Think On Your Feet

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.

Shabby Chic

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.

Tips to Fool the Eye—More Tips to Make a Small Space Feel Larger

Here are some more things you can do to make a small space feel larger, even if the floor space stays the same.

• See-Through Space--By using materials that you can see through, anything beyond will appear farther away, the room is the same size looks bigger.
• Using mirror to reflective surfaces--Mirror always makes a room feel larger. The space and the light will be reflected for a more open feeling.
• Using large simple pieces of furniture—A few large, simple pieces of furniture or accessories in place of several smaller pieces. With open space and large blocks of color, the room will appear to be more calm and comfortable.
• Keep the Upholstery Plain -- Select plain colored upholstery for furniture, Avoid bold plaids, strips or prints. Use texture for interest and stick to neutral tones if you can.
• Using sheer fabrics—for window treatments, bed skirts, table covers, and furniture slipcovers. Keeping a room look simple.

By using some of these simple rules above, your small space will turn to an intimate space that you like to enjoy most.

Make your small space larger

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 Keys of Interior Design

5 Key Principles of Interior Design

1. Balance- Balance gives a sense of repose and a feeling of completion. There are two types of balance: formal balance and informal balance. Formal balance is symmetrical balance that creates a mirror image effect. Informal balance is using different objects of the same visual weight to create a sense of equilibrium in the room.
2. Emphasis- Emphasis is the focal point of the room. It is where your eyes are first attracted to when you enter the room. You can create emphasis in a room by using line, form, color and texture.
3. Rhythm- Rhythm helps the eye to move easily from one object to another and creates a feeling of harmony that tells the eye that everything in the room is unified.
4. Proportion and Scale- Proportion is how the elements within an object relate to the room as a whole and scale relates to the size of an object when compared with the size of the space in which it is located.
5. Harmony and Unity- Harmony and unity embodies the other elements and principles of design. It is accomplished by repeating the elements, adding a little diversity so that the room has its own sense of personality, and balancing them throughout the room.