Choosing Art for the Bedroom

Posted on May 16, 2012 by creatingyourspace

Bare, blank walls can make a room feel unfinished. Choosing what to hang where in the home can also be intimidating for some. Staring at a blank wall when decorating is kind of like a writer staring at a blank page when writing. The blank stare can stifle us from making a decision. If you have blank walls in your bedroom, or anywhere in your home, we hope this article can help you take the first step to decorating your walls.

Bedrooms should be sanctuaries and calm places for us to restore our spirits as well as rest our bodies. Comfortable textiles on the bed, soft flooring like carpet or area rugs on the floor, curtains that can block light all create the environment for good sleep. You can add to the soothing and restorative qualities of your bedroom by what you hang on the walls.

Every wall in the room does not have to be filled with art. Empty spaces give the eye a place to rest. Art for the bedroom can be framed in frames that coordinate with the furniture, wall or floor. Metal frames can also add a little sparkle to the room. You can frame practically anything and it will look great on the wall. Framed art can include family photos, your wedding portrait or vacation photos. Fabric and paper can also be framed. Choose art that speaks to you. If you love it, you will love to see it as you fall asleep and wake up every day.

Couples Decorating Together

Posted on May 15, 2012 by creatingyourspace

Decorating the home has long been perceived as the realm of women. Women read the shelter magazines, follow blogs and discuss things like wallpaper patterns and area rugs. Men are thought to not care about the color of walls or whether they have carpet or hardwood floors in the bedrooms. This stereotype isn’t true for most couples.

Many couples enjoy building a home together and that includes decorating. If you visit a large home improvement store on the weekend you’ll see couples shopping together for lighting and other things for their home.

Decorating as a couple will mean that your home will reflect both your personalities. Of course this can be done when just one member of the couple is in charge of decorating, but a collaborative effort is best. Collaborating on any project means compromise. The all pink master bedroom might be toned down with grey walls and pink accents.

More gender neutral spaces like bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms are great examples of places where couples should collaborate on décor. Choosing flooring and other major purchases like lighting and seating should be agreed upon by both. For larger pieces you might find you both agree to go neutral or can compromise with a color you both like. Favorite colors can be included as accent pieces. Details and accents can be more personal to each of you. Include photos of your life together as well as sentimental items for your past to remind you of your life together. Remember, this is a home for both of you.

Designing a Room from the Floor Up

Posted on May 9, 2012 by creatingyourspace

If you have wood floors or carpet that you love, you can build a room design from the floor up. Often when designing a room, we begin with an inspiration fabric or accent color. Flooring is typically 30% of a room, so it should be a big factor in the overall design of the space. Taking flooring into account at the beginning of your design will create a beautiful polished room in the end.

Even if you don’t love your existing flooring, choosing your flooring at the beginning of the design process is a good idea. Think of how you will use the space. Kitchens and bathrooms have different flooring needs than living and bedrooms. Do you have pets? Kids? High foot traffic? All of these should be taken into consideration when choosing flooring types and colors.

Once you have your beautiful floors selected, you can begin building your room. Get samples of paint, wallpaper, fabric and accent colors to create a unified design. When selecting colors for the room, take into account the color and tone of your floors. Dark or light, warm or cool tones in the flooring will make wall and fabric colors look differently. Keep floor color in mind especially if you have wood furniture on wood floors. A little bit of contrast between the woods will make the furniture stand out more; similar colors will make the two elements blend together.

Remember, if it all seems too overwhelming, involve the help of a flooring professional. They can help you pull everything together.

Transform Your Space With Paint

Posted on May 7, 2012 by creatingyourspace

Paint is one of the most versatile design elements in decorating. It can transform walls, furniture, floors and fabric. Simply painting a wall, one of the easiest DIY projects, can immediately change the feel and look of a room. But paint can do a lot more than just change the color of a wall, floor or piece of furniture.

