Posts Tagged ‘interior’
Interior Design Makeovers in 2 Minutes, 20 Minutes, 2 Hours and 2 Days
Interior Design Makeovers in 2 Minutes, 20 Minutes, 2 Hours and 2 Days
2 Minutes Makeover Ideas
Take a visual scan of the room in need. Look for things that instinctually bother you and are ongoing visual eyesores. These can be things like a picture that is hung too high or too low, a plant with dead branches, or an accessory that you no longer like. Take two minutes and fix this problem; re-hang the picture, pull the leaves off the plant, or remove that accessory.
Add fresh flowers in a colorful vase.
Quickly rearrange the existing items on a mantel shelf or coffee table.
20 Minutes Makeover Ideas
Empty a bookcase of all its contents. Reposition the items back on the bookshelves in a new and interesting way. Instead of placing books standing up, stack them in neat piles of like size books and place them on the shelves with an accessory or two on top of the books.
Take down all the artwork on the walls and re-hang in new places in the room. It will look like you purchased all new artwork.
Rearrange your furniture in one room for a new look.
Swap the lamps in one room with the lamps in another room. That matching pair of lamps in your Master Bedroom might look great in your Living Room and the unmatched pair from the Living Room might add a touch of visual and unexpected interest to the bedroom.
2 Hours Makeover Ideas
In a bedroom, switch out the duvet cover or quilt, add decorative pillow shams, and hang some coordinating sheer delicate drapery panels.
In a Bathroom, add new towels in a fresh color, a clean new shower curtain, a new area rug, and new framed mirror.
An alternative in the Bathroom is to paint an old wood vanity a crisp white or even use this as an unexpected place to add a touch of color.
Go through your entire house with touch up paint. It is amazing what eliminating scuffs and dings on the walls can do to help brighten a home.
Hang a set of shelves in the Office or in a Child’s Bedroom for book or toy storage.
Hang a new light fixture in your Entry or Dining Room; it is like adding jewelry to an outfit.
2 Days Makeover Ideas
Repaint a room, any room from a Bedroom to the Kitchen, top to bottom in a fresh and up-to-date color.
For your patio, buy new furniture, an outdoor area rug, a few new potted plants, and hang some wooden carvings to transform an average patio to an outside oasis.
Give a bathroom a complete facelift by painting the walls, installing a new framed mirror and light fixture, new towels, new accessories and rugs. The room will appear brand new.
London builders: Bathroom Interior Decoration
These days bathroom interior design is even more important and attract much more attention of the owners than kitchen design. In a modern design concept a bathroom is no longer just a functional zone but turned to be one of the main components of a stylish interior.
The role of a bathroom in our life has been misjudged for too long. Meanwhile, the way how our bathroom looks fundamentally influences our everyday mood. We don’t simply accomplish essential hygienic procedure there – this is a place where we start and finish our day. And that is why its atmosphere is of a great importance: it can energize or prepare you for sleep, cheer up, generate necessary mood.
With changed attitude to a bathroom itself the main components, forming its space, remained the same. Yes, undoubtedly the bathroom fixtures selection is important, however the main element, appointing to the bathroom style stays tiles. It’s impossible to be replaced.
The Art of Imitation.
It looks like couturieres’ laurels keep on the run the bathrooms interior designers: in increasing frequency they use textiles in the most different projects and can’t stop making various materials imitating it. So the ceramic tiles became a show-piece of a new art – there used to be collections where ceramic tiles were imitating natural stone, wood or metal, however nowadays designers moved to a new level. A new trend is ceramic tiles adroitly disguising into luxurious silk wallpaper or weightless French lacework impression.
Visual effect is awesome – you can recognize “fake” only at very short range, or even only after touching the tiles. Skilful leather imitations of different types are already common, but “ceramic leather” is an obvious new season hit.
Another trend – historical catchwords – can set wits to imitation. This is not just a new vintage – skilful, but still a fake, – that is a retrospect, reference to classics and traditions, to the warmth of a family estate in the midst of a noisy city, if you prefer. Here one can see not only designers’ desire to create an outer effect, adding olden time imitation to surroundings, here aspiration of creating something historically veracious is absolutely clear. In addition to such surroundings designers offer already well-known trend, which is popular during several seasons, – vintage terra-cotta tiles with baroque ornament of cracks and attrition as if left after the hot Italian sun.
Ecological Rhetoric
Fortunately modern design fashion is far from being monotonous, it is various, contradictory, and there is always a counterbalance to every modern trend: so historical catchwords nostalgia and imitations flimsiness neighbors on bionic trend. Perhaps there is nothing new in it – well- known 60-70th yet again. This trend will no doubt find its fans among former school students and new intellectuals. In fact coming into this style designed bathroom one wants to think about sense of life as well as caducity and eternity of all existing… In this trend ergonomic forms and outrageous colors are not as important as up-to-date ecological rhetoric.
