From the Floors Up blog was created with the goal of providing a destination for consumers, designers and those interested in the flooring, design, … Learn More
Understanding Your Flooring: Carpet Tiles
Carpet tile is an excellent choice for commercial application. Where most carpet fails to keep up with heavy traffic, carpet tile succeeds. … Read More »
Understanding Your Flooring: Tile
Homeowners and business have been using tile in their design for centuries. This timeless flooring option has evolved way beyond just … Read More »
Understanding Your Flooring: Luxury Vinyl Planking (LVP)
LVP has come a long way over the years. Now being the fast grossing floor in the industry, this versatile option has many beautiful planks … Read More »
Honeycomb by Guest Blogger: Tracy Daves
We are beekeepers. There are a few hives on our little homestead with 18,000 🐝’s pollinating our flowers, garden and giving us fresh local honey. It is a labor of love, great for allergies, and just plain delicious.
Here are a few of our pretties:
So I have gotta ask if you have heard the buzz?
Hexagon geometrics are not only timeless but on-trend. Honeycomb-inspired cell structures are popping up in fashion, home decor, and of course on your Shaw Floors and tiles! It is nature-inspired and brings in the outdoors.
I am smitten over these BEE-utiful honeycomb styles we offer:
Molten Glass Mosaic 
Molten Glass Mosaic
Del Ray Hexagon
Photo by Becky Crosby Designs for Sabal Homes
Sweet as honey, right?
Are you using this farm to fork trend to turn your home into “Comb Sweet Comb?” If so, please tag us at #shawfloors.
Remember to do your own sting, becuzzzzzzzzz you are the bee’s knees!
Hive Five, Tracy
Fading Design Trends | 2019 Edition
Trends will come and go in interior design. They are influenced by many factors, including what generation is currently buying their first homes, the economy, and cultural influences. Neutral colors have been used for decades to help get homes ready to sell on the market. Neutral tones neither add a warm or a cool tone to the atmosphere, yet they are extremely adaptable and can work with anything without clashing. Therefore, many homeowners will add neutral colors to their homes to prepare them for the market. We have seen some styles come and go, and we are currently in the midst of some trends fading. Let’s take a look at some of these trends.
Beiges & Tans
Many homeowners for a very long time were using beige, sands, and tans in their homes. These colors could commonly be seen in carpets, countertops, wall paints, and doors alike. While these neutrals did well for an extremely long time, they slowly began to phase out during the last decade.
Greys
The decade of 2010 began to bring forth a new generation of colors to the market. The millennials began incorporating shades of grey throughout their home, and this new edge look was being used in modern style homes and many minimalistic spaces. White and black created hard contrast to give the room depth while greys could make this monochromatic theme blend more appropriately. From stainless steel appliances, grey backsplashes, and grey flooring, the trend began to take off in the industry, and homes were being built with grey as the go-to color in the design.
What Is Next?
However, this rapidly growing trend has begun to lose speed. Experts believe the grey era is on its way out as a new neutral comes to take the throne. But what is it? The market has not had a definitive outlier yet. Some contending theories are that pastels may begin to become the new neutral. Pastels are muted tones that are so lightly hued that they have little to no impact on the room’s theme. Others believe soft, earthy tones are on their way back with a little more flair. Think caramel, burnt orange, hazelnut, and leathery browns. Perhaps, we will see the “Pewter” era, where grey and beige become more commonly blended together to give a new canvas feel to the room.
We cannot be certain yet, but Pewter is slowly rising, yet not significant enough to phase out the grey area. What do you think the next trend will be? Will grey make it another decade or will a new neutral reign king? Let us know below what you think.
Principles of Interior Design: Harmony and Unity
The last principle of this series helps bring everything full circle! We need to ensure that our design is unified and has harmony. These principles will make sure that everything in your room has a visual relationship with each other. Nothing should feel out of place or forced. Everything in our design should have a purpose. This can be challenging when we design rooms and do not want to get rid of elements that do not belong. Perhaps you have a favorite painting or an antique couch you inherited. They may not belong in the design of your new modern style living room, but this does not mean you need to get rid of them. You just need to see where and what belongs in the room.
Harmony and Unity
One way to find unity in a new design before starting is by creating a mood board. You can make a mood board digitally or physically. Find fabrics, pictures of furniture, flooring samples, and paint swatches then collect them all together. You can see if anything does not agree or contrasts with one another. Finding unity is the key to success. Your design should have a clear set vision with harmony throughout it. This visually satisfying effect is the assurance that all your elements in your design will agree. When this is achieved properly, your design will be complete.
Make sure your design does not create confusion. If you are mimicking a Modern Rustic Design, make sure every element is easily recognizable to help enhance the look. Likewise, if you choose a more Scandinavian style design, you should be able to recognize if anything does not belong. This can be challenging at first, but when mastered, will help you create a beautiful living space.
Look at your home design. Take it through the checklist of the interior design principles. Do you have any elements that feel “forced”? Do you feel that your home has properly achieved balance, unity, rhythm, scale, and emphasis? Being able to recognize these principles takes time, but we assure you it is worth the time invested. For more insight on how to improve your design theme and home improvement, make sure to subscribe!
