Top Interior Design & Home Decorating Tips Of the Month
Here are some home decorating tips and interior design ideas to help you with your decorating:
• "In my opinion, we will continue to see earth tones but in more saturated hues such as rich chocolate browns, gold, burnt orange and rust, olive greens, smoky eucalyptus blue/green, and mysterious deep blue/gray," Karen Wirrig said. Learn More in Interior Design Trends 2006.
• For those who have moved on from the college dorm-room look, there are many styles of CD and DVD storage available. As usual with home decorating, to achieve the best look it is often most profitable to seek out handmade pieces, each with its own stamp of creativity and style, each designed and made by a craftsman. Learn More of these home decorating tips in Little Things.
• One important principle of home interior design is: Don't neglect the entrance of your home. The area around the front door often becomes a catch-all for mail, shoes, keys, and everything the cat drags in, but what you see when you enter the room sets your mood. By installing a system for keeping things straight, you'll avoid having to constantly clean it up. A couple of nice baskets or boxes — with lids — will do the job of hiding the clutter. Just make sure you sort through it regularly.
• It may seem easy at first to get whites to harmonize, but in actuality they can vary a good deal. If you pay attention to the tones of the whites, so that they harmonize, you could have a gracious room in all-white and off-white. Learn more interior design tips in Room of the Month.
• The use of black means that a pale green won't call attention to itself. You don't want a visitor to notice the interior design of the room; you want the design to be so good, and so subtle, that all a visitor notices is that the room looks great. A room that is just pale green, with no other color accents, it would be in danger of calling too much attention to the pale green; instead, the eye can be drawn to accent pieces, such a paintings, or black pottery arranged on a shelf, instead. Learn more about interior design color choices in our Color Tip.
• Here's a great home decorating tip: Wicker — raw, unpainted — can be a great addition to any room, in just about any style. It goes with just about anything, and it adds a fresh, natural note. Warning: wicker painted white, while lovely, should be reserved for rooms where you want the look of a water-side retreat.
• Consider the wall color carefully. You could go for a look in which the beige of the carpet predominates, and paint the walls a slightly darker beige that verges on brown. Then, add accent pieces in various shades of brown. This could create a sophisticated look, especially if you use high-end linens and cottons. Learn More in Decorating Dilemma.
• There are several kinds of room dividers on the market these days, and with a little creativity, you can make one work for you — and it'll help keep things harmonious on the home front. Learn More in Decorating Tips for Children's Rooms.
• A quick way to add balance to a living room or bedroom is by simply adding matching lampshades, or getting rid of a lamp that doesn't match. There is a wide variety of prices, styles, shapes and colors to suit any home decorating budget and any look. A pair of matching lamps on either end of a sofa, or a pair of matching lamps on either side of a bed, will add an immediate look of unity. So, too, will investing in a single lamp in the living room with a striking shade — as long as the lamp and shade aren't in competition with a lamp in another style.
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