You have an empty room. No furniture, no artwork, not even a rug. Where do you start?
START WITH THE RUG. [Read more…]
You have an empty room. No furniture, no artwork, not even a rug. Where do you start?
START WITH THE RUG. [Read more…]
Here is the official history of velvet:
Velvet and Cashmere wool originated in Kashmir. Traditionally, velvet is associated with nobility. Velvet was introduced to Baghdad during the rule of Harun al-Rashid by Kashmiri merchants and to Al-Andalus by Ziryab. In the Mamluk era, Cairo was the world’s largest producer of Velvet.
While velvet is a commonly used fabric for clothing, we will ‘talk about it’ in terms of how it is used for interior design purposes. [Read more…]
Well here we are at the letter ‘L’. I asked my creative Facebook friends for their suggestions and was flooded with good ideas! As a result, I will use many of them in this post representing the letter ‘L’; to be exact, seven of the suggestions will find themselves discussed in this post.
Starting with the word LIVING ROOM. What design elements comprise a living room? In our fictional living room, we will have great lamps, accent chairs with fabulous legs upholstered in leopard chenille. There is a sofa with a linen slip cover and an entertainment center with louvered doors and fabulous decorative latches.
In our living room sits our sofa, flanked by two chairs upholstered in leopard chenille. Definitely need some great throw pillows for the sofa to pull the rich colors of the fabric and leg stain over. Perhaps introduce some red as an accent color….. A faux mink throw for the back of the sofa would look good.
Formal living rooms are not too common now a days. Our living room is quite casual in tone and is home to the second TV in the house so the parents can watch their favorite shows while their teenaged son plays X-Box on the TV in the family room.
A large scale entertainment unit with louvered doors, stained a darker tone to complement the legs on the accent chairs works great. To one side of the linen sofa, an interesting chest with great latches is used as a table. The height is balanced by a floor lamp on the other side of the sofa.
Our room is not quite finished. The walls will be painted in a soft gray blue tone. An 8′ x 10′ sisal area rug with a leopard print border anchors the seating arrangement. Artwork will grace the walls, window treatments, live plants and other accessories will find their home in our fictional living room.
WHAT WOULD YOU ADD TO OUR ROOM??
Picture sources include: Pottery Barn (sofa), One-Way Furniture (Leopard Chairs), Lamps Plus (floor lamp)
S Interior Design offers virtual design services and would love to help you either long distance via the internet, or in person in the Phoenix AZ metro area (or beyond if you would like for us to travel to you!)
Personally I have a love/hate relationship with Kilim. Love it for rugs (don’t forget your rug pad, they will slip!), Love it for footstool covers, Love it for wall hangings. Not so sure about for pillow covers. Why? Because while they look good, and are textural, often colorful and interesting to look at, they are NOT face-friendly.
So please proceed to use Kilim pillow covers for the seating that you only sit on, or look at, but don’t use it for the sectional sofa you lie all over at night to watch your favorite TV shows. For detailed information about Kilim please click on the Wikipedia definition. I promise you will learn more than you thought possible about Kilims; I know I did.
So many options for ‘B’. Bathrooms, Bedrooms, Bedding and more. We chose bedding as the subject for ‘B’.
As you read the blog and have another design area associated with the letter of the day, please share!!
B is for: Bedding
So many options when it comes to choosing bedding! The rule of coordinating, NOT matching applies here for the most interesting personalized result. So folks, that means steer away from the ‘bed in the bag’ option.
As always, function comes first, design options second. Decide on what level of warmth you like best. Is a quilt okay? Do you need a down comforter to get the warmth you enjoy at night? How many pillows do you like to sleep with? What is your tolerance for making your bed in the morning? By that we mean will the accent pillows actually ever find their way onto the bed or remain thrown on the floor in a corner. Tip: Get a large basket to hold your accent pillows at night.
Here is a recent example of a bedding ensemble S Interior Design put together for a client’s Hollywood Glam guest bedroom. The duvet cover came from Macys as did the bed skirt. We customized the accent pillow that came with the bedding by adding a floral fabric stripe. We designed a ‘foot warmer’ at the end of the bed that uses that same fabric, and a 18″ x18″ pillow and finally we added a fun glittery pillow to the mix.
Some good options for finding interesting in-stock bedding include Macys, Dillards, The Great Indoors and if you are lucky, you might find some good treasures at Marshalls Home Goods.