Home Decor Blog

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Archive for May, 2008

A word about kitchen chairs

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Kitchen chairs are the kind of item that can make a real design statement, but simply has to be practical. It has to be both comfortable and durable, resisting the wear and tear of kitchen life. Here are some thoughts about choosing the kitchen chairs -

Choosing the Right Kitchen Chairs
By Ken Wilssens

Kitchen chairs are the perfect complement to your kitchen table.

The majority of people simply select the kitchen chairs that accompany their breakfast tables. But don’t stop there!

Especially if your kitchen doesn’t feature the traditional breakfast table, the possibilities for kitchen chairs are endless. Complementary kitchen stools and singular kitchen chairs can add the unique touch to your kitchen. Next to your kitchen island or a lowered portion of your kitchen counter where you usually pay your bills or write letters, a painted or modern stool is an ideal addition. Barstools surrounding a kitchen island are a very welcome sign to encourage guests to hang out and chat at your next social get-together.

A hardwood chair in the kitchen area would be a great match to the classic, wooden breakfast table set is an excellent way to draw uniformity from the kitchen area to the breakfast room. If you have a kitchen island that is located as a divider between the kitchen and dining room, for example, kitchen chairs are a necessary addition. These chairs can be a great model of artistry and useful application tied into one.

Modern kitchens with trendy ‘50s chairs can be a wonderful way to give a hint of antique flavor to an ultra-nouveau look. Rustic kitchen chairs with handpainted motifs and bucolic scenes are almost necessary items. Let your kitchen chair choice be a better reflection of your kitchen design scheme.

Can’t decide what to get? Is your kitchen “in-between” kitchen themes – not quite traditional but not quite country-flavored either, for example?

Why not get an unusual piece that you love, even if it doesn’t perfectly suit your kitchen tastes? The eye will naturally draw to the unusual example of artistry while signaling your appreciation of the eclectic. Place this chair in the corner to marvel at its unusual beauty. It will show another side to your kitchen’s personality.

No matter which chair you ultimately decide upon, make sure your kitchen chairs are built to last and manufactured well. We have links to pictures and more kitchen chair information for your shopping considerations!

If you would like to order some kitchen chairs online, just visit our kitchen furniture page, where you will find a short list of great kitchen furniture stores.

For lots of information on kitchen tables and other kitchen remodeling related topics, visit Kitchen Spot at http://www.kitchens-spot.com

decorative bathroom mirrors

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

bathroom mirror

Mirrors have always been a central element in home decor. They can add so much to a room, when done right. They’re especially important in the bathroom though, where they serve a very practical purpose too. Here are some tips about to pick that perfect mirror for your bathroom.

Bathroom Decor - How To Choose Mirrors For Your Bathroom
By W Scott

If you are in the process of redecorating your bathroom, you should consider putting up new bathroom mirrors as part of your bathroom décor. Bathroom mirrors have one of the most important roles in the bathroom. Mirrors do not just allow us to see our reflection, they also help make the bathroom look brighter and more spacious. Good bathroom mirrors reflect both natural and artificial light thus making the room more alive and vibrant.

Choosing The Shape Of Your Bathroom Mirrors

When it comes to bathroom mirrors and bathroom decors, the shapes and size do matter. According to experts, the size and shape of the bathroom mirror can affect the overall look of your bathroom. For instance, an oval mirror when used as part of your bathroom décor will make your bathroom look more feminine. Oval mirrors also give the room a softer tone. On the other hand, a square mirror give can give your bathroom a more solid look and rectangular mirrors can make your bathroom look more spacious.

To give you time to match your bathroom mirror with the rest of your bathroom fixtures, do not buy your mirrors without checking the overall design of your bathroom. If you used the services of a contractor to redesign your bathroom, you may want to ask the contractor to pick out the right mirror for your bathroom decor. The good thing about asking the contractor to pick out the shape and size of the mirror is that he or she will know if the shape of the mirror will go well with the overall design.

On the other hand, if you redesigned your bathroom on your own, it would be best for you to go back into your design and study it carefully before you buy your bathroom mirror. If you used computer software to redesign your bathroom, it will be easier for you to determine what type of mirrors you should put into your bathroom. Just simply manipulate the computer design and then add some mirrors into the design to simulate the look of the bathroom. Do not limit just yourself to the basic shapes of mirrors. Experiment with different size, shapes and colors of bathroom mirrors so that you will be able to get the best results.

After determining the right size and shape of mirrors to serve as part of your bathroom décor, find a shop that offers good mirrors for reasonable prices. Note that the prices of the mirrors are just as important as their looks.