This room might seem an extreme example of what you can do with paint. The graphic pattern on the wall is very lively yet the look is achieved with just two colors of paint. Creating patterns with paint can make a simple project have a complicated result. Using stencils and tape can yield a myriad of patterns. Vertical and horizontal stripes can be done with painters’ tape and a level. Stencils can be as simple as a circle or as complex as a lattice print or classic onion pattern.

The techniques that are most typically used on a wall can also be used on furniture. Wood furniture should be properly prepped before being painted. Prep work may include puttying, sanding, priming and more sanding before you begin to paint. Stripes are easy to achieve vertically or horizontally on the wall. Painters’ tape should still be used to mark off the stripes to prevent the color bleeding through. Stenciled walls can imitate traditional inlay or patterned tiles. For a large expanse of wall, bigger patterns will feel less busy.

When Toys Take Over the Room

Posted on May 4, 2012 by creatingyourspace

Have you ever felt like your home has been the victim of an invasion by toys? Stepping on a small toy part hidden in the carpet or something with wheels on a wood floor in the middle of the night is the stuff of comedy sketches. These painful reminders to pick up the toys often happen to mom or dad rather than the kids. Corralling toys can save your home from the invasion of the toys.

Piles of toys in the living room or family room, bathroom, and kids’ bedrooms can make you feel like you are outnumbered. Toys seem to accumulate when we are not looking. Like everything in our homes that tends to accumulate from condiments in the fridge to toys, you need to de-clutter on a regular basis. The standard of keep, trash and give away can be applied to toys too.

Some parents give ultimatums that if the toys aren’t picked up in a certain amount of time they will be bagged up and given to charity or thrown away. These ultimatums need to be followed through on to really work. Just once might be enough. No matter if you have gotten to the ultimatum point or not, good storage is a must to keep the toys from taking over.

Bins, baskets, boxes… anything and everything that will get toys up off the floor will work. Having storage readily available and easy to access may just make storing toys less of a battle.

Decorating 101: Shapes

Posted on May 2, 2012 by creatingyourspace

This vignette on a mantel illustrates the importance of using a variety of shapes in decorating. While all of the objects on the mantel are white, their shapes give them each a unique visual interest. Varying shapes as well as size can create a dynamic design in a room or in a vignette on a table, shelf or mantel.

Having a range of shapes in a vignette or room adds variety to the lines of the furniture and accessories. Long rectangular sofas with square or round cushions are a good example of using different shapes in furniture and accents. If a room is dominated by rectangles in the furniture and area rugs, round and curving lines of circles can be brought in with accents and patterns. Using a round coffee table is an easy way to break up all the straight lines of sofas and chairs.

A round area rug in a living room, or a rectangular rug under a round table in the dining room, is a great way to introduce a new shape to the space. Runners and area rugs are often rectangles but can be found in squares and circles as well.

Vases, bowls and other tabletop accessories are a great way to introduce or repeat shapes in a room. Grouping items by color rather than by shape will put the focus on the unique shape of each object. This can be done with glass or pottery collections. Variety of shapes and sizes is the key to creating interesting vignettes and rooms.

Mixing Light and Dark Woods

Posted on April 27, 2012 by creatingyourspace

With wood floors being so popular in homes these days there is a new discussion about matching or mixing wood tones between flooring and furniture. Having all the same type of wood furniture in a room is an older way of approaching design. Very formal rooms, such as dining rooms, often had all mahogany or cherry furniture. Today’s design style is more apt to mix one or more woods in a room’s design, including the flooring.

If you have light floors like maple or dark floors like ebony stained hickory, you are not held to only have light or dark furniture to match the floors. Placing dark wood furniture on light floors and vice versa can make the wood of both pop. Using similar wood, dark on dark or light on light, will cause your furniture to blend in more with the flooring. This can be remedied by using a colorful or patterned area rug to break up the unified wood tones.

The contrast between light and dark has a more modern and contemporary feel than the traditional style of using similar wood tones. Using different wood tones can give your space more visual interest while also creating a more eclectic style that is favored by many designers today.