Art-Delicacy
The last in the list of new trends is one more bright direction. Both classical and mould-breaking art theme was always used with pleasure by the bathroom designers while creating new collections of ceramic tiles. From year to year craftsmen reproduce pictures of well-known artists, photos elements, sketches or children drawings on ceramics. These days art trend moved to a new level – with both selecting objects for reproducing and implementation of the design idea.
New Classics of Any Genre
Variety of new trends in ceramic tiles design amazes and gives full scope to art and selection of the only correct trend. Today fashion is good by being cosmopolite. However on closer look one can notice some similarity specific to all interior design in general.
One way or another, with all variety of themes, forms and colors – either it is ceramic tiles or sliding wardrobe model – art deco style rules the object design world these days, invisibly and subtly but skillfully and persistently. Don’t the same imitations and paintings, luxurious leather and expensive species of wood imitations, painting of various flora and fauna objects refer exactly to it? Today’s art-deco is different – it is based on nuances and touches, not showing up to the full extent. But because of it its presence isn’t less visible. Using its motifs designers skillfully spice almost any bathroom interior – from high-tech to country. It is also used in design of luxurious hotels, as well as in gallery space, private inns and bathrooms… So imitation, bionics and art are samples of art-deco style implementation in its new interpretation. This style is expensive, intellectual, presentable – became a trend already. Art-deco elements usage demands professional skills and good taste, but result usually exceeds the best expectations.
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Interior Design in London Goes Exterior! Part III: Specialist Garden Lighting
The work of interior designers professionals doesn’t stop at the back door – increasingly, interior design teams are expanding to offer specific garden design expertise. In this four-part collection of articles, “Interior Design Goes Exterior,” I rely on my years of know-how gleaned from collaborating with London’s finest interior design teams to explore the latest in garden design. This article discusses where and how to implement general, task and feature lighting – whether for a compact central London urban garden or for the luxurious and expansive grounds of a grand mansion outside London.
Your interior design consultancy should allow exterior lighting to be controlled using a simple switch. Often the system will be attached to a daylight detector to deactivate everything during daytime hours. Your interior design team will also specify a timer to make certain that the lights go out at, say, 2am (neighbours in some London boroughs can be sensitive about light pollution). If your interior design consultancy implements a more theatrical and expansive illumination scheme, they might alternatively specify a dimmer system to allow for fine-tuning.
Most London Interior Design consultancies will first need to decide which approaches to select for general, task and feature lighting, before specifying products that match the look and feel of the garden. Your interior designer will select a suitable mounting location and will determine whether or not you need extra electrical outlets on the patio (they may also need to consult with your London borough’s local electricity supplier). Remember that a garden is seen from inside the house, as well as from outside – both from your own garden and from the properties of your London neighbours! If your residence features a conservatory (or actually any garden-facing feature windows), your interior design consultancy should notify you of the importance of properly illuminating the garden right from the outset.
After dusk, windows generally look very black and will function almost as mirrors, creating bright reflections and sometimes giving residents the feeling of being slightly overexposed. In the next article in this collection which I call “Interior Design Goes Exterior,” I will focus on exactly this issue to reveal how top London interior designers create lighting schemes that bridge both inside and outside via a conservatory.
Choosing Childrens Bedroom Furniture and Designing your Child’s Bedroom – Tips From a Professional Interior Designer by Susannah Greenan
Designing a childâ??s room can feel quite daunting. Children can be harsh critics and all parents know how key a bedroom is to a child. In this article, Iâ??ve written some of my top tips to consider if you are thinking of making over either a childs or teenagers room.
1. Decide what furniture you actually need, or, can fit in to the available space. Consider:
o Do you want a two or three door wardrobe (consider room for school uniforms, sports and PE kits, costumes and winter and summer clothing)?
o What style of bed do you want? If your child is of pre-school age, Government guidelines recommend low lying beds not more than 40cms from the ground;
o Is there sufficient shelving/storage for books, CDâ??s and other belongings?
o A desk to study at, house a computer at or simply draw and play at;
o A chair;
o A bedside table.
2. Take a look at just what your child has managed to accrue and you will be surprised, so donâ??t make the mistake of underestimating the storage space your child needs. Consider future needs, for example, whilst a desk may not be important right now, if they are moving to high school in a year or two, this will be important. Try to incorporate as much space and as many needs into your original design as possible.
3.Consider if the existing lighting and power sources are appropriate. If you need to move power points, add ceiling or wall lights or install new power sources, do this before anything else and then be sure to check that your new furniture can fit following any changes.
