Interior Decorating Shop Blog

These are all the Blogs posted in December, 2009.

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Thursday, 31

FASHIONABLE HOME: Rules for the roost

Designers help prevent decorating faux pas

By HALI BERNSTEIN SAYLOR
HOME EDITOR
When you were younger and first learning how to dress yourself, your mom undoubtedly helped you figure out how to button a button or tie a shoe along with providing fashion advice such as to avoid mixing stripes and polka dots, how certain colors go together or that you should only wear white between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Decorating your home is not much different. Home fashion has its own set of rules and its own mom, of sorts: the interior designer.
Although there is no home fashion police that will arrest you for breaking the rules, Linda Hoak, a design consultant for Ethan Allen, said good design is essential to making you feel good in your environment.
"That's one of the reasons why I love design so much -- the psychology of it."
Her co-worker Christa Daniel, a service specialist and design consultant, said that often even the homeowner doesn't know why he or she feels a certain way when entering a room. "It's subliminal. Good design can create a relaxing or energizing environment."
So, what are some common mistakes people make when decorating their homes and what advice does "Mom the Designer" have?
First, and, most importantly, consult an expert, says Hoak and Linda Abell of LA Design Ltd. in Henderson.
Places such as Ethan Allen offer free designer services to their clients and consultant fees for independent interior designers are relatively minor when compared to the cost of having to redo a room.
"People can avoid making design mistakes by carefully thinking out the space and how it will be used -- how they want it to live and what message they want to convey to their family members and guests," Hoak said.
Abell said once you figure out your theme, color scheme or style, things you enjoy the most, then it's easier to make decorating decisions.
"That's were a designer comes in -- to steer you," she said. "We're here to help you figure out what you need."
Among the common mistakes they often see are improper placement of furniture or furniture that is inappropriately scaled for the size of a room, too many flooring surfaces within a home, poor lighting and misuse or lack of color.
"For me, personally, one of the most glaring common mistakes is when I go into a room and the pieces are misplaced," Hoak said.
Pieces must be placed to allow for good traffic flow through the space and from one room to another, she said.
Good flow refers not just to being able to move physically in the room, but that the entire home has the same feel, personality and color scheme.
"A home will not flow if the carpet is a different color in each room," said Laura Franklin, design center manager for Ethan Allen's showroom at the Las Vegas Design Center.
Daniel agreed, saying there needs to be a sense of continuity. "You can make a really big home feel chopped up if there are too many different types of flooring."
The same is true if too many colors are used, Abell said. She recommends picking a few colors and varying the percentage of use in each room to create different looks. For example, a Tuscan home done in deep red, dark green and gold can play up the red shade in a girl's room or the green in a boy's room and use the other two colors just for accents.
Going hand in hand with proper placement and flow is the appropriate scale.
Abell said people who move to Las Vegas from Eastern cities have an especially hard time with scale and spatial arrangements.
"In the East homes are tighter; they have lower ceilings. We're more modern and open here."
So when they bring their Colonial-style furnishings to Las Vegas, they are dwarfed by the rooms' size. As a result, they go furniture shopping and end up buying something that is too big, she said.
"Furniture stores here have no ceilings so everything in them looks smaller than it is."
The best way to avoid buying furniture that is the wrong sale is to "measure, measure, measure," Abell said.
"One of the things that is glaring to me is pictures. The number one mistake people make with pictures is hanging them too high," Franklin said.
Other problems include hanging pictures that are improperly scaled for the room's size or staggering them when they are not on a staircase and the placement doesn't make sense.
Franklin also sees the overuse of accessories as a common mistake. "We have to learn how to edit ourselves. Just like Coco Chanel said, when you go out the door take two things off. You have to constantly edit your space or it becomes too much."
When there are too many accessories in a room, you can't see the beauty of individual items, Daniel added.
Having one large decorative accessory also is more dramatic and a popular decorating trend, Franklin said.
Although it seems to contradict her previous thought about accessories, Franklin said people need to allocate about 25 percent of their decorating budget for accessories. They key is selecting the right type of accessories. Area rugs, lighting, art and accents for the table are all accessories and most people tend to think of accessories only as "tchotchkes on a ledge."
"People forget about lighting," she said.
Or use it improperly, Hoak added. "Lighting is everything."
Hoak recommends putting lights on dimmers to help control and modify light according to the mood or purpose.
Abell said lighting is a good place to invest your decorating dollars. "Switch out the builders' specials," she said. "It makes your house special and distinguishes it from all the others on the block."
And when considering light in a room, Abell said you shouldn't forget window coverings. Most people improperly size their window treatments, getting them too short or putting on too much for the window's size, she said.
"There are tricks to hide and fix what you have. That's where the trained eye comes in.
"Just ask for help. Get a game plan and go from there. You can do as much or as little as you want."

