Creating a Flexible & Adaptable Room Theme

10 Thursday Jan 2013

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

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furniture, home, interior design, Lamps, Matt Chappell, OKA Direct, pillows, scatter cushions

If you spend a large amount of your free time in a particular room, there is a chance that at some point you have felt less than enthused about its décor. Becoming bored with one’s surroundings is not uncommon; in fact it is an entirely natural response. There are, however, several easy ways of ensuring your décor remains fresh, exciting and invigorating. These methods do not demand extensive redecoration nor do they possess a hefty price tag. Below is a video that outlines three ways to create different looks in the same room in an easy and affordable way.

Flexibility is about having the ability to provide change without a significant impact on the current situation. This means multiple small alterations instead of a significant reshuffle of a room.

Items such as scatter cushions and small ornaments are ideal for creating adaptability and the ability to create a multi design room. Instead of having a stockpile of different cushions that take up storage space, it pays to have a reserve of different cushion covers that can be used to create several alternative styles. When used in conjunction with similarly styled curtains or throws, one may alternate a room’s theme on a whim.

Photo Credit: West Elm

Photo Credit: Pottery Barn

Lighting is another easy way to increase the interest and function of a room. With the thoughtful implementation of task and accent lighting one can dramatically alter the usability and aesthetic impact of certain areas of a room. This can be achieved, for example, by adding a tall lamp to a dark corner of a room in order to relieve the sense of dreariness as well as provide useful illumination for activities such as reading.

Photo Credit: World Market

Photo Credit: Crate & Barrel

This is not the variety of pursuit that rewards the timid decorator in the sense that one must experiment and make mistakes in order to find what truly works in a particular room. No one room is exactly the same just as no one person’s tastes are alike. In the end, if you feel a sense of reinvigoration when you finish your decorating then you have achieved your goal.

{This article was written on behalf of OKA Direct by Matt Chappell. Matt regularly blogs about interior design and furniture, recently his main interest has been traditional furniture construction techniques.}

Bedroom Makeover on a Budget

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

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

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bedroom, beds, budget, curtains, design, designing, furniture, interior design, painting, redecorate, redesign, shabby chic, wood

It is that time of the year when everyone needs to be tightening the purse strings as Christmas well and truly hits and January is spent recuperating from it. But that shouldn’t mean you have to put off doing something you want or need to do. The word ‘budget’ doesn’t necessarily mean having to sacrifice quality and style, it’s all about knowing where to look for things and how to create an expensive look for a fraction of the designer price tag!

Don’t redecorate, work with what you’ve got
Redecorating can be the most expensive part of making over a room, but what many people don’t realize is, you don’t have to change the wallpaper or paint to change how it look. If you have neutral colors and patterns on the walls then you are in luck, as you can change the style of the room to just about anything you like. If you went for something a bit more bold and bright at the time of decorating, don’t start stripping the walls yet! Look into what the current trends are. Maybe when you first decorated it was in fashion to have every single item in the room in one color, but now the trend may be to mix and match, the more colors the better!

Photo Credit: Digs Digs

Give your furniture new life
Kitting a bedroom out with a new bed, wardrobes, chest of draws, cabinets and more is another expensive part of redecorating a room. And there is probably nothing wrong with the furniture you have, you just got bored of it and fancy a change. So change it!

If its wood you can do so much with it. Sand it down and give it a new varnish or paint it a completely new color altogether. Shabby chic is very on trend at the moment, so painting it white and then distressing the paint would look great and isn’t hard to do at home. The best part is, it looks expensive and has a designer look. For other surfaces you could get some stencils and spray some fab new designs or purchase some appliqués (readymade designs) and stick them on to the boring old furniture surfaces.

Photo Credit: Painted Cottages

Photo Credit: Thrifty Inspirations

For beds, divans allow you to change the headboard easily so you could get a new one or jazz up your old tired looking one. For complete metal or wood bed frames don’t despair! You can bring new life to those by weaving colorful fabrics such as ribbon or scarves through their framework and hang decorations on their ends.

Photo Credit: Signature Homes

Curtains and bedding on a budget
Bedding and curtains are one of the main focal points of a bedroom and if done right they can make a room look modern with very little damage to your wallet. Satin is the material of luxury so it makes sense to assume satin bedding and curtains would be expensive? Not at all. You can find quality satin bedding and curtains for a fraction of the designer price tag. Don’t fancy sleeping in satin bedding or even want to change your bed covers at all? You don’t have to. You could simply purchase a satin bedspread which will cover the entire bed when you aren’t sleeping in it and throw on some bed cushions to make your bed look like it is straight out of a showroom.

Photo Credit: Furniture 4 World

There is so much more you can do with your bedroom no matter what your budget, it just takes a little creativity and imagination and you could have a whole new bedroom whenever you like!

