How to Redecorate on a Budget

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts, Sarah Atkinson, The Home

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bedding, bedroom, budget, charity, color, color schemes, decorating, duvet covers, furniture, interior design, Linens Direct, painting, pillows, redecorating

There are many ways to bring a new lease of life to your home without breaking the bank. If you’ve been considering redecorating but are wary of the costs involved, these tips will give you plenty of inspiration to help you achieve a new look on a budget.

Add some color to the walls
A lick of paint is one of cheapest yet most effective ways to bring a room up to date. You might want to consider creating a bold statement wall, painting an entire room with a vibrant, intense shade or using several colors to incorporate a stylish two-tone theme. As you can pick up tins of paint cheaply from your local DIY store, you can regularly update your home without spending too much.

Update your bedding
Redecorating doesn’t have to involve buying new furniture. If you want to bring a fresh feel to your bedroom, try choosing some new duvet covers and pillowcases. They’re available at reasonable prices from online retailers such as Linens Direct, meaning that you can easily embrace the latest trends or change your color schemes. You’ll be surprised at just how different your bedroom can look after making such a simple change.

Give existing furniture a make-over
There’s no need to throw out your existing furniture. Try giving your existing pieces a make-over by having them reupholstered with a new material. This could change a boring old armchair into a statement piece, with very little investment. If you’re looking for something a little less permanent, buy a few colored throws and experiment with different looks according to your mood.

Visit your local charity shop
You may find that you can pick up plenty of bargains at a charity shop that will help you to transform your home. Look out for items such as pictures, mirrors and photo frames that have been previously loved but could look fantastic in your living space. You might decide that they need a coat of paint or varnish to make them look new again, or you could pick up some pieces that look stylishly vintage just the way they are.

With so many ways to update your home on a shoestring, it’s not surprising that more and more people are choosing to get creative rather than splashing the cash. By trying just a few of these ideas, your house will be looking brand new for a price you never thought possible.

Written by Sarah Atkinson

Guest Post: Tints & Tones-Brilliant Colors that Work for Every Room

30 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts, The Home

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bathroom, bedroom, color, decorating, design, home, interior design, kitchen, living room, open colleges, tess pajaron, tints and tones

One of my favorite parts about starting a new decorating project, or moving into a new home is picking out the color palette. Color has an instant effect on how we feel every time we step into a space. They can help define the mood in the room and can even have an influence on how we act. Each room, however, is different. In some rooms, you want to sleep in a relaxed and peaceful environment, while other rooms are made for spicing up your life with some culinary excitement. Because of this, your color scheme will change depending on which room you are decorating.

If you are starting a new design project, or moving into a new space, here are a few tips to get you started as you choose your colors and make your home your own.

Kitchen
The kitchen is one room where you spend a lot of time whipping up delicious meals for you, your spouse and your friends. In this room, the senses are generally very fine tuned as you smell your food for the perfect spicing, sip your wine as you cook, or listen to your favorite music to make you feel at ease. This is the room where people also head to fit their cravings, and painted with the wrong color, all of this can go awry.

Red and yellow are two of the most popular colors in fast food chain logos. The reason for this is because they inspire hunger and action. While it is true that you head to the kitchen to make something to eat, having your kitchen painted the wrong color can actually affect your appetite and cause you to eat more than you should. These are two colors to steer clear of.

In the kitchen, keeping colors that allow you to unwind while you cook are a much better option. Take a cue from nature and use the psychologically calming color of green. Green kitchens offer a great place to unwind after a long workday as you prepare a culinary delight as they lend themselves to feelings of relaxation. For a touch of sophistication, add deep purples. Not only do these colors go well together, but the touch of purple will inspire just the right amount of creativity you need to make each meal extra special.

Bedroom
The bedroom is your haven to relax and get your much needed rest before heading out into the hustle and bustle of the world again. Because this is your place to escape, you will want to feel at ease as soon as you enter the space to relax and go to bed each night.