When mixing woods, pay attention to the undertones of the color just as you would when mixing paint colors or fabric colors. Cherries and mahoganies have red undertones while maple has a more yellow undertone. These undertones will be more noticeable when you mix your woods.

Beautiful Dark Wood Flooring

Posted on April 24, 2012 by creatingyourspace

When decorating a room from the floor to the ceiling, you have the chance to coordinate all the design elements from scratch. Unless you are doing a home remodel or building a new home, one or more of these design elements will already be in place when you decorate the room. If you like your flooring, be sure to incorporate it into the new room design rather than ignore it.

If the flooring is ready to be changed for either wear or style, think about putting a darker color on the floor. Dark stained woods, including ebony stains that read as black, are a very popular choice for wood floors. These dark wood floors can add drama to a space and anchor it.

Darker carpet can achieve the same effect. Darker carpet will also hide the dirt more but not the lint or pet hair so you might need to vacuum more often if you have pets. Darker colors like those seen here can act as neutrals in a space as well as greys and browns.

Pair darker floors with lighter walls to balance out the deep color if you want an airy feel to the space. Go with deeper neutrals and colors on the walls if you want the space to feel cozy. Darker floors that are either wood or carpet can help ground white or light furniture in the space. A dark color area rug can designate a living or dining area in an open floor plan with lighter floors.

Beautiful White Bedroom Decor

Posted on April 23, 2012 by creatingyourspace

An all white room can be a bastion of calm and peace. Or it can be a stressful battle against paws and kids. All white kitchens feel crisp and clean. All white family rooms might not be the best choice in decorating. On the other hand, an all white master bedroom can indeed be an oasis of calm and serenity.

This all white bedroom is layered with various shades of white from crisp designer white to whites tinted whispers of grey. The layering is what gives this room a finished looking design rather than an unfinished or even boring look of stark white. Along with layering shades of white, texture plays a role in making this design work.

Pure white bed linens stand out against more grey tones of white on the bed frame and walls. The subtle contrast between the two whites is enough for the eye to differentiate. The bench at the foot of the bed and the nightstands are also painted in the palest of greys.

Texture can be found on both the bed and floor. A shaggy, sheepskin or Flokati rug adds texture to the smooth wood of the floors. Bedding contrasts between smooth cotton sheets and a more textured coverlet. Smooth walls and floors contrast against the texture of the rug and bedding.

Uncovered windows to the left of the bed and above it flood the space with natural light. Combined with the snow white palette, this gives the room an airy and light feeling.

Creative Kitchen – Aprons and Gloves

Posted on April 19, 2012 by creatingyourspace

Kitchen aprons and dishwashing gloves have a definite vintage feel to them. Aprons and gloves recall television shows from the last century where mothers wore aprons, heels and pearls to cook dinner and greet their husbands after a long day at the office. Today’s moms and wives are also likely to have jobs outside the home as well as household responsibilities. Yet, we still appreciate the appeal of aprons and vintage style kitchen accessories like dishwashing gloves.

There is a cottage industry that creates nostalgic and girly rubber gloves for doing the dishes. Some gloves even have rhinestones and pearls on them to add a little touch of bling. If these feminine style rubber gloves can make even one person like doing the dishes more, then they are a good thing. These rubber gloves can protect hands and manicures when cleaning, mopping as well as doing the dishes.

Aprons are also practical as they are pretty. Aprons can protect your clothes from water when doing the dishes or food splatters when cooking. Our mothers and grandmothers were smart to wear them when doing projects around the kitchen.

Today’s aprons and gloves are often color coordinated with other kitchen accessories like tea towels and toss rugs. Runners and mats in front of the sink are a great place to add an accent color or tie in with other colorful accessories in the room. Why not coordinate other accessories like aprons and dishwashing gloves into the overall color palette. Whether your kitchen style is vintage or not, a pretty apron and a charming set of fancy gloves can be stylish and practical vintage inspired accessories.

From the Floors Up

Tag Archives: room decor