Decorating Tips from Decorate Now Patterns – Creating Your Style
Just like the exterior of the home, the interior needs a theme or style. Yet too much of a good thing can be, well, too much. Here are some tips to make your home your own using some basic design techniques.
Get out your favorite magazines and every time you find a photo that you are drawn to, pull the page out and draw an arrow to the item that caught your eye. Organize your pages by room type (kitchens, baths, living spaces, bedrooms, dining rooms), then go through the pages again. You will see a pattern begin to emerge as to what elements you are drawn to. Perhaps it is the center island in the kitchen with the hanging pot rack or the soft tone on tone look of neutrals used luxuriously in the living room. Or perhaps you are drawn to dramatic colors and rooms where there are elements of high contrast.
Whatever your style is, taking the time to define it will help in your decorating quest. Modern style is not just a room full of spare, clean lines anymore. Designers delight in unexpectedly mixing up old and new, straight lines with curves, simple with ornate. Traditional style no longer means that all the furniture must come from the same collection.
Yet good style does follow some basic rules:
Rule 1: Too many straight lines need some curves as counterpoint. In decorating a log home, for example, the horizontal lines are so prominent throughout the home that window treatments will benefit from being not as geometric. The hard lines of the log walls need some softness elsewhere in the room. The counterpoint of softness against the hard lines makes each element that much more appealing. A luxurious sofa or a grouping of overstuffed pillows may be all that is needed to make the room more appealing.
Rule 2: Objects in a group have more impact than those same objects spread around the room. Just as a collection of candlesticks looks more dramatic when they are grouped on one table, furniture also needs to be in groups. Pull furniture and chairs into conversational groups, allowing enough walking room between the furniture. Group chairs and couches so your guests can converse comfortably.
Rule 3: Find the focal point for your room and emphasize
that. Unless your living room is the size of a hotel lobby, every room needs
one spot that your eye is drawn towards. When a room has several focal points,
the focal points compete with each other, and the room loses its visual impact
and can look disorganized. A fireplace mantle is a natural focal point. Other
focal points can be a large armoire or entertainment center. Arrange one
furniture grouping facing this focal point. Add art and art objects to add
additional texture and interest to your focal point.
Rule 4: Love your room. No matter what style
you prefer, fill your home with objects that you love. Accessories should be layered, as if they
have been collected over a lifetime. Try
not to match everything in the room, as you wind up with a store front showroom
look.