// BLOG
Purchasing Furniture Little by Little
January 30, 2012
If you can’t afford to buy everything at once, don’t despair. Often the success of a decorating project is due to the fact that it was done slowly. It’s a good idea to live with each piece of furniture as it is introduced into the space before adding another. It’s also good to know you can do a lot with a few pieces of furniture, such as an upholstered sofa or love seat, two wooden chairs and a tea table or coffee table. Rather than concentrating on the fact that the room is bare, look at one area as if it were the entire room for now. If you have a focal point, such as a fireplace, arrange a conversation area around it with these pieces. You’ll be surprised at how livable you can make this one area. Try each piece in different positions. Sit in each chair or on the sofa. Imagine how the arrangement will function with other people. Then you can take your time to look at the rest of the room in the same way before tying it all together. Once you’ve chosen those first few pieces, everything else that follows should relate to them, so choose these items with care.
If the room still looks bare, fill in with inexpensive pieces that may eventually move to other areas of your home. There are also ways to fill in with color, pattern and inexpensive accessories for effect. These might include throw pillows, a wallhanging, framed posters, books, flowers, plants, lamps and collectibles that don’t cost a lot but look good.
Decorators have varying opinions about how you should furnish an entire home. Some think it’s best to buy one or two essential items for each room; others think it’s best to complete one room before moving to another. Some think you should purchase all the large and more expensive items first, because the less significant things will fall into place as you find them. Since most people moving into their first home are on a limited budget, the most practical and often the only option is buying little by little. Having an overall plan, however, ensures that you will make fewer mistakes, thus getting the most for your money. In this way, you won’t buy a sofa that’s the wrong size, shape and color, just because it’s on sale.
How to Buy the Right Sofa for Your Living Room
January 23, 2012
In many people, the thought of buying a sofa brings on a major anxiety attack. It suggests permanence and being a responsible adult, or is a big pain in the neck as well as a very large expense. It’s a good idea to be sure you really need or want a sofa because this isn’t something you buy on impulse, and you may make several trips to different showrooms before making a final choice. It is not, as many would believe, an absolute necessity, but it’s usually a piece of furniture everyone wants in a living room. Because it’s the anchor of a room, it’s best to look for one with classic lines. This isn’t the place to be trendy.
Upholstery Fabric
Picking out a sofa style is just the beginning. Once you’ve selected the sofa, you’ll be faced with the prospect of having it upholstered in any one of thousands of fabrics. It’s enough to unhinge the most informed shop-per. The way you see the sofa displayed in the showroom isn’t the way you have to live with it. You have lots of options, but you should know that some fabrics can as much as double the cost of the original sofa. Knowing this fact will enable you to edit out those fabrics that will move it out of your price range and concentrate only on those fabrics you can afford. In this way you’ll find the project exciting and challenging.
Fabric Colors and Patterns
When it comes to upholstery, it’s best to choose a solid color if your sofa will be placed against a wall. This will give you options for paint colors, wallpaper and drapery fabrics. If the sofa is placed out in the room, you can more easily get away with a pattern.
Neutral colors are always the safest and you can add colorful printed throw pillows for accent and excitement. Furthermore, you can change the look of a room more easily when the largest piece is a neutral such as beige, ivory or something in an earth tone. Shades of green are quite popular. This doesn’t mean that the fabric has to be plain and dull. Textured fabrics, such as damask or linen, in shades of neutral can be quite interesting.
Take Your Time
Don’t hesitate to ask to take fabric samples home with you to see how they will look in the room. While they are only samples, you can see if the color and print will go with the wall or rug colors and any other items you’ve already decided to put in that room.
Take your time and be as sure as you can about your choices. It will then take about six more weeks from ordering to delivery time. In those weeks you can actually forget what the sofa looks like. I knew a couple who were surprised when their sofa was delivered. They were convinced they had ordered something that looked entirely different. Take time to fall in love. You’ll be grateful every time you curl up with a book and a cup of tea, sink back for an afternoon of TV watching, or simply walk through the room and take it all in.
A Little Knowledge Goes a Long Way
With a little background knowledge you’ll be able to enter a showroom with confidence, ask intelligent questions and ultimately choose a sofa that will fit in with your lifestyle and the other furnishings in the room. Knowledge will also enable you to buy the very best quality item you can get for the amount you’ve allocated.
Usually a conservative approach is safest when buying expensive items. A sofa is an investment. You want it to grow by giving you a good return on your money. The return is that you love it more and more every day.