If you are looking for additional bathroom decor tips and advice, visit http://www.bathroomdecortips.com for more information.

girls room decor - the fairy tale

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Looking for a unique theme for your little girl’s bedroom? We have a splendid article for you today, detailing a room decor theme that every little girl is bound to love - fairly tale room decor.

Delight Your Daughter with a Fairytale Bedroom
By Christopher W Smith

Any little girl will love Fairy bedroom décor. She will be able to create her own magical world in which to pursue her hopes and dreams. Making her room into fairyland is easy because there are so many fantastic accessories available both in stores and online. You’ll be able to find bedding, pillows, shams, wallpaper, lamps, and a plethora of other items that will turn her room into a mystical, private haven. Many of the items you can buy create specific theme rooms, such as an English bedtime story room or a Tinkerbell room.

Close your eyes and imagine a world of fantasy, a world where magical things happen every day, and anyone can become the princess or fairy they dream of being. Dreams become realities there, and imagination goes a long way towards creating a magical world your daughter can call her own or share with you. With a pinch of pixie dust and some whimsical furnishings, her room can become her ivory tower of pure delight.

To start with you need to have an idea of what your daughter wants if she’s old enough to tell you her ideas. It’s no good just to create the room of your dreams when she’s the one who’s going to live in it. Help her decide on a solid wall color, and paint the walls. If her room has hardwood floors, you’ll be able to add a colorful rug that matches the walls or else a patterned one that introduces a light-hearted mix of colors.

After the painting is done, it’s time to find the magical trimmings that will bring the room to life. With a little effort, you’ll be amazed at what you can find. There are wallpaper borders, clocks, pictures, decorative shelves, and a multitude of different figurines that sit, hang, and even serve functional purposes. Try revving up the walls with a coat of clear paint containing glitter. Soon the room will sparkle with a magical aura. Or you might try painting climbing plants on the walls that wind their way up to the ceiling. Make sure to hide plenty of tiny fairies in the vines!

When deciding on fabrics, remember that fairies are light, fanciful creatures, and select only thin, delicate materials. One special effect you can achieve with fabric is to create an airy curtain that will encompass the bed and send your little one on her own magic carpet ride each time she climbs in for a rest. Start with sparkly, fairy-themed fabrics. Drape them over the existing curtains and from the ceiling to make a secret place for all of her dreaming.

If you have a large budget, you can even purchase entire groups of sparkling fairy furniture. For a fairy effect at a lower price, you can purchase furniture in soft pastels and accent it with fluffy, whimsical pillows and throws. If the bed is varnished wood and you don’t want to cover the original finish with paint, you can buy easily-removable accessories to stick on the bed. You’ll be able to achieve the same kind of magic without the permanence.

To create delightful lighting effects, start with lamps and fixtures in basic gold, silver, and white. Let your creativity run wild as you create magical lampshades using gauzy fabrics, faux gems, feathers, glitter glue and anything else you can dream up.

It doesn’t matter if your daughter is a baby or a teenager, you can decorate her room as fairyland using age-appropriate accessories. The older your daughter is, the more she’ll be able to contribute to the decoration of her room.

Visit us for more information on rustic wooden bedframe, bedroom decorating ideas and bedroom design ideas

the efficient small house

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Living in a small space can be a real challenge, especially for a family with kids, but not only them. Making the most of limited space is the topic of today’s article - a real gem!

Interior Design Space Saving Techniques

By David McEvoy

There is nothing worse than clutter for spoiling an otherwise perfectly beautiful home. Too many ornaments occupying the shelves, piles of papers and magazines lying on the table, boxes and bags filled with all those bits and pieces that don’t have a home, books overflowing on the book case and so on. Clearing up the clutter and transforming your home in the process needn’t be a nightmare. If you think you haven’t got enough storage space then think again. The following space saving tips and techniques will help you to change the look of your home and create a harmonious atmosphere that is not only pleasing to the eye but calming for the mind.

If you don’t need it, ditch it

The first step would be to gather absolutely everything that you don’t need and get rid of it. There is no point in hanging on to things that you haven’t even looked at for several years, just in case one day you think you might. Invariably, you won’t. It can be hard to let go of some items, particularly if you have a tendency to hoard things, but the sheer exhilaration of clearing out the junk is more than worth it. Give items away, donate them to charity, sell them at a car boot sale or take them to your local recycling centre. One mans trash is another man’s treasure as they say so pass it on. You may be quite surprised at how much you can gather in only a few years so make a point of having a clear out regularly. It’s well worth it.

Now that you’ve got rid of all the extras it’s time to look at how you can display and store everything else.

