a decorative fireplace has been proven to have a certain inexplicable quality that brings about a soothing feeling. Since the Victorian era fireplaces have been used to add a hint of class and sophistication to the home. The decorative fireplace not only provides an effective method of heating but also adds a lot of sentimental value to the house.

It is a traditional concept in most homes that families get together at the decorative fireplace. The children do their homework there as the grandmother rocks on her rocking chair. The mother is busy doing her knitting work and the grandfather and father share a smoke or an evening glass of drink. Sitting with your loved ones in the warmth of natural fire provides a sense of security and satisfaction that cannot be explained with words. Fire emits a divine energy that helps strengthen bonds and gives rise to sensations that calm the body and are soothing to the mind.

With the advance in technology and the increase in modern gadgets people have forgotten the value of being close to natural elements. These days television has become a common pass time and is making family members distant from each other. The decorative fireplace is an important instrument in keeping the family closely knit as it provides peace during times of disturbance and warmth on cold days. Heat has always been used for healing pain and driving sorrow away. A fireplace is the perfect way to keep your family together.
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Can you tell the difference between entering a house and a home? If so, what makes the difference to you? Is it something about the way a living space looks that helps you decide? Or perhaps it is a feeling, something about the atmosphere that makes a house different than a home? I guess that there are many factors that could account for the differences we all experience as we enter a living space. For me, one of the biggest things that helps me determine whether a living space feels like a house or a home is decorations.

You know how it is. You enter someone’s house and look around to see nothing but blank walls and minimal furniture. You silently wonder how they live in a place as drab and uninviting as this. There is no art work, no color, and certainly no sense of ownership and pride about the house you are seeing. It seems like they haven’t put in any time to adding decorations or the touches that make a house seem like more than a house.

Enter house two. From the time you walk through the front door all of your senses are awakened. There is a wonderful smell coming from the candles burning throughout the house, and the lighting of the candles isn’t too bad either. The house is bursting with color and personality, almost as if it reflects something about the people who live there. The walls, bookshelves, and furniture are all a part of the decorations that fill this home and make anyone want to spend time there.

Most everyone I know wants to have a home rather than a house. They want their living space to feel lived in, inviting, and special. They want their home to reflect who they are and the things they care about, and they certainly want it to be filled with amazing colors, great textures and smells, and a lot of great decorations.
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Outdoor rooms are extremely popular these days, and not just amongst the rich and famous! You can squeeze an outdoor room in almost any space, and decorate it to match the style and mood of your home, inexpensively!

Any room needs furniture, and an outdoor room is no exception. However, much of the patio furniture on the market today is quite expensive. You can make inexpensive resin chairs work for you, however. There are new varieties with a texture to them that looks more like wood than their slick plastic counterparts did. Look for these! Also, the white Adirondack resin chairs sell at my local discount stores from $11 to $15, and look amazingly like the real painted wood chairs, especially from a distance. Dress up your new chairs with some cushions, and they will fit right in to any décor! You can also now spray paint those chairs with a new paint from Krylon called Fusion. Pick it up for about $4 and customize cheap plastic chairs. (Hint: Look at garage sales for used ones you can repaint!)

Once you have your furniture in place, time to think privacy. Hopefully, you are protected on at least one side by a wall, fence, or building. A great way to offer yourself some more private moments is to use a trellis as an extra wall, and plant fast growing vines at its base. You can anchor the trellis in a planter to make a moveable wall. Morning glories, scarlet runner beans, and moonflower will all cover your new “wall” in no time!

If your outdoor room is protected in part from the weather, fabric curtains can be used outdoors as well. I suggest using cheap flat sheets and either a staple gun or a grommet kit. Cheap muslin can work as well, and is so inexpensive it can just be replaced the next year! This is a great technique for the end of a porch or deck, and can help control the sun as well. Be sure to use tiebacks for those times you want to let the breezes blow through.

Lighting is so often overlooked in outdoor rooms because of its expensive nature, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Candles and torches are wonderful for outdoor meals, and solar lights can be used for safety, without the expense of electrical installation. Strings of clear holiday lights are magical wrapped around a tree, or over a porch beam. Luminerias can be created with recycled cans and a punch tool, then drop a candle inside.
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Are you looking for new ideas to decorate your kid’s room? Give the room some longevity by choosing background elements that are long lasting. Then use accessories, bedding, and inexpensive area rugs to create easily changeable themes. Unlike the other rooms in your home, which mostly reflect your personality, decorating kids rooms requires a slightly different approach.

