colors — Home and Garden Diva

Knockout Interior Designs That Your Apartment Will Love You For

If you have just moved into an apartment and feel that you need to stamp your own identity on it, this article can help you to decide on how to proceed. Apartments are often less spacious than conventional houses and can be limited when it comes to personalizing the space to your tastes. But this need not be the case and here we discuss some clever touches that can create a tasteful bespoke design feel for your apartment.

The Idea Of Interior Design

Modern design ideas tend to follow the trend of a minimalist spacious area instead of lots of clutter and excess furniture. This may not tie in with your own ideas but it is an easy route to follow and you can always add at a later stage. Using neutral colors and plain walls adds up to a stylish and elegant theme for your apartment or house.

Shades And Colors

It is better to shy away from too many colors and perhaps pick a couple of tones for your entire interior. The colors should not take over the feeling of your apartment’s mood but rather try to emphasize the overall ambiance of the home. Pick a powerful color for your accent wall and use a neutral shade for the other walls. Think about the color of the floors and any large furniture before deciding on your ideal combination.

Furniture

You really need to continue the theme you have kicked off with your color choices for the walls. The furniture should be presented in a less bold tone and again a neutral shade would work well with the accent wall’s theme. Think about low and long shapes when considering your seating arrangements. Metal and glass are always welcome in a modern designed interior and seem to never go out of date. With your bedroom you can afford to throw caution to the wind and opt for a huge leather style divan plus a bodacious headboard.

Lights

Think about a low key fixture but with plenty of power and control options. You can really set the mood with a versatile dimmer switch style option. The lighting should be spaced evenly through your home with options for combination illumination choices. A few lamps can add to the room, especially if their colors are complimented by the walls and furniture.

Decoration

A few simple photo frames featuring your family are always a good conversation piece, but do not get too carried away with this theme. Less is definitely more when it comes to adorning your walls with fixtures. Why not invest in some large plants for your hallway and perhaps one in the bathroom area? They will give your home a natural and exotic edge that can be hard to achieve with an apartment’s lack of garden area.

Wood And Metal

Think about some classy home appliances for your kitchen and splash out on a steel fridge and matching oven and hob sets. They are easy to clean and always lend a classy quality to any home.

Today’s guest post is submitted by Patrick Armstrong. He is a successful real estate agent who loves writing. He is really excited about the new apartments in Prahran.

Bring The Beach Inside With A Beach-Themed Bedroom

by Trish

You love everything about the beach from the crashing waves to the feel of sand underneath your bare feet. While you wish you could live on the beach, you will eventually have to go back home to your own boring bedroom for the night.

You don’t have to be separated from the beach you love. Bring it inside your own home by creating a beach-themed bedroom. Beach themes can be placed in all types of bedrooms whether they are big or small or have hardwood flooring. With just a bit of imagination, you can go to sleep and wake up on the beach every day.

Paint Scheme

Tackle those boring walls by incorporating the colors of the beach. Different shades of tans and blues work great.

You can either paint the entire wall a solid color, divide the wall by painting the top half blue to represent the ocean and the bottom half tan to represent sand, paint the walls tan and the ceiling blue, or color wash the walls in different shades of blues as it can look like waves. You can stencil in white seashells for more of a beach feel.

Furniture And Flooring

The furniture can be a difficult to place into a beach-theme if you aren’t looking to spend a lot of money replacing your old furniture. You can go with white furniture in the way of beach chairs and tables. If you aren’t keen to having that much white in your room, go with light wood color tones.

As for the floor, hardwood flooring with an area rug of rattan material or bamboo can give the perfect beach appearance to your room. It will also work fine if you have regular carpeting.

Beach Accessories

Beach accessories can come in all shapes and sizes for decorations in your room. Hang paintings of the ocean or other beach themes on the walls. Scatter seashells on dressers, tables and shelves. Purchase beach-themed lamps, bedding and knickknacks to complete the overall beach look.

Sleep In Paradise in Your Beach-Themed Bedroom

Devote time and creativity into your beach design to have a warm and comforting feeling in your bedroom. You’ll never be too far from the beach even in the winter time when you decorate your room with these beach ideas. It doesn’t have to take a lot of money or time to have the perfect bedroom of your dreams.

Amy Nelson is a mother, avid home decorator and author. Mrs. Nelson has written several informative publications on family life, interior decorating, and simple home improvement tips.

What Could Sherlock Holmes Tell About You From Your Room?

by Trish

Our rooms are an outward projection of our personalities and our mental states. Just as we choose what clothes we wear based on what they say about us, so too do we choose our ornaments and our general decorating based on what we think will tell people something about who we are.

However, while we might choose our decorations to tell people something we want to broadcast about ourselves, what we might be less aware of is the fact that we’ll also be broadcasting a lot of other information about ourselves that perhaps we don’t want people to know, or that perhaps just wasn’t the kind of image we were hoping to give off.

