How to Use Pale Trending Colors of the Year in your Home

Image via: Benjamin Moore

This year, however, the unveiling of 2016 colors was a bit of a surprise.

Instead of leading us all in the direction of bright and bold, two of the major names in the world of decor trends point to the soothing qualities of whites and pale tones. Benjamin Moore Paints even named “Simply White” the 2016 Color of the Year, noting that it’s time “to surrender to the complexity of white.”

In the same nod to neutrals, Sherwin Williams introduced Pura Vida as one of four separate color palettes for the coming year. It features subtle hues drawn from nature and it features pale tones rather than the vibrancy of the previous year. Paint names reflect the mood: Alabaster, Ancient Ground, Useful Gray, Doeskin. They aren’t quite “no color,” but they are far from bright.

Image via: Sherwin Williams

Where Does It Lead?

Were does this forecast lead in terms of decorating your own home? Well, unless you insist on starting from scratch to reflect the latest “with-it” trends, it means that you have freedom to mix some new with your existing decor, and to keep it simple. It also allows you to build a base that you can brighten up when the mood strikes you.

If your walls need freshening, choose a “whiter shade of pale” to serve as a starting point. Benjamin Moore notes that, of its top 10 best-selling colors, five are shades of white. With more than 250 variants of white to choose from, you will certainly find one to love.

White can be the “bones” of a soothing, Zen-like ambience for any room of your home, but it’s particularly appropriate for establishing a spa-like feel in a master bathroom. Think white in all its forms: sculptural bathroom fixtures, soft terrycloth robes and towels, white linen shades at the windows, white or bleached wood cabinets, white marble underfoot. Add in pale vanilla candles for visual and “scentual” appeal and luxuriate in your own private retreat to restore a sense of balance to your life.

Image via: Home Bunch

Throughout the Home

Revamping a bathroom is a perfect way to begin a home update. Unless it’s time for a major rehaul, the smallish size of most baths means that a redo can be accomplished in minimal time and within a reasonable budget. If you already have white bathroom fixtures, layer on different textures and varying shades for a stylish monochromatic scheme. Use the same principles for decorating a dynamite kids’ space, but add in some gray or beige towels that won’t broadcast the residue of clean-up efforts. Use natural toned wicker baskets to corral grooming gear.

Go subdued in a guest powder room. Refinish a vanity cabinet and framed mirror with chalky milk paint, add a fluffy white rug, stack armloads of pale hand towels on a counter, and accessorize with pale seashells. Find sepia-toned prints of deserted beach scenes and have them framed in rustic gray wood. Avoid a laboratory or clinical feeling by adding plenty of texture and making certain that the “whites” don’t all match. It will always be beautiful, and never boring.

When you’re ready, go ahead and expand the non-color into other areas of your home.

For more color ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

Open Space Living: A Popular Lifestyle for your Home

Image via: Hit-decor

[ad#co-1]

The new kitchen, a hub for entertainment

Open space planning for your kitchen and living room is not only practical. Its layout also maximizes social interaction without being closed out. You can entertain guests while preparing food and vice versa, they can join and participate in your doings. Everything is also much more accessible and easier to oversee, especially if you have kids. Your Kitchen has become the new heart of the home where the family meets up to be together. It also has increased in size to incorporate many areas like dining, living and entertaining. The “new kitchen concept” is a commonplace where functionality and comfort meets and conversation continues.

Open space planning lets you style your home in a more unifying concept

Since open space planning reduces the common areas to one big room, there is no need to find many decoration styles. You can stick to one theme and save money on flooring, paint colors, blinds, curtains and other materials. It makes the room appear wider and generates an open feeling among the different areas. If you use different flooring materials, make sure it is lined up perfectly to create a seamless transition. A furnishing concept becomes handier and will give you many interesting options, with a focus on quality instead of quantity.

Image via: Trendir

Getting the best result by maximizing space within a fixed budget

Instead of looking for a bigger place you might consider to redesign your home to maximize space. There are many feasible alternatives which you can fit into your budget. A simple and more inexpensive method is to remove some nonbearing walls to create more space. But this should be consulted with an expert first, especially if you have to fitt utilities. It also won’t happen overnight, but can be manageable within a couple of days. The remodel wont cause too big of a mess, but will leave you with waste materials, which have to be disposed appropriately.

