Twenty-five great ideas for your home
When decorating a home, most of us know some information. Some design sense may come intuitively, some learned from your family home, other information from perusing shelter magazines, or maybe you've spent endless hours of viewing home decor shows on television.
While many can afford to hire a designer, there are others who cannot. Today's column is dedicated to insider tips on interior design to make your future projects fun and easy for you to accomplish.
Understanding the big picture is the most important part of creating a room that is functional and beautiful. Designers understand space, proportions, furniture placement and color from years of working on projects.
Here are 25 tips to make your home a better place.
• Using low-scale furniture helps make a standard-height room seem taller.
• Finding furniture pieces that are appropriate to a room is essential.
• Start by envisioning a room with an overall style in mind, i.e. French provincial or Italian Modern.
• To give a room serenity, use pairs of things, i.e., a pair of brackets, prints or a pair of upholstered chairs.
• Keep your eyes entertained by mixing objects of different eras or vintages.
• Don't overlook the light that comes in from your windows during the day, and the lack of light at night.
• Fabric shouldn't be matched to exactitude, but rather a range of a similar color makes your room alive.
• Rooms in all one color make your spaces feel larger.
• Mixing patterns on pillows is an easy way to spruce up a boring sofa.
• Use white or a neutral trim to offset a bold wall color.
• It is uninspiring to choose the same wood finish for all case goods.
• Choose a large piece of art as the start of decorating a room.
• Bold colors create a perfect backdrop for antiques.
• A striped rug can be a statement piece in an otherwise monochromatic room.
• A dash of Chinoiserie adds sophistication to any room.
• Always respect architectural elements original to any structure; work around them, not against them.
• Doors can be wallpapered to match the walls to make them seemingly disappear.
• A great paint job is worth every penny.
• Not every room requires window treatments. Sometimes the view is just enough.
• Beds are the perfect place to splurge on a glamorous headboard.
• A floor-to-ceiling shower curtain makes a small bathroom feel grand.
• Adding a pair of pilasters can turn the plainest room into an architectural gem.
• Eliminate clutter at once … that is an order.
• Mirrors are to be placed strategically to bounce light or reflect something beautiful.
• Rooms that are considered finished usually are stale. Move things around periodically.
Of course, each room and each home has their specific requirements. These tips are intended to make you think about, and maybe break, the rules to create your own version of home.
• Joseph Pubillones is the owner of Joseph Pubillones Interiors, an award-winning interior design firm based in Palm Beach, Florida.
© 2018, Creators Syndicate