Undoing a Mistake
It’s unlikely that after doing your homework and taking the time to select the right sofa, you’ll find the colors or pattern are all wrong in the room. However, such a mistake can be rectified with slipcovers. This is an expensive solution. It’s better to get it right the first time.
In Praise of Comfort Above All
Every top decorator agrees that a sofa, more than any other piece of furniture, must be comfortable and classic in design. And they stress comfort, even over style. After all, if every time you sit on your sofa and feel the cushions are too hard or it’s too deep for gracefully getting up from, or you avoid stretching out on it, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is.
New York interior designer Mark Hampton knows the key to a good sofa: naps. “I would much rather take a nap downstairs on a big, soft sofa than go upstairs to bed,” he says.
Other Options
A polyurethane foam wrapped with down and feathers creates a firm but soft feel, and the seat cushions will retain their shape under great pressure. These sofas are much less expensive than those made entirely of down, and some people even prefer them. The foam makes the sofa a little firmer.
An all-foam sofa is inexpensive and will last eight to ten years. It’s not as comfortable as some others but it’s practical. It’s good to know that wherever you look for a sofa, you’ll always find a wide selection of all-foam sofas to fit your budget. This might be a good way to go until you can afford a better sofa. You’ll certainly get your money’s worth and then you can toss it.
What It Says
A sofa speaks volumes. If it’s stiff and formal, it says one thing. If it’s big and plump, it says another. Sometimes the style of a room dictates the type of sofa it should contain. If you’ve just moved into a house in the countryside, for example, you might consider a casual, relaxed-looking love seat or sofa. For a more formal look, consider a tufted or tailored sofa. A chesterfield leather tufted and rolled-arm sofa and a tuxedo sofa are considered to be cliches among venerable, classic designs and have maintained their position in the “not so comfortable but always reliably stylish” category.
How to Make Your Own Motifs for Children Room
December 22, 2011
1. Animals are a good starting point for the nursery. Stencil them on the wall as a border, on the front of dresser drawers, on the panels of the closet door and on a toy box.
2. It’s easy to paint a simple border around the room. Measure down from the ceiling approximately 6 to 8 inches and run a strip of painter’s tape (unlike masking tape, it won’t pull the paint off the wall when you peel the tape away) along the wall as a guideline. Paint the border sky blue. Let it dry. Stencil yellow stars and moon shapes at random on top of the blue border. Use this color scheme for sheets, bumpers and a quilt on the crib, window treatment and floor covering. Paint the dresser with the same blue paint and add yellow stars and moons to the drawer fronts.
3. Use the simple stencil design of a car to create a border design around a toddler’s room. Position the border halfway up the wall. Use a strip of painter’s tape to delineate a line above which you’ll stencil the design. Use bright blue and red paint colors and alternate for each car.
4. Paint the bottom half of the walls with a soft pastel color. Then add a wallpaper border around the room as high as a chair rail. Apply a wallpaper with a soft overall pattern on the top half of the wall.
5. For a quick and easy design, paint the room a solid color, then apply a wallpaper border around the windows and doors.
6. For a coordinated look, use a matching crib bumper, sheets, crib skirt, quilt and curtains. Paint the walls and furniture one of the colors in the fabric.
7. If the rest of your home is decorated in a country style, carry the theme into the nursery. Use transparent deck stain, such as Thompson’s Water Seal stains, in one of over a hundred colors on unfinished furniture. Let dry and apply a coat of satin polyurethane to protect the finish. Or whitewash the furniture with a coat of white latex paint. Let dry for a few minutes, then wipe away the excess to allow the natural wood to show through. Let dry overnight and coat with polyurethane.
8. Revive old wicker furniture with a coat of spray paint. A wicker chair, a small night table and a dresser will combine to create a charming and romantic baby’s room. Add eyelet trim, ribbon or rickrack to the edge of cafe curtains and a valance.
9. It’s easy to create a room of cloudlike softness with sponge-painted walls in a pastel blue, pink or yellow. Begin by painting the walls with a light color latex paint. Then, using a natural sponge, dip it into white latex paint, remove the excess on newsprint and, working on one small area at a time, pounce the sponge over the dry painted wall. Continue to do this until you’ve achieved a subtle, textured effect. If there is too much contrast, just keep going over the area until it looks good to you. This technique is absolutely foolproof. Cover the entire wall with random sponging in this way. You can use this technique on furniture as well. The goal is for a blending of colors that are closely related in shading. It’s not advisable to use a light and dark color together as the results will be harsh.