Written by Sarah Atkinson

Guest Post: Redesigning Your Home on a Budget

03 Monday Dec 2012

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

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budget, color scheme, designing, furniture, home, interior design, Measure, money, Redesigning, theme

Interior design, for many, can be a scary thought. Planning the layout and design of your home is something that needs time and care put into it to ensure your home is exactly how you wanted it and many people end up going way over budget. Here are a few helpful tips to keep you on track whilst designing your perfect home.

First off, you need to come up with a budget. You will need to consider how much you are willing to spend and how much money you have actually got to spend before you go ahead with buying your materials. Calculations of expenses for tools and materials need to be made, planning carefully what you are willing to spend on each item of furniture. This will give you an idea of the kind of design you are going for and more importantly, the kind of design you can afford.

Now you can source your materials and furniture to fit into your budget. Look at how you have divided your money and start to shop around for the right materials for you. You do not need to buy the materials straight away until you know where to find the cheapest price. Shop around for bargains online and in stores to ensure you will get the best prices.

Once you are certain of the products and furniture you want to buy, you will be more aware of the kind of price range and budget you are looking at. Of course, if you are confident that you have found the best price for a product then you should buy it, but be careful because a plan still needs to be drawn up for your room to give you an idea of the amount of furniture your space can accommodate.

Choose a Theme & Color Scheme
You should come up with a theme for the room you are going to redesign – look at color schemes and the type of style you will be going for in the room. This will help start you off on your project as you will have a clear understanding of what you are going for and the type of furniture and materials you need to buy. Look through some magazines or some online articles to get an idea of the kind of things you are looking for and what will suit your budget most.

Photo Credit: Lowes

Measure the Space
Next is to come up with a plan for the room(s) you want to redesign. Measure the room and draw up a floor plan so that you can see how much space you are working with. For now, this can just be a bird’s eye view, but if you want to include more detail, draw a plan showing the height of your furniture and decorations to give yourself more of an understanding of the space you’ve got to work with. This will help you decide which furniture is going to be the best for your room.

Photo Credit: Furniture From Turkey

Look at the sizes of the furniture which you have chosen and look at how you can most effectively utilise your space. Find measurements of the furniture which you will be using and draw them into your plan, try different rotations of the furniture and get a general idea of how the room is going to look in terms of size, space and aesthetics. This part is the most important and speaking from experience people that don’t plan their projects well, tend to go way over budget.

You need to keep a strict attitude towards the project to not only make sure that there is a definite completion date, but also to make sure you don’t end up spending a lot of time and money on the project only to be forced into defeat simply because you ran out of money.

Purchase Materials
When you feel confident that enough planning has been done for your project, you can now buy all your materials and prepare them for installation. Follow your plan and all should be well. You might find that there are a few minor things that you looked over in the planning and designing, although if you are thorough enough these occurrences can be minimal. Stick to a strict regime, but make minor changes to the design if you feel the need to and you will have the perfect room for you in no time.

Some people may find designing and planning interior design by themselves to be too much of a daunting task. If this is the case for you then you could always get a painter and decorator in to give you a help in hand, they may even be able to match your budget and keep things cheap!

{Brad Warmbold wrote this article on behalf of Butterworth Interiors, an Interior design and Decorating Company in Cheshire, UK. }

Guest Post: Choosing Furniture for Public Areas

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts

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built-in furniture, customized furniture, Fabio Mele, Functionality, furniture, hotel, interior design, Public Areas

Commercial companies offer a complete consulting activity to help choose furniture for public spaces. This allows counseling from the interior design stage to the complete solution of furniture in order to define opportunities, styles and details.

The customer is supported step by step and the final result is a customized furniture made and installed by the company. This work may involve an architect, especially for the creation of limited series. The company focuses on major projects such as hotels, offices, houses, bars, restaurants, chain stores. The compositions of different furnishings depend on the needs of the place in which they are placed.

There is always a high quality of materials, ranging from wood to synthetic fibers and metals with customizations agreed by the customer and the company. In the images below, we can see a couple of realizations of contract furniture, different styles that preserve their own elegance.

In hotel receptions, for example, the furniture is often placed in functional and confined spaces, in order to create open spaces that don’t block the passageway. In the reception there is always built-in furniture just behind the desk where there are the receptionists. It is composed by small compartments to hold the different keys of the rooms that host the customers.

In the lobby there may be big sofas or little armchairs together with tables and other facilities. It’s important to keep in mind that this area welcomes guests, so we should make it more comfortable for all potential customers too. We can see some examples in this hotel interior design website.

There are many possibilities when choosing furniture for public spaces. It all depends on the defined style and the potential target, but they must blend harmoniously with the environment and be always warm and friendly. Studied geometries are designed to lead the eye towards background symmetry. Horizons of freedom open a unique style where simplicity is synonymous with beauty.

{Fabio Mele is an Italian writer with passion for interior design.}