Turn a dark attic into a playroom simply by coating the walls in bright colors, adding a large rug, and stocking it with your kids' favorite toys and books. Tiered shelving takes advantaged of angled attic walls. Now, your kid’s has best play spaces to enjoy.
Soften the Edges
Much of life is harsh and demanding, so cut the hard corners off your decor to give it a relaxing look and feel. Textiles are your main ally in this quest. Drapes that pool on the floor, loose-fitting slipcovers, and tons of pillows all bring a sense of ease to a space.
Redo a Room with Simple Changes
The easiest way to freshen a room is to change a room's looks with the seasons. Adding elements of the season make a room more welcoming. Seasonal elements like plants, flowers, and other decorations can give a room an instant facelift.
Move the Outdoors In
The goal of garden style is to blur the line between indoors and out, but without sacrificing all the comforts of modern domesticated spaces.
Soak Away Stress
Wash away the cares of the day. Install a tub deep enough to soak in, add thick towels, warm colors, soft lighting, and soothing music to make those precious moments an experience that bathes body and soul, refreshing both.
Dream Up a Relaxing Bedroom
The calming influence of a bedroom beyond the bed: Keep only the essentials within reach and within view. Decorate the walls in the colors that comfort you, and add only artwork that makes you smile. Cover the floor with rugs or carpeting that feels best on bare feet. Cocooning your bed in yards of fabric can also help you block out the world, literally and figuratively.
Organize Away Chaos
Chaos breeds anxiety, so think of the time spent getting organized as prep time for calm to come. If your life is teeming with stuff, start the path to organization by focusing on a single space.
Create a Comfort Zone
Make a place in your home where relaxing is the key function. Make it convenient for your choice of relaxing activity -- reading, listening to music, or watching a movie.
Make a Place to Plan
Have everything you need close at hand so you can concentrate on the work you need or choose to do. Make it an inviting place by adding personal elements and comfort.
Dress an Inviting Table
To make a table inviting by add things like: flowers, candles, linens, etc.
Make Mornings Sing
A place to enjoy a few moments at the beginning of the day goes a long way toward keeping you relaxed. Even if you don't have a breakfast nook or the time to enjoy it, set up a portion of the kitchen strictly for the functions of morning. Having the coffeemaker, toaster, and cereals all gathered in one area helps to create focus.
1. Step back and really look at what you have at home. The secret to the simply shabby chic style may be right in front of you. An old teacup from your grandmother a milk jug from the kitchen and some flowers from the yard, put them together on your bedside table and there you are simply shabby chic.
2. Lighting is so important look for lamp shades with vintage beaded fringing, decorate them with pink velvet roses and cottage flowers, add lace doileys and a romantic corner is created.
3. Look for the little things simply shabby chic bathrooms are just a matter of dainty soaps they don't have to match and why not use a vintage pillowcase as a guest towel the embroidered edges add a pretty look.
4. Kitchens can also get the simply shabby chic treatment, dig out your old scales and pile a few of your clean tea towels on top. Keep you eyes out for old world accessories like soap savers and wash boards hanging them on your walls really gives that vintage simply shabby chic style.
5. Texture and fragrance also add so much to a simply shabby chic home look for soft pink velvet, satin and velvet roses to fill dark corners also add lengths of vintage beaded fringing to curtin rods and under shelves.
Last remember that the true simply shabby chic look is understated don't have everything in your home distressed, miss matched or floral a truly beautiful home is a blend of many things. Your own personality mixed with the simply shabby chic style will always be unique and special.
Simplicity, subtle sophistication, texture and clean lines help to define contemporary decorating. It is a blend of comfortable, livable elements that create a sophisticated, fresh feel.
Here are some basic rules for you:
Color—Neutrals, black, and white are the main colors in contemporary interiors. The palette is often punched up and accented with bright and bold color. Black is often used to ground and define a contemporary room. With walls painted in a basic neutral, you have a wonderful backdrop for bold colored accessories.
Line and Space--The most obvious and distinctive element of a contemporary style is line. It's found in architectural details, use of bold color blocks, high ceilings, bare windows, and geometric shapes in wall art and sculpture. The bare space, on walls, between pieces of furniture, and above in upper areas, becomes as important as the areas filled with objects.
Contemporary Furniture--Smooth, clean, geometric shapes are essential for furniture pieces. Upholstered furniture often wears black, white, or other neutral tones in textured natural fibers. Cover it in a neutral, black, or bold fabric. Fabrics often have a natural look.
Furniture pieces should be simple and uncluttered, without curves or decoration. Sofas, chairs, and ottomans have exposed legs. Beds and chairs usually have no skirt, trim, fringe, or tassels.
Floors-- Should be bare and smooth in wood, tile, or vinyl. If you must use carpet for sound control or warmth, add color and texture with plain or geometric-patterned area rugs.
By focusing on color, space, and shape, your contemporary home can be a quiet and comfortable retreat.
Light affects how color appears to us, for instance if you are looking at a block of red color it will change in appearance when exposed to lights of various intensities and types. The same color can appear to transition to another color depending on the light used to view the color. Not enough lighting will further darken a color and too much lighting will wash out a color. Color & Natural Light : Natural light is generally the predominate home lighting during the day and depending on which direction your windows or glass doors face that will dictate the "color" and "visible temperature" of the natural light that enters your home.