The best color to do this with is blue. Blue inspires a natural feeling of serenity. The color of water and nature, this hue can help you feel as though you are mentally washing away the troubles of the day and going to sleep each night ready to be refreshed when you awake. Studies have shown that people who look at the color blue have actually experienced a slowing of their blood pressure, respiration and heart rate. All of these bodily functions inspired by the peaceful color of blue create an optimal setting for rest.

To use this color right, it is best to avoid blues that are too light or too dark. Lighter blues can give the room a cold and unwelcoming feel, which is the opposite effect of what you want in your bedroom. Dark blues on the other hand can inspire sadness – a feeling no one wants to be surrounded by. Using blues in the middle is the right pick for bedrooms.

Living Room
Your living room and family room are the opposite of your bedroom in that they are places to socialize and converse. When you bring people together in your home, you want to create a warm area where people feel at ease and able to be themselves.

The best way to create this space is with a combination of colors. To start by creating a warm feeling, using neutral colors is best. Whites, tans and greys are perfect colors to use on the walls as they inspire a feeling of calm. To peak conversation, however, using red and yellow accents can brighten a space and make people subconsciously want to converse. This hue helps to boost your heart rate, making it a good color for night time conversations and parties where people stay late.

Bathroom
The bathroom is another very serene room as it is a place generally only used in solitude. For this reason, you should consider the place where you feel most serene. For many people, this is the beach. Using teals, sea foam green and tan colors paired with white towels and accents can make your bathroom more inviting and reminiscent of your favorite days on the beach or in the calming air of nature.

For many people choosing a color scheme is done based on gut reaction. But before you pick your colors for your next home or project, think also about the effect they will have on how you feel.

Tess Pajaron is part of the team behind Open Colleges. Her background stems from her exposure to their family-owned construction business. She is a lover of minimalist modern designs and architecture. On her spare time, she loves to travel.

Guest Post: Four Ways to Integrate Mid Century Furniture into Your Modern Apartment

05 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Guest Posts

≈ 1 Comment

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design, diy design, furniture, home, interior design, mid century, modern design, window treatments

This guest post is brought to you by Aubrey Boone, design enthusiast. Enjoy!

Home decorating means updating a living space and refreshing dated décor. Whether those updates focus on carpet or window treatments, adding new design elements to your home or apartment can increase value while creating a space of tranquility.

Novel interior design projects now aim to integrate mid-century vintage furniture into your modern apartment. The majority of these vintage DIY projects can be completed in a short amount of time for little to no money. The main thing needed is an imagination of how things were way back when. Here are four ways to do just that.

Collectibles
Finding nick-knacks and collectibles adds the rich history of the past into a modern theme. Consider showcasing a series of decorative porcelain vases made in the characteristic style of the 1960s, or other works from esteemed artist Yevgeny Vuchetich.

Add a small mahogany and bronze table found in apartments dating back to the 60s. The clean lines and small stature will fit easily into your modern apartment.

Lighting
Mid-century styles focused on minimalism, so creating a lighting solution is not only simple, but cost effective. Create a swing bar lamp with a few pieces of steel tubing, a flat bar, scrap wood, cloth covered wire and electrical fittings. With a few bends and welds, the lamp will perfectly adorn any corner or reading nook.

An easy solution to lighting is simply to design a lamp shade, or to add a new set of blinds. Don’t underestimate the effect a great set of window treatments can have on a room. For the lamp shade, consider a large cylindrical shade with solid colors such as off-white or light pastels.

Seating Solutions
According to R. Wesley Hurd of the McKenzie Study Center, an institute of Gutenberg College, the color pallet used during the mid-centuries focused on primary colors. Locate a distressed chair at a flea market or a local antique store and dash primary colors, while adding sharp lines and contrasting colors to create a mid-century look. With a few sprays of paint, outdoor seating is turned from modern to vintage as well. In addition, nothing says mid-century quite like the hard plastic/metallic chairs from an old lunch room.