Walls can be space savers

Walls are often underused when it comes to saving space. Just look at the amount of wall space there is in your home and start thinking about how this could be better used. For example, shelving is relatively inexpensive and yet a few corner shelves can be of immense value when it comes to finding a home for everything. Make your motto “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

If everything has a place then of course it will be much easier to keep your home tidy and uncluttered. Shelves placed high up on the wall can be used for displaying items such as photographs, ornaments or plants or anything else that you want to be able to see but don’t need to use. For items that you don’t want to see, consider putting them behind a closed door in a cabinet or a cupboard.

If you have a flat screen television then why not consider having it mounted on the wall. Televisions and stands can take up a great deal of space in a room so having it on the wall not only saves space, it is easier to view too. Other items that can be wall mounted can include spice racks, soap dishes and dispensers, electrical equipment, shoe racks, just use your imagination.

Behind closed doors

Cupboards and cabinets can hide a multitude of sins but what you don’t want is a cupboard that you’re scared to open in case the contents spill out on top of you. You can buy clear storage boxes with lids very cheaply that you can then label with the contents and stack them on top of one another. This way, when you open the cupboard to put something away you will know where it belongs and it won’t be a nightmare, or a health risk.

Using the furniture

If you are choosing new furniture spare a thought for any space saving aspects it might have. For example, a coffee table with a couple of drawers, a bed that can accommodate under the bed storage, a display cabinet with closed cabinet space too. If your current table has space underneath it, think about investing in a good quality tablecloth that reaches the floor, not only will this act as an attractive feature in your room, it can hide videos or CDs or anything else for that matter underneath.

Other ideas

There are always ways to maximise the use of available space in any room no matter how small it is. Take a look round your home and identify any area that can be better utilised. Look above eye level to the ceiling and below to the floor, and remember to look underneath pieces of furniture too. You will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of wasted space you already have and when you’ve made the effort to rectify this, you can sit back and enjoy your new and uncluttered surroundings.

David McEvoy is an expert in interior design. If you are looking for a leather sofa to give the finishing touches to a newly decorated room then please come and visit our site.

choosing wall paint color

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Choosing the right wall paint color is a huge challenge in any home decor project. The right color can do so much, while the wrong one… well, let’s not go there. But there’s so much than just shade and tone anymore. There is a multitude of available effects to choose from as well. So, how do you choose the right one for your home? Here’s an article that might clue you in on this very topic -

How To Use Paint To Make The Inside Of Your Home A Lively Place
By Jude C Wright

The old saying goes, “Your home is your sanctuary.” This is true to the extent that when you come home from a hard day’s work, you want to be able to come to a place that you can relax in. At the same time, you want your home to reflect your personality and who you are.

While choosing what furniture will furnish your home will factor greatly in how the inside of your home will look and feel, the interior painting of your home will also greatly factor into how your home looks and feels to you.

There are several methods you can use to make your home a more inviting place for yourself.

One of the ideas you can consider is “wall stenciling.” This involves using a template that is in a certain shape or design and allows you to apply color in that same shape or design to a floor, wall, or ceiling.

“Wall stenciling” enables you to add texture and depth to your room, as you can add shapes and designs to the rooms of your home. This technique is easy to accomplish and is inexpensive, making it a great option to add some depth to your children’s rooms via adding different figures of their cartoon characters to the walls of their rooms.

Another technique you can use to enhance the inside of your home is via “faux painting.”

“Faux painting” is exactly what it sounds like according to its words: “false painting.” Specifically, it is painting one object to resemble another (or in other words, making an object appear to be something it really isn’t, or a “false” statement of what it truly is.) This is often used to make the paint resemble other objects, such as wood, granite, marble, etc.

There are several different forms of “faux painting,” including “sponging” (which involves using a natural sea sponge for making dabs on the wall,) “dragging” (which involves putting a base coat of paint on the wall, then using a dragging brush to make the paint look like it is natural wood grain,) and “marbelizing” (which involves using brushes, combs, sponges, and feathers to help provide the illusion that the walls are actually made of marble.)

These skills have various degrees of difficulty and will need different lengths of time to master, depending also on how quickly a person can learn to master and utilize the techniques.

Another technique you can use to make your home more lively is “rubber stamping.” By using rubber stamping techniques on your walls, you can provide dramatic effect to them via the design you put on them. The cost of applying this technique is low as well, making it a popular choice among many people.

In addition, stamping can provide more dramatic results than other interior painting techniques, but it takes some time to truly master the technique in order for it to bring the effects you want.