If you have a warm orange-red paint on your living room wall and that room has a window facing west then the orange-red color will become even more vivid after noon. If in that same room the window faces north, the orange-red wall paint will be subdued and toned down because the light filtering in has a bluish cast.
Color & Artificial Light: Day light is supplemented by artificial light in our homes therefore we need to understand their properties. Most fluorescent lights give off a green tinge and can really dull warm colors. There are now fluorescent lights, which have a pink tinge, are more color friendly, and should enhance warm colors. Incandescent light or halogen lighting may cast a yellowing warm light dulling down cool colors. They however will enhance warmer colors.
Considering lighting when selecting colors for paint, wallpaper or fabrics for your home will help you understand how to avoid costly mistakes.
Warm colors are known to excite; cools colors to calm. The following is a list described to colors.
Warm colors work well in areas where you wish to stimulate conversation and promote interaction. Think lively yellow in the kitchen; demure red in the living room; terra cotta orange in the den. These are rooms where family and friends congregate and interaction is expected.
By contrast, you want to put cool colors in areas where you relax: lavender bathroom; ocean-blue bedroom; forest green study.
Now that you know more about which colors evoke what moods, it should be easier to begin selecting colors that not only fit your design palette, but your emotional palette as well.
You don’t have to be looking at your feet to take notice of a floor. Your choice of flooring makes up substantive part of your home’s decor. Appearance and durability are usually the key issues in flooring considerations, but comfort ought to be a priority as well. For most homebuyers or homeowners, cost must also play a major part in choosing the material. You have five basic categories of flooring to choose from: wood, laminate resilient, concrete and tile.
Hardwood floors may be the most appealing type of flooring for your home. It offers a very natural look and comes in a variety of colors.
Laminate floors have come in a variety of wood-grain patterns, and they are easier to keep clean than wood floors.
Resilient flooring remains a perennial favorite for kitchen floors because of its durability and low maintenance.
Stone offers incomparable beauty for floor that only nature can create. It is ideal for people with allergies who want to avoid carpet.
Concrete in recent years has become an extremely popular choice for countertops and floors. It highly durable and there are no allergens or grout to clean. The cool feel of the floors is also a welcome respite during triple digit temperatures.
Tiles floor are look like stone, but they are easier to maintain, they don’t require a sealant. There’s also huge variation in color and texture.
Choose carefully, have one that fits your lifestyle.
If you like the picture on the left, then you like shabby chic. Shabby chic is a design style deliberately using worn and deteriorated items. Shabby chic items are often heavily painted with many layers showing through obviously worn areas. The style is imitated by painting then rubbing and sanding away the top coat to show the wood or base coats. Fabrics tend to be cottons, with linen being particularly popular, inspired by old French linens. Whites and worn or bleached out pastels are favorite colors. Fabric is often stained with tea to give it the look of old fabric.
Shabby Chic can be anything you want it to be, and is a great way to bring your personal style to any room. Most Shabby Chic decor is based on a white-on-white or beige-on-beige theme. Soft pastels are often used as accent colors, but with a little creativity, you can add just about any color you want. A classic example of Shabby Chic would be to cover couches and overstuffed chairs with white slipcovers, whitewash your wood furniture and hang white airy curtains. Then hang your favorite painting or artwork in the most prominent place in the room. Choose one or two colors in the painting as accent colors, and repeat the colors in throw pillows, flowers, soft throw blankets, and candles. Another great feature of Shabby Chic is the worn and well-loved look. I love its simplicity -- simple color themes combined with your favorite furniture and art.
Here are some more things you can do to make a small space feel larger, even if the floor space stays the same. By using some of these simple rules above, your small space will turn to an intimate space that you like to enjoy most.
If you live in a small apartment or home, there are things you can do to make a small room feel more spacious, and less cramped. With color, furniture arranging, and interesting lighting, your space won't feel so cramped. Try some tips here see if it works for you. Clear Out the Clutter-- Work out ways to get collections out of view, organized behind doors, table skirts, or on shelves. With things neatly arranged and out of sight, the space that is in view will feel orderly and open.
Open the Way—Don’t let furniture and accessories blocking the view of a room. Moving furniture out and away from walkways, you'll open up the space and make it feel larger. You can also choose short pieces of furniture like an ottoman, an armless, open chair, or a low table, and place large, tall pieces along a wall rather than out in the open space. If you can see the floor, the room will look larger.
Chooser Soft, Light Hues-- Whereas dark, warm colors make a space feel cozy and intimate, light, cool colors make a space feel open and airy. For optimum effect, select soft tones of blues and greens.
Use single Color Scheme-- Choose colors that are in the same color family. Cool colors and delicate warm colors on most surfaces give the room a more open look.
Coordinate Wall and Furniture Colors-- Pieces of furniture are less interrupting and tend to blend with the space if they're colored to match the wall color. Contrasting colors tend to break up a space.
Let in the Light-- Any room will look larger if it's well-lit, either by natural light or artificial lighting. Get rid of heavy draperies and open up the windows to let the light of the outdoors into the space.
By using soft, snuggly upholstered pieces, dark, warm tones, and dramatic lighting, your tiny corner can become a wonderful private space.
Small is beautiful!
5 Key Principles of Interior Design