4. Most people have some limit on their available funds and so if on a budget, set a realistic one and stick to it. There is a lot of cheap bedroom furniture on the market, my recommendation is that you avoid it and buy product that wonâ??t fall apart within the first 12 months. Is a warranty offered? Are there reviews on the sellers website? All of these can help you gauge the quality of a product if it is not a brand you recognise.
5. Involve your child in planning and designing the room as much as possible, it is their room! Clearly this will depend on the age of your child, but even four year olds can have very fixed ideas of what they want their room to look like. Choosing a theme together is really important and there are so many fantastic ones to choose from. Just keep in mind that you want a room that looks great and is a practical and functional space. A childs room is used very differently to any other room in the house. If you think about it, the room will have a number of uses: for sleep, relaxing, playing with friends and for older children – homework. Choose furniture that facilitates as many of these as possible.
6. It is fun to do the decorating yourself. If you are and are not that experienced, estimate how long you think it will take you and double it! This will sound really obvious but it is something I see time and time again and can make the whole process unnecessarily stressful. In short, choose a good time to do it when young children are cared for by someone else and you are not expecting anyone to stay for a few weeks. Inevitably your child will need to move into a spare room or double up with a sibling, there is nothing worse than rushing a job because visitors are due or because Christmas or a special occasion is looming.
7. If you are ordering new furniture, obtain an expected delivery date from your supplier. You can then plan your decorating work around that. I always suggest buying any accessories once the furniture is in place, so that you can really see what is needed. With themed bedroom furniture, you will need relatively few accessories as the furniture makes a huge statement by itself. For more neutral/plain furniture, accessorising can be more necessary. If you are buying accessories, donâ??t spend too much. Children will outgrow these relatively quickly and replacing accessories after 2 years or so is a cheap and effective way of updating a room so that it remains appropriate to your childâ??s age. There are so many good websites, not only srbWorld, that sell great room accessories. High street sales are also a great way of picking up bargains in this area.
Happy designing!
Bathroom Interior Ideas
All you want at the end of the day is to relax and soak in a hot bath, but your current bathroom offers a tub the size of a teacup and feels dated. Whether you spend a lot of time in the bathroom or only a little, the bathroom is a vital part of your day.
Modern bathroom interior design focuses heavily on incorporating warmth, style, and functionality in equal measures. Designers will often look at adjacent space and consider the possibility of losing space in one room to add space to the small bathroom. They view the room as a potential retreat and design with that in mind. By adding storage space, square footage, and modern fixtures built for real people, bathroom interior designers can take your bathroom out of its time warp and into the new millennium. Lighting Fixtures
You might spend a lot of money renovating the bathroom, but it will be the lighting fixtures that will add the finishing touch and make the bathroom a pleasure to use. Be sure to give sufficient attention to lighting from the start. Proper lighting will highlight your remodeling efforts, while inadequate lighting will detract from them. Too often bathroom lighting is inadequate. You don’t have to buy expensive bathroom lighting fixtures to solve the problem, but you do need to buy the right fixtures. You can be creative and buy distinctive yet tasteful fixtures that go with the rest of your décor. Integrating Storage
When you’re planning your bathroom interior design, remember that you’ll need somewhere to put the linen cupboard. Storage is a boring but essential aspect of bathroom design; you’d be surprised at just how much we keep in our bathrooms, including medicines, toiletries, stacks of towels and sometimes the laundry basket too. Don’t be tempted to skimp on storage to save space. This is a false economy, because the mess has to go somewhere, and a bathroom with little storage is a cluttered bathroom – not spacious or restful at all. Don’t be shy with ideas: matching your storage receptacles to your bathroom’s theme will make you feel less resentful about devoting space to it. A minimalist bathroom will look great with a traditional white bathroom cupboard, while a rustic-style bathroom will be enhanced by a pine cupboard, perhaps with stenciling. Bathroom Mirrors
Bathroom mirrors come in many different shapes, sizes, and styles: rectangular, round, oval, special shapes, with and without frames, and large to small. Decorative wall light fixtures mounted on each side of a standard mirror will illuminate both sides of the face evenly, without shadows. A wall bracket lighting fixture can also be mounted across the top of the mirror. Fixtures using incandescent bulbs behind glass or plastic diffusers emit the most flattering light. Safety precautions in bathroom design
One of the most important safety precautions to remember is that water and electricity don’t mix. Light switches should either be the cord kind or be situated outside the bathroom itself. You should also make sure that the electrical outlets for items such as hair dryers are safe, especially if those outlets are positioned near water sources. Old or damaged outlets may cause electrocution, or overheat and present a fire hazard. If your outlets are showing signs of wear and tear, get a qualified electrician to replace them. A good way of reducing your risk of electrocution is to install ground-fault circuit interrupters, which detect faults and stop the power supply when there are any electrical leaks in a circuit.