10. If sponging walls isn’t your thing, but you like a faux finished effect, you can get any treatment you like in wallpaper. It is so real looking that no one will guess it’s not the real thing.
How to Determine the Actual Space of a Room
December 21, 2011
Don’t be locked into titles. A dining room doesn’t have to be used for dining if you need it more for something else. I interchange my dining and living rooms with the seasons.
A young family I know moved into their first home, which had two bedrooms upstairs and a master bedroom downstairs. The kitchen and living rooms were too small to accommodate a dining table large enough for two adults and two children. They desperately needed a place to eat and decided to take one of the upstairs bedrooms for themselves, bought bunk beds for their two daughters, and put the girls together in the second bedroom. They were then able to turn the downstairs bedroom into a dining room.
When we were building our house, the plans called for a cozy den. Our architect had spent many years designing wooden boats, and we wanted him to design a room that would feel like the space inside a boat. Since we live in a boating community, this seemed logical.
The room, only 9 feet square, has a corner fireplace and built-ins all around, and is just right for two. But before the room was built, we planned floor-to-ceiling bookcases for all the walls, not realizing how little space would be left for furniture. When we saw the space, we quickly changed our thinking. We now have narrow shelves that run around the room above head level, which is more in keeping with the scale of the space.
Don’t be put off if a room seems too small or overly spacious; you can always create a design to compensate for any problem. Before planning what furniture you’ll need for each room, write down the following questions and answer them as best you can. Try to think of your immediate needs and, if possible, anticipate what you might need in the future.
1. How will the room be used most of the time? For example, the kitchen may not be a high priority on your list because you work all week and put together simple meals. However, if you enjoy cooking on weekends, es-pecially if two of you cook together, the kitchen should be designed accordingly. Even if you only dream of one day spending more time cooking as a hobby, you’ll want to plan space to accommodate your collection of cookbooks and cooking untensils.
2. Will the room be used for other purposes from time to time? For example, an eating area for two may have to seat more family members during the holidays, or friends who occasionally drop by.
3. Who will use the room most of the time? If, for example, you’re creating a home office in an unused bedroom, this is essentially your room. Since you’ll need to put up the occasional guest, you might select some pieces of furniture that work for both purposes. However, don’t sacrifice the functional office aspect of this room for the one time a year when your mother comes to stay for a week.
4. How much seating space will you need when the room is used optimally? A living room, for example, should be as comfortable as you can make it for you and the people you live with. However, you don’t want to drag chairs in from the kitchen every time you have company. Small occasional chairs can be worked into the plan for this purpose.
How to Set a Beautiful Table in Your Dining Room
November 22, 2011
Nothing is more elegant than a dinner table set with all-white linens and chinaware. A white linen tablecloth sets the background against which you might place a crocheted or lace cover in an eggshell shade. This doesn’t have to be an heirloom from your grandmother. There are lots of inexpensive machine-made versions, and you can’t tell them from the real thing. This will provide texture with the white background showing through. Creamware plates are lovely with damask napkins. In fact, white patterns of chinaware are classic and some never go out of style. Of all the tableware, whites are usually the most economical. And it’s easy to mix and match patterns with white chinaware for an interesting look.
Add to this setting wooden, silver or white ceramic candle holders with white candles and, in the center, a white pitcher, bowl or clear glass vase with white tulips, a few freesia stems, white roses or white lilacs. The greenery from the stems and leaves is all that’s needed for a touch of color. Dress the sideboard (if you have one) with a white eyelet-edged runner. This is a common item found at flea markets, but you can find new, inexpensive items like this at bed and bath shops. If you rummage through your mother’s or grandmother’s linen drawer you may find something similar.
I collect napkins. They are inexpensive and provide color easily when I want to create a theme. For fall I use my rust-and-moss-green-plaid linen napkins on a brown tablecloth. During the holidays I have Christmas napkins in bright green and cherry-red checks. When I’m serving an Italian meal, I use my red-and-white-checked napkins, and sometimes I like a black-and-white theme. I have black napkins and candles that look great on a white tablecloth with my ornate silver candlesticks. Pale pink damask, blue and white stripes, beige and white checks, and a mix of pastel colors and floral patterns are included in my collection. When you have a variety of napkins and a few basic tablecloths or place mats, you can easily set a table to match your mood, a theme, the weather, the season or your meal. Try it. It’s a lot of fun..