• About
  • Visit Gray Star Design
  • Minted Collection
  • Design Services
  • Contact

The Design Inspirationalist

~ Inspiring Ideas | Spectacular Creations

The Design Inspirationalist

Tag Archives: home decor

Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style

14 Thursday Feb 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

antique, decorating, design, fashion, home decor, interior design, modern, style, vintage

If you would like to achieve a super fashionable style in your home, we are here to help you. Sometimes originality is hard to accomplish but the combination of many styles is the perfect way to manage your home arrangement.

When it comes to decor and lovely ornaments at home, vintage style is the best way to end up having a sophisticated and truly cozy interior design. Decorate your home in this style and you will love the nice atmosphere it creates. Including other techniques of trimming and arranging and you will result in even a better home environment. Our vintage fashion style recommendation is a combination between retro and modern.
Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style

You may think that this is an absolute paradox, and it is completely impossible to be achieved, but these styles just might be the effect your are looking for in your home. The old fashioned elements are going to look absolutely stunning among all the new and contemporary trends in the furnishing and decorating process. The design will embrace almost everything specific for this romantic and a little bit nostalgic epoch in a modern and convenient way.
Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style

The furniture should be cozy and a little bit old-fashioned but that will also come with solid materials and tough damasks. Furthermore, the furniture may be vintage but could be placed in an absolutely minimalist room with sleek terracotta, naked walls and lots of spaciousness. There are many ways one can play around with this combination.
Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style
Photo Credit: Houzz

Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style
Photo Credit: SF Girl By Bay

Joining the styles can be achieved in the decoration process as well. For instance, you may still use that retro set of porcelain plates and dishes in yellow and red but you may arrange them on a more modern style shelving in your kitchen. Most importantly, you should keep the balance between the new and the old things so the design flows nicely. Choose the retro elements and try to combine them with your modern furniture in a way so they don’t lose  the individual beauty.
Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style
Photo Credit: HGTV

Decorating Your Home in a Vintage Modern Style
Photo Credit: Flickr

Turn on your personal inspiration and improvise by setting your own trends in your home. Do some detailed research before you start decorating and combine the best things you have seen from the magazines and from the web. It’s helpful to keep a collection of ideas and images together so new ideas form. Good luck!

Written by Ella Andrews
{She is always searching for new challenges and presently contributes articles on house moving and storage, as well as home decoration related themes.}

Repurposing Canvas Art

02 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Art & Design, Edward Stuart, Guest Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

art, Canvas Art, canvasgalleryart.com, design, Edward Stuart, frames, home decor, Repurposing, Starry Night, Van Gogh, yard sales

The economy is down and our bank accounts are deflated, but that doesn’t mean we have to go without great art. The major difference is that we can’t afford supporting good artists to get it. Obviously that’s pretty harsh since we should want to promote good art, but if you can’t afford it then that’s that. Instead, here are a couple of ways to make bad art good or to find good art for cheap.

Enhancement
There are few better feelings than walking into a thrift shop and finding a great framed piece of canvas that you already have a plan for. These bargain basement values will often set you back little more than $5. I like to take the content in these frames and use that as a jumping off point, creatively. For instance, I’ve often seen framed art that has a nautical theme to it, be it an ocean landscape or maybe a lighthouse safely guiding ships in with a beacon of light. Take those boring images and use some acrylic paint to add a sea monster ravaging some fishermen, a dragon terrorizing a village, or an alien space ship hovering above the beach. The problem with a lot of this cheap art isn’t that it’s particularly “bad” so much as that it’s boring. If you’ve got the necessary painting skills (or not if that’s how you roll) you can take cheap generic stuff and make it your own.

Purposeful Ruination
This is exactly the same thing as the above category, except that it involves using prints of extremely good but overplayed pieces that just about anyone is liable to recognize like this awesome blog showing a variety of altered versions of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.