Original Article

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Posted By Luana Schneider at 8:54 AM / Category:Decorating Tips

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By Elana Ashanti Jefferson

Celebrity designers, media, trade shows, bloggers, manufacturers, marketers, merchandisers and retailers all produce a swirl of information that sets and drives home trends for the coming year.

It's Angela Ringo's job to translate it all. As the interiors editor for the trend forecasting outfit Stylesight, Ringo has identified five trends that she says will define home decorating in 2010. They are:

1. The warming of minimalism. "It's still austere, but it's been warmed up with natural materials," Ringo says.

Trendsetters: Calvin Klein Home and the Japanese gift and home accessories maker Muji.

2. Sensible design. Often appealing to younger, first-home-types, this is a simple, stripped-down, sometimes industrial look. "It's very space-conscious," Ringo says.

Trendsetters: Belgium's Maarten De Ceulaer Design Studio and British furnituremaker Guy and Brown.

3. Vintage and antique inspiration continues. "It could be real vintage or made to look like it," Ringo says. "It's this eclectic trend, with a lot of transforming old things into new things."

Trendsetters: Casegoods designer Ellen Seegers and furniture designer Piet Hein Eek. Both are Dutch.

4. Surreal, Rococo, NeoBaroque revival continues. This is about layering ornate details in a contemporary way. Think fancy wallpaper behind lacquered, high-shine furniture, and artful spaces with an air of mystery. "It's about mixing contemporary with Old World," Ringo says.

Trendsetters: Spanish artist/designer Jaime Hayon, who likes to blur the lines between art, design and decoration; the Elle Deco Suite by Maison Martin Margiela at the CitÚ de l'Architecture in Paris; and last year's "Continuing Curve" exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

5. Natural elements and recycled materials. Gone are the days when green was a sociopolitical catchphrase. Now it's a lifestyle and a business model.

"It's the zeitgeist," Ringo says. "There's really a sense of community around anti-throwawayism."

The impact on the home is huge, with natural materials becoming the new "bling." Green design will continue its takeover in 2010 as the home-design world moves toward a culture in which managing ecological impact is the norm.

Colour codes

The paint industry has its own take on these trends. Behr characterises its popular New Year's colour groupings as Soft Structure (pale grays and tone-on-tone), Artisan Voyage (inspired by global flea markets), Dark Glamour (black accents, peacock blue), and Farm House Craft (organic is the operative word). And Sherwin-Williams groups the home colour trends as Rooted (earthy browns, spicy reds, blackened purple), Treasured (time-tested tones like smoky blue or yellow pumice), Simplified (muted grays and buttery yellows), and Refreshed (inspired by sunny days and blooming gardens).

The Pantone Color Institute's pick for the colour of the year in 2010 is turquoise. Reminiscent of tropical oceans and Native American jewellery, turquoise "represents an escape to many," says executive director Leatrice Eiseman.

The way we want to live

Trend-watchers really only need to look as far as their favourite trendsetters to find a take on home design in the new year. Thom Filicia from "Dress My Nest" on the Style Network predicts updated wood panels and energy-efficient, reliable, good-looking appliances and furnishings will rule 2010. And designer and author Elaine Griffin picks honey-brown walnut and midtone finishes for wood furniture, throwback geometric prints on upholstered furnishings, and the ongoing influence of runway fashion on looks for the home. From comfortable clothes come comfortable, well-fitted furnishings.

Better Homes and Gardens has been watching and narrating such annual trends for more than 80 years. For 2010, the magazine sees the biggest push at home to be the creation of integrated family rooms, or built-out kitchens. These spacious rooms can accommodate meals, work, crafts, homework and entertainment all at the same time.

"People are demanding this because they realise this is how they want to live," says Oma Ford, Better Homes and Gardens' senior deputy editor of home design. "They want spaces that serve more than one purpose."

In the past, she says, nesting was about acquiring things. Now it's about simplifying our lives and decluttering our homes. Ford says the mind-set for 2010 is this: "I don't want to be stressed out by all this stuff. I want to feel lighter and cleaner. I want some of this weight off my psyche, and off my floors."

© The New York Times 2009