Image via: Myidealhome

The negative aspects to open plan living

There is also a downside to open plan living and not everyone is a big fan of it. That’s why it is important to design and plan well ahead to get the best results to fit your needs. The biggest con is privacy and cooking odors. If you are very much worried about the smells, a sliding door option can be a good compromise. Odor can be taken care of with proper ventilation. Make sure to have either an overhead or downdraft ventilation system installed. If you prefer more privacy, a split level layout is a wonderful idea to divide the common areas into different zones. Another option is to divide an open space indirectly. This can be achieved by using a kitchen island with a breakfast bar, in turn this creates an invisible line between a dining and living area.

Image via: Archinspire

So, If you have decided to move into a new place or to remodel you own house to gain more space. The layout of an open floor plan is worth to consider, because it offers many great combination options. You can always adjust it to your needs and find a compromise within the arrangements. Depending on your preference, whether a kitchen/dining room combo or a living room/dining room/kitchen combo, etc. works for you, I would definitely go for it!

For more home design ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

]]> https://stagetecture.com/open-space-living-popular-lifestyle-home/feed/ 0 71166 https://stagetecture.com/add-color-to-your-lifestyle-with-d-i-y-ideas-for-ombre/ https://stagetecture.com/add-color-to-your-lifestyle-with-d-i-y-ideas-for-ombre/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:45:49 +0000 https://stagetecture.com/?p=44533 Entry #2120, March 18, 2013

Like to get your home decor and fashion into the Spring Season? Then turn up the color dial by adding the effect of ombre’ to your items. Ombre is the graduation of color in an object, such as when fabric is very dark at one end and gradually lightens or vice versa. You can use this process for pretty much anything like chairs, banisters, stairs, desks, walls, fabrics and more. Here are a couple of D.I.Y. ideas of where you might want to use ombre’ within your home and more.

Walls

Image via: Sageateiler

Give your walls a touch of the gradual effect to add variety of color within the room.  Look above to see the different shades of the greens being displayed from the accent pieces and furniture that are being pulled from the ombre’ of the walls. Use the wall to lay out the color palette for the entire space or for the colors for other walls within the home. 

[ad#co-1]

Chairs and Desks

Image via: Gizmo

Image via: Decoist

Perhaps you may not have wanted the entire space to be ombre’d just a few pieces around the room.  Then ombre’ your desk, chair or dresser. These pieces would be great for brightening up and adding color to your space. The contrasting design of the ombre’ pieces are bringing in the vibrant richness that can radiate any space.   Visit: http://www.designsponge.com/2012/04/diy-project-shades-of-blue-ombre-chair.html, for the chair and for the dresser- paintedfurnitureideas.com.

Clothing

Image via: Ponosna. In

Ombre’ doesn’t just stop within the home.  Ombre’ can go as far as  hair, accessories, and clothing.  Create a color gradient for the things that you wear, most of the popular styles today are all about colors being mixed together and the more color the better.  Put this into your life by visiting: Stripesand sequence.com- for the jeans and for the accessories-ohthlovelythings.blogspot.com.

Stairs

Image via: Homa Style

Make the stairways the focal point when entering your home.  Ombre’ the bottom portion of each stair on the stair remembering to have the stair located at the bottom to be the darkest and the one at the top to be the lightest.  For more tips and guidance on how to do this go to: wyetta.com.

Now you go out and try it.  See what items you can gradually turn into color in motion.  Be inspired, creative and have fun!

For more home decor and color ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

Fashion is all around.  It plays a huge role in our lives whether male, female, child or even canine.  For every person there is a custom style that matches our personalities.  So why not take that custom style and use it as inspiration for the decor within our homes.  Some say that the home is a reflection of its owner, and how true would that be now?

Image via: Clara Belle Blog

[ad#co-1]

Find Your Style

The first step is to discover what your style is?  Do you go for the sophisticated look, playful patterns, bohemian vibe, simplistic elegance, etc.? Perhaps you are a mixture that’s fine too.  After you narrow down what your preferences begin to search through your closet to find the pieces that have a good portion of those choices if not all.  Then use those chosen items as the foundation for your décor selections.