The Outdoors
The outside serves as the window into the soul of a home. For under $100 worth of materials, individuals can construct an outdoor bench inspired by the great George Nelson, a modern design aficionado. The project does require a bit of woodworking, but the end result is a piece similar to Nelson’s vintage futuristic designs.

Mid-century furniture focused on clean lines, vibrant and primary colors, with a minimalistic approach. Recreating a vintage space requires attention to the details of the past, without losing the continuity of the present. With a bit of time and money, your apartment can be the mid-century modern living space you’ve dreamed about.

Guest Post: How to Choose the Perfect Blinds to Modernize Your Home

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts

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bamboo, blinds, curtains, decor, design, diy, eco friendly, home, home decor, light, modern, roller bilnds, tone, venetian blinds, windows, wood, wood blinds

From their easy fitting to their ability to control tone and light, blinds provide an excellent way to modernize your home. Moreover, they can provide essential solutions to establishing an overall decoration scheme, while updating your fittings to be more environmentally sound, and making the most of the space. It’s important to look at the different kinds of blinds that you can use, from horizontal Venetian blinds to UPVC vertical blinds, as well as single fabric roller and Roman blinds. With the multiple options available for those looking to update the feel of their home, it’s worth considering how each of these blinds will provide different but complementary effects.

Choosing the Right Kind of Blinds
First, you must think about what kind of blinds best suit your home and the ways in which you want to create a modern look. Vertical UPVC blinds are particularly recommended for creating a minimalist look, and are ideal for kitchens and bathrooms. However, horizontal wooden Venetian blinds work well for creating a relaxed atmosphere in studies and living rooms, and can also work well in bedrooms. Roller blinds are similarly effective as single pieces of fabric that can be decorated to tie into your overall decor.

The Best Blinds for Managing Tone and Light
You need to think about the best way of managing color, tone and light in your home and how it will contribute to an updated, modern style. Roller and Roman blinds that use high quality fabrics and insulating materials are recommended if you want to use striking or more understated colors, while single color vertical or horizontal blinds can blend in with the tone of wallpaper.

In terms of managing the amount of light passing into a room, easily adjusted UPVC and horizontal blinds are excellent at making small changes to a room’s atmosphere. By contrast, roller blinds can be easily removed from view, or converted into black out blinds if you want to create a more striking look.

Contributing to an Overall Decor
The perfect blind should contribute to an overall decor, and should be consistent with the look of a particular room. Kitchen blinds should consequently be lighter, using UPVC materials and horizontal slats to best let in light, while bathroom blinds should have the option for complete blackout for privacy. If you want to create a minimalist and modern look for your home, using these kind of simple blinds can ensure a clean finish. By contrast, heavier Roman fabric and wooden Venetian blinds are effective if you want to establish a rustic look for living rooms and bedrooms.

Being Eco Friendly
A modern home should take eco friendly materials and appliances into consideration as part of an overall commitment to recycling. As well as eco lighting and LEDs around the home, blinds can be chosen to provide the perfect blend of style and environmental strengths. Vertical and horizontal blinds can be purchased in materials like bamboo, woven polyester and honeycomb. These materials are naturally sourced and designed to be long lasting and resistant to dirt, while improving insulation and protecting from UV rays.

Maximizing Space
The best blinds are capable of enhancing the space in your home, and work particularly well for rooms with low ceilings. Vertical blinds work well at lengthening a room when combined with high bed posts and mirrors. Roman and roller blinds that can be removed from view during the day will also let in more light and open out the room. Skylight blinds fitted in conservatories and to windows in bedrooms can also work well to maximize the space in a room.

{Writing in coordination with Web Blinds, Christina Appleworth reviews the process of choosing the most perfect blinds to modernize your home. Christina’s passion is creative writing but when not writing she enjoys DIY design and modernizing her own home!}