Interior painting can add as much or even more to your home than the type of furniture you put into your home. There are many different interior painting techniques you can use to add depth and texture to your home, including “wall stenciling,” “faux painting,” and “rubber stamping.” Utilizing any of these techniques to their fullest benefit will take time and practice, but once you have acquired some skill in these techniques, you’ll be able to apply these skills toward transforming the interior rooms of your home into areas that reflect your personality and that you can relax in.

Discover the art of Decorating Simple, simple decorating on a budget, at http://decoratingsimple.com

teenager bedroom ideas

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Teenager bedrooms often require a makeover. The reason is simple enough - this is the age when they turn from children to adults. It’s a time of change for our kids, which requires changes in their surroundings. Decorating the teenager’s bedroom can be a real challenge though. We have an excellent article for you today that covers some very important points in this regard -

Teen Friendly Decor - Interior Design for the Teenager
By Bronia Suszczenia

In all aspects of life teenagers are starting to express themselves and assert their identity. That is why if they liked the music you played when they were 10 years old, they will very quickly consign that to the box marked “un-cool”. The same is true of household decor or interior designs.

Fortunately it is relatively easy to work with your teen to give them much of what they want without too much financial of other sacrifice.

In most homes we are talking about the teenager(s) bedroom though if you have space a teen den or games room in the loft or over the garage is a cool idea.

A few design tips:

  • rooms need to reflect the growing demand for independence, whilst still being a safe haven
  • a games room or den is a great place to bring friends back to; you will be reassured that they are safe & not hanging out in some unknown “dive”. Watch out, though, as they will raid the refrigerator for food and drink!
  • rooms which teens grew up in will suddenly feel too childish, prompting a sudden desire to revamp or remodel
  • the open door policy to a child’s bedroom will also give way to greater demands for privacy. But if you can do not put everything they need in the bedroom or you may never see your teen again! If you can (and it is very difficult) try to resist the demand for a TV and computer in the bedroom. If your children had them before age 10, it may be too late to get out of this situation.
  • Colour and style

    This is easy to deal with and also can make you appear to be a pretty cool parent. Work with your teenager to choose the colour scheme, even if you think you would never, ever, use black, purple or psychedelic patterns on the wall or ceiling.

    For practicality use standard emulsion paints that are easy to retouch or change as tastes change. Walls and ceilings will soon be covered in posters and so on, but as long as the wall construction is sound you do not need to worry about sticky tape or Blu-tack (Fun-Tak) on the walls. Picture tacks and drawing pins are not the end of the world - just impose some adult rules about safety in relation to electric wiring and plumbing.

    If graffiti is a design idea why not paint one wall in special black-board (chalk-board) paint?

    Storage and furniture

    You will probably want to work with what you already have in the interest of economy. But remember a growing teen will need a bigger stronger bed, which always raises the possibly embarrassing issue of whether it should be a double bed. Likewise bigger and more clothing calls for a taller wardrobe.

    What ever you do make sure there is plenty of storage space and hooks on door backs. It will not prevent the sedimentary accumulation of clothing and detritus on the floor but at least there will be no lack-of-space excuse.

    Function

    If you can separate function, DO SO! If you can separate play from study then you will have visibility (if not control) of your teen’s time management. In an ideal environment split sleep, study and play if possible. You may say that there is insufficient space but you could cheaply install a desk, a light and a computer under a staircase.

    You might be able to clear out all the junk that usually lingers in a garage; old tins of paint, golf clubs and so on often mean there is no room for the car. With a bit of thought a corner of the garage could be turned into a teen den. Put down some end-of roll carpet, a second hand club sofa and an armchair, a book shelf, some anglepoise lamps or spot lights and a mp3 docking station plus hi-fi amplifier. A quilt or throw and an electric fan heater work well for colder nights. Your teen can chill out here with friends and have their own private space. And it will not matter too much whether it is neat and tidy in adult eyes.

    Conclusion

    Finally, interior design with a teen in mind is one area where you do not need to feel that you are making a concession or sacrifice to a rebellious or angst-ridden offspring. In fact you may not get the appreciation you deserve for your efforts until your teen is ready to leave home for college or the big bad world. The acid test then is to see if they still want to come back to stay in the room they grew up in (and to eat good old fashioned home cooking!).

    Bronia Suszczenia is co-founder and Creative Director of Art from the Start Ltd a firm of interior designers in York England. She designs projects ranging from dressing a single window, designing interiors for new homes, right through to refurbishing whole hotels. Visit art-from-the-start.co.uk to see more FREE design tips, to see the design portfolio and to learn about the unique Room-in-a-Box interior design service.