Guest Post: Repurposing Canvas Art
Photo Credit: Popped Culture

Stencils
Yes I know, stencils are for amateurs, if you’re that awesome you can use a paintbrush. For those of us who are awful at typographical things, we will cheat. Hip boutique stores sell framed art like this for far more than it’s worth, but you’re smarter than that. You’re savvy. Take a forest landscape and stencil “Vintage Solar Cells”, or “Carbon-Emission Free Energy before it was cool” across it. If you’re not into the hipster thing, stencil something inspirational over the classic evergreens and mountain lake as a pick me up for a rainy day.

Yard Sales
This isn’t so much repurposing as it is simple reuse. If art modification makes your skin crawl then yard sales are for you. The fact is that a lot of people can’t tell the difference between good and bad art. That means some people overprice bad art, but it also means heavily underpriced good art. If you go around every weekend and look through local yard sales you will absolutely find some priceless stuff at absurdly low prices all because someone didn’t know or care that grandma was an art aficionado.

{Edward Stuart wrote this on behalf of canvasgalleryart.com.}

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

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

{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!}

Crafty Switch Plates

10 Thursday May 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Crafty Ideas

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, crafts, decor, design, home decor, lighting, switch plates

Everyone has switch plates in their home and most of the time they are simple, white and plastic. When I moved into my apartment back a few years ago it came with just that. Boring! To make it worse, a lot of them had paint on them. I said to myself, there has to got to be a way to create a designer look without spending tons of money. Well, the idea bulb burst and today I am sharing it with you.

This project is so easy and it comes out gorgeous. It costs under $10 to make enough to cover most of your home. You may even have all the materials needed to do it so that will save you time and money as well. You really can’t go wrong with this one. Lets get started!

{Materials}

  • plastic switch plate
  • contact paper or clear label paper
  • X-acto knife
  • double sided tape or craft glue
  • image of your choice

Crafty Switch Plates

First, you want to decide on the image or design you want to use. Depending on the room it goes in, try to have it blend in with the decor. The one below was for our dining room which had rich browns and light blues so I chose a design that is a modern but classic pattern that includes those colors.

Crafty Switch Plates

The best place to find images and inspiration are magazines. They also have a nice quality that will be noticed so keep that in mind. I recommend design magazines, like Elle Decor, because there is so much to choose from. You will find something for each room in just one magazine. However, there are tons of cool choices out there so whatever you have lying around the house will work too.

Now that you have your image, take some double sided tape or craft glue if you have it and adhere it to the front of the plate. Next, place the plate front side down on the paper. To make sure you cover the whole plate you will have to place it in the middle of the image to give it some extra room. You can draw a line or just use a ruler and cut around it. If you are a perfectionist like me than do the math and measure. It doesn’t have to be perfect though.

Crafty Switch Plates

You can use any kind of cutter for this but I recommend an X-acto. You will want to cover the paper so its protected. Contact paper is great for this. All you have to do is cover the plate with it and cut around it like you did with the image. Don’t forget to cut where the switch comes through. Puncturing a small hole for the screws should be fine.  You don’t have to cut a whole circle.

If you are good at decoupage this would be a good project to show your skills. Just get some Mod Podge and get creative.

Crafty Switch Plates

Put it up and bask in sweet design bliss! I promise if you choose a really cool image this switch plate will look fabulous. This is a great idea for a kids room too. You can really have fun with it. So good luck, even though you won’t need it, and happy decorating!

color in films sound in color art inpsired palettes
art and design the home events and parties weddings real weddings color inspiration film-reviews historic places news and updatesminted






minted.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives



martha

Magnolia Rouge

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 2.29.10 PM

Etsy

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 2.18.10 PM

logo

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 2.42.13 PM

P&PBlogHeader

wedding chicks


ruffled

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 2.47.49 PM

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 2.16.32 PM


lauren-elle-photography

jenlombardo

logo_website

site-logo1

kelly_dekenipp_logo

homelogo

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • The Design Inspirationalist
    • Join 1,380 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Design Inspirationalist
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...