Principles of Interior Design: Proportion and Scale
As we explored the principles of interior design, we can easily see that these established guidelines help us improve our home’s aesthetics. Balance, focus, and rhythm all can help create our space. However, just having all the right ingredients does not guarantee you success without the right quantities. Imagine baking a cake. You have the flour, baking powder, butter, eggs, sugar, and milk, yet you do not have the right amounts. You have a teaspoon of milk when the recipe calls for a cup. We can easily see that the proportions added to the formula matter and this is true with interior design as well. Proportion and scale are crucial to our room’s success. Interior design is not just the aesthetic appeal but functionality as well. An over-cluttered space can feel overwhelming, whereas an under-furnished room can feel incomplete. So, how do we always master perfect ratios? Well, let us take a closer look.
Proportion and Scale
It is essential to distinguish the difference between the elements and the principles of interior design. The elements are color, texture, space, lines, lighting, form, and patterns that are then influenced by the principles of design. Hence, these elements can all be influenced by proportion. There are several ways in which scaling these elements can affect your design. Let us take a look at a few in particular:
Color
The element of color can easily be one of the most psychological influences on an atmosphere. However, color psychology can come down to how we scale it. The color red can positively influence an atmosphere by provoking passion, warmth, excitement, and strength. Yet, when used too much, it can stimulate anger, defiance, aggression, and even danger. Colors can have warm, cool, or neutral effects on spaces. Typically, we see design themes stick to the 60:30:10 ratio to control the proportion of colors in the room. You can pick three colors to use in your space. You give one color 60% influence on the atmosphere – this will make it the room’s primary color. Next, the secondary color can have 30% usage in your space. While of course, your accent color will be the least frequent and only take about 10% influence in your atmosphere.
Space
Next, we should consider the proportion of space. We never want to clutter a space or leave it feeling bare. Figuring out the perfect balance and dimensions of furniture can help give your room the rhythm it needs. All the principles can tie together by figuring out how to incorporate spacing. For greater insight and tricks on space, check out the Golden Ratio and how it is used in almost all aspects of nature, art, and design.
Lighting
Light proportions affect our perception of a space as well. We can incorporate natural or artificial lighting. We can facilitate task lighting, ambient lighting, and accent lighting to create the right ambiance. Areas that are too dark are less likely to attract us than well-lit areas. Making sure our rooms are proportionally and evenly lit will also help us achieve balance and scaling.
There are so many ways to integrate scale and proportions. It can be very powerful and can easily be identified if it is well done. Make sure you can step back and assess your room. This can be challenging when moving. Sometimes our old furniture is not to scale with our new homes. Make sure you are never too physically attached and know when and how to proportion your space! Make sure to check out the last Principles of Interior Design to make sure you are ready to tackle any design project.
Principles of Interior Design: Rhythm
Every good design plan will have a set of guidelines to help keep it on track. These fundamental truths serve to keep everything on track, and interior design is no exception. Though interior design gives every person different aspects of freedom to help express themselves; there are still principles to consider. Interior design is created by facilitating the seven different elements into your home or workspace. These elements will work together to create your design. Today, we are going to discuss rhythm. Let’s take a look!
Rhythm
Rhythm is the flow of the room. How do your eyes travel from one area to the next? Rhythm can tie together your design in a unique way. Consider a band with a guitarist, drummer, bass, and singer. While each member is critical to enhancing the performance, they must work together. If each performer plays a different song at once, the music is lost. Learning how to facilitate rhythm is key to design as well.
Repetition
In music, rhythm is usually created by the percussionist through repetition. Repetition has a powerful psychological effect. Our brain will notice repetition and correlate multiple things as one. This powerful technique can be used in design. By adding repeating patterns or repetition of colors, we will subconsciously associate the room as being unified (another key principle). Having your curtains, pillows, and rugs with the same patterns will help create rhythm. While rhythm can easily be one of the most forgot elements to novice designers, it can be a key to your success! However, there is more just repetition used to create rhythm.
Gradation
You can also help the flow of the room visually through gradation. We can easily identify this as shading. By incorporating gradation in a room, you can direct where people look in a room.
Transition
Likewise, you can also direct “eye traffic” through your furniture. If you want to emphasize the height of a vase, you may place a smaller vase followed by a medium vase followed by a large vase. This will easily be noticed, yet can help create rhythm in your home.
Contrast
Another powerful tool used to create rhythm is contrast. Even in some songs, dramatic pauses can create a powerful impact. Likewise, you create a dramatic visual impact with contrast. The most common contrasting colors are black and white, but many opposing colors like red and blue can have this effect as well.
Radiation
Like radial symmetry, radiation is creating rhythm revolving around your focal point in a room. This will establish the balance in your space while creating the rhythm you desire.
Rhythm is important and commonly overlooked. If you can master rhythm, you will achieve a beautiful and aesthetically pleasing space. There are still two more key principles that are important to design. Even with rhythm, a room can feel awkward if the proportions and scale are not considered. Check out the next part of the series to see the secret to scaling your space and achieving perfect proportions every time!
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