Change Your Habits

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Photo Credits: Century Furniture Ind

Change your habits for a change of habitat

Do you ever wonder how the design stars do it? Could your rooms ever look so incredible? Could you ever be so creative? Creating beautiful rooms is easy - you simply need to

change a few decorating habits and to begin thinking and acting like a pro. Look, listen and learn from creative and successful designers. Retrain your creative side to think and perform like a decor guru. Before a clever designer sets out to buy new furniture and all the cool products he plans to put into a space, he will sit down in the room and take a good look around. He'll make a list of the room's pros and cons. He'll identify the room's features, both good and bad.

Rooms, like people, have good features and bad features. If you have great legs, wear lots of short skirts. If your legs are not so great but you have fabulous hair, wear pants and showcase the hair. Go sit in the room you want to makeover and ask yourself, what are the room's cons? Can any of them be changed? Can a small window be replaced with a larger window? Can two narrow rooms be made into one larger space? With all these things taken into consideration, you need to make some tough decisions. When a room has good proportions, you have the basis for great decor. A design genius ensures that the room has architectural interest - a fireplace, grand mouldings or a glamorous staircase. If a room is missing architectural features, plan to add some.

Now, what does the room need to do? How many activities are going to take place in this space? Spend a few minutes and make a floorplan for the room. Sketch out possible furniture plans using overlays to make sure that everything will have a place and enough space. Plan to hide or disguise any flaws that you identified earlier in the process. A flaw is a flaw - in the same manner as we apply makeup, decorating with paint and light can help to camouflage tiny flaws and play up great features. Larger flaws may require a bit more effort - think of it as plastic surgery for a space. Plan to focus on the pros of the room. A great feature can be made to be the room's focal point. Highlight the area with accent lighting or make it twice as good by reflecting the feature in a mirror. You can also arrange the furniture around features such as the fireplace. Always plan to highlight the best features in a space. Colour is power, and it has great emotional impact on the viewer. Choose a colour palette for a room based upon the atmosphere you wish to create with it in the space.

Spend some time to research a colour's personality. Generally, hot colours - such as yellow, orange or red - are energizing and active, while cool colours - blue, green and violet - create calm and serene spaces. Think about how you will look in the room; after all, you are the room's best accessory. Surround yourself with colours that you love and that you feel flatter your hair and skin colour. If you would not normally wear such a shade, it is probably best not to decorate with it. Fabrics and materials for the room should be chosen at the same time as the paint for a room. Often the paint colours are inspired by a simple piece of fabric. It is easy to find a great paint colour, but more difficult to find the perfect carpet colour. Choose your carpet and fabrics before, or at the same time as, your paint colours. Choose a variety of textures for a room. Pair shiny silks with nubby suedes. A variety of contrasting textures creates visual interest. Designers say a fabric has "good hand" when it has that "I've-got-to-touch-it" quality.

Make sure that your rooms have lots of good hand. Textures perform best when seated next to an opposite texture. For example, in front of a stone wall place a lacquered chest or, on a distressed wood table sit a bowl filled with glass balls. Knowing and understanding the basics will guarantee rooms that you'll be proud to live in. Visit Cheryll on line at http://www.cheryllgillespie.com

Cheryll Gillespie
12812 52 Street, Edmonton, AB.
T5A 0B6

Phone 780-428-4663
Fax 780-473-5013
http://www.cheryllgillespie.com