Whether you’re a first-time parent or a veteran, decorating kid’s rooms is not child’s play. It’s a quite complex process where an adult has to incorporate all the safety features and blend them with childlike fantasy.

The room should be an expression of the child’s identity, not yours. But children change, so you need to think ahead: will the design be easy to modify in five years, or even two? Is there room for storage, study, animal or doll collections, or a wrestling match?
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Putting mirrors in your house can do wonders, especially if you have limited space, or you just want to decorate your home. Why mirrors? Because mirrors enhance light and reflection, they could help improve what your house looks like. Mirrors can also simulate depth for houses with small rooms.

I. Top 10 Mirror Tips

10. Put large-sized mirrors in your house. You could, for instance, use mirrors that could span from the floor to the ceiling. You could put these mirrors on both sides of your fireplace. This would make your fireplace room larger and would reflect objects around the room.

9. You might want to have peer mirrors in the windows. Rooms with peer mirrors could have an added depth.

8. You could also install mirrors to cover wall blemishes. This would also save you refinishing costs. Instead of spending fortunes on repainting and refurnishing that part of the wall that got burned by candle or have dirt that cannot be removed, why not put a nice mirror there to hide the wall’s scar?

7. There are also movable mirrors that you could use. You could move the mirrors from time to time to have a different view of the house. In that way, you could have a new look in your house from time to time, depending on what location and items the mirrors are reflecting on.

6. You could also use small mirrors which could reflect on interesting objects. An area with aromatic candles could be given extra prominence if reflected on a mirror.

5. You could also have mirrored screens for you to illuminate a dark corner. You do not have to put bulbs or lights in every part of your house, thanks to mirrors. This would save you electricity costs.

4. There are also place mats that are mirrored. Dishes and accessories made of glass shimmer better than non-glass ones. Shop around for these utensils.

3. Ceilings could also be enhanced with mirrors. Mirrors on the ceiling create a “skylight” effect.

2. Kitchen backsplash could also be mirrored.

1. Room ceilings are not the only ceilings where you could put some mirrors on. Even pantry or cabinet ceilings could also be placed with mirrors. Putting mirrors on these ceilings would enable you to see the contents of the upper shelves.
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Creating a cohesive interior design for you home isn’t that hard if you know some of the basics. In fact, decorating your home so that all the various elements combine to create the look you’ve always wanted can be a lot of fun.

Following are some proven tips to help you turn your house into a designer home:

Taking the first step

As they say, let’s start at the beginning. Chances are good that your home is a mish mash of furnishings, art, accents and accessories that have been collected over time. To create the perfect designer look, you want to first consider the purpose for each room, how you want it to look, your personal tastes, features that can and can’t be changed, and finally, the budget you have available.

Start with the key elements

The success of a room’s design lies in the balance you create. The basics of good design are proportion, balance, contrast, rhythm, pattern/texture and harmony. Knowing how these elements work together will help you design your space so that it’s not only beautiful, but comfortable and functional as well.

Proportion

Scale is one of the most important things to consider when creating the look of a room. A room that is proportioned correctly will feel welcoming while an incorrectly portioned room will just feel crowded and unfriendly. The trick is to match pieces in terms of their scale. A large overstuffed sofa needs an equally large end table or coffee table; otherwise, these accents simply disappear as the sofa dwarfs them proportionally. When considering scale, look to the other rooms in your home for furniture that may be a better fit with the focal pieces you have in your room.

Balance

When creating balance, there’s two ways to go here. The first is symmetrical design, where everything is perfectly balanced. With symmetrical design, there’s roughly two of everything or items are mirrored in the room. For instance, one chair is placed exactly opposite another one just like it. While this creates balance, it can also make a room look static and lacking any visual interest or energy. Experienced designers use asymmetry to create this interest. Objects balance well because they are judged by their visual weight, not pairings. For instance, you may have a large sofa on one side of the room that is balanced by two large overstuffed chairs with an accent table in the middle and floor lamp behind. These pieces balance the sofa visually, even though they aren’t equal in size or shape. The design works because there is balance in the asymmetrical layout of the furniture.
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