When we choose items for our property you see, we don’t just do it based on the kind of thing we want to see, we also do it based on our gut feelings and our personalities – on generally things that we aren’t consciously controlling but that influence our decisions and tastes. Likewise the way we look after our property can offer an insight into our mental state both in the short term and over time. Here we will look at some things your property might be communicating about you…

Your Sense of Humour: When someone looks at your DVD and CD collection this doesn’t just tell them which films you like, it also tells them a bit about what kind of person you are in order to have those tastes. In other words people can see what makes you smile, what kind of action you like, and whether you prefer films to be intellectual or bombastic – which all tells them a lot about you.

Your Stress Levels: If your home is looking tidy and perfectly formed then chances are that this is a sign you’re on top of everything and you have lots of spare time. If it’s all over the place and you have piles of paper everywhere, this tells visitors that you’re just about too busy to keep up with your various commitments and have as such allowed things to literally pile up. There’s a reason for the prevailing image of the ‘scatterbrained’ professor.

Hobbies: If you have a hobby like weight lifting or like martial arts, then chances are that you’re going to have lots of related paraphernalia lying around the place. This then tells people something about how you spend your time, in this case it tells then about your physical fitness, and of course it also tells them again a little about your personality.

Colours: The colours we choose for our room can tell people a lot about us, right down to whether we prefer open feeling spaces with lots of light colours, or whether we prefer cosier dark spaces (and this is particularly telling when employed in the bedroom). There’s a good chance that someone who tries to create a more ‘closed’ and darker space in their room with deep browns and other darker colours is more likely to be introverted.

OCD: The anal personality is known for straightening pictures and lining up coasters and for not tolerating any mess. If your home is perfectly spotless and completely spick and span, then chances are that you will fulfil this description and are likely to be more anal in other areas of your life too.

Max Cavan is the author of the above guest post. He is fond of writing home improvement articles and provides interesting content to his readers. Visit www.magazinesubscriptions.com for browsing over 1700 magazines.

Eight Tips For Home Office Design

by Trish

If you love to telecommute, you’ll love having a home office but only if it’s designed correctly. Home office design isn’t particularly complicated but it does require quite a bit of careful thought and planning. If you’ve recently decided to convert a room into an office, here are eight tips for getting the most out of your decision.

Spaciousness is Key

Space is everything when it comes to home office design. Considering the purpose of the room is to provide yourself with somewhere to lock yourself away for a few hours, a cramped space is not something that you want. If your choice of room is up for debate, go with the larger option. If it’s not, maximise the space that you have available to you by keeping your furnishings to a minimum.

Invest in a Quality Chair

If you’re going to blow your budget on something, make it the chair. When it comes to office chairs, you really do get what you pay for. And when you consider the amount of time that you are likely to be sitting in it, it’s worth paying a lot. Consider the ergonometric variety and never buy before you try.

Storage Space Matters

Regardless of how neat you consider yourself to be, if you don’t have space to put anything, you can expect to be working in a pretty messy environment. Storage space is therefore not something that you can afford to skimp on. Sleek filing cabinets will not only make you feel like a professional, they’re also the perfect solution to your document storage needs.

What do You Need?

Take a look online and you’ll find all manner of fancy desks and storage units. Before purchasing anything however, it’s important to ask yourself exactly what you need. Do you use a laptop or a desktop? Does your work require ample desk space? What items do you need to have easy access to? If you don’t take the time to answer these questions, you are highly unlikely to end up with a home office that meets your needs.

Don’t Work Against the Wall

The last thing you want is a desk that faces a blank wall. If your home office has a window, that’s where your desk should go. If not, it should face outwards, preferably towards the door.

Tame Your Wires

Despite the popularity of wireless internet, wireless power has yet to be invented. This means that your home office is never going to be completely free of tangles. You can however keep such tangles to a minimum with cord winders, tubing and conveniently placed holes in your desk.

Choose Colours You Love

One of the benefits of telecommuting is that you don’t need to work in a stuffy office environment. Don’t make the mistake of creating one at home. Beige has no place in a modern home office. Choose colours that you love. It’s also worth noting that different colours tend to have different effects on different people. Try to establish what colours are most likely to keep you calm, and of course, productive.

Keep Things Bright

Finally, if you want to minimise eye strain and generally stay productive, ample lighting is very much required. To make the most of natural light, you should try to keep your windows as bare as possible. And when it comes to artificial lighting, don’t rely exclusively on the ceiling variety. Additional lighting in close proximity to your desk is very much recommended.

Ed Markwell is an interior designer with a passion of protecting the environment from global warming. He recommends replacing older models of gas boilers with new ones to slash energy use by 50%.

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