Make the Selections

Image via: How to be trendy

It could be a shoe, dress, handbag, earring, necklace or all of the above.  You have fun deciding.  Third, go browsing for the things that you would want to put in your home that you have drawn out from the things you have chosen from your closet.  Like paint colors, furniture, accents pieces, accessories and more.

Put It All Together

For Example:

Image via: Interior Design for Houses

Look at the image of the living room above and see how the patterns, textures, accessories, and the color palette are greatly inspired by the two images at the bottom of the dress and shoe.

Image via: Ebay

Image via: Janelle wooten

 The dramatic French design of the chandelier that is similar to the design at the bottom of the dress or the zebra printed shoes that are part of the focal points of the seating area along with the contrasting yellow sofa, that brings in the black/white with yellow contrast.

Now these ideas began with two seemingly small start points but were essential to the development of the entire room.  Get creative, inspired and have fun! Explore more ways to express yourself, try it out!

For more home decor inspiration on Stagetecture, click here.

How to Create an Eye-Catching Front Door

[ad#co-1]

Try looking at the products offered by a company that specializes in doors such as Doors A-Plenty, it will help you make a decision. It is hard to choose a door in a showroom, away from your home and the context of the entryway to your house, so make sure you go back home and think carefully before deciding.

 Amenities to add focus to your front door

You can make your door stand out from the house frontage by choosing a contrasting color or grain. If you want your door to blend in and create a visually uniform effect then choose a color that wash in with the rest of your front wall. Your door can be sanded and repainted as the years go by. What is fundamental is the design and quality of your door. It should be hardy and durable and the design should be relevant for many years to come.

Depending on the glazing, glass in the door can let the weather in, and wooden doors can distort in extreme temperatures and weather conditions. Most front doors are lit to make them seem welcoming and to make coming home in the dark easier. Your can use feature lighting to decorate the front door. Sensor lights are also popular, in order to avoid fumbling in the dark. Consider the pragmatics—which direction is your door facing, and will it be catching the morning or the afternoon sun? do you want a sound proofed or screened door? Look at doors attached to houses of similar materials to yours. Which ones do you want to knock on?

For more front entry ideas for your home on Stagetecture, click here.

If you have a small apartment, you might think that your décor options are limited. Actually, that’s not so much the case. You simply have to be a bit more creative when it comes to designing your space in a way that will not monopolize what “little” room that you have.

This definitely requires some forethought, but don’t fret. We have five great designing ideas that anyone with a tiny apartment should consider; ones that will have you ending up with a place that will be just as impressive as anyone in the finest mansion in town:

[ad#co-1]

Make the most of your walls.

Of course, walls serve a purpose. After all, apartments would not exist without them. However, sometimes we think that when it comes to the interior wall space, all we can pretty much do is hang a picture up. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can use your wall to put in a flat screen (which removes the need for a table for your television). You can use your wall to build a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf against. You can also use your wall to hang up a huge mirror that will provide the optical illusion that you actually have more space than you do (especially if it’s reflecting another room on the house).

Use lots of color.

In many cases, you have to get permission from your landlord first, but if s/he is OK with you painting your walls, don’t be coy about it. Purples, greens, blues and yellows are all shades that provide plenty of personality to an apartment and if you use them as accent walls, it can also make a room look large than it actually is.

Purchase multi-purpose furniture.

A sturdy futon can be a “couch” by day and a sleeper by night should you have a guest come and stay with you. An ottoman is perfect as a seat, a footstool and also a storage area for some of your magazines and other items. These are just two examples of how one piece of furniture can be used in more than one way. So, when you’re out shopping for a chair or desk, think of how you can use it for several purposes.

Create a washer/closet.

If you look at some London or Rome apartment rentals, you might see this particular idea: Some spaces, like studio apartments, are so small that you have to double-up the use of rooms; including storage closets. Take a closet that has washer/dryer hook-ups, for instance. Why not purchase a stackable to put in there on one side and on the other, build your own closet where you can put some of the out-of-season items that you don’t presently need? It’s not only a space-conscious option, but it’s also a really cute design as well.

Invest in your windows.

A beautiful window treatment work do wonders in any home whether it’s an apartment or a house. Therefore, make sure to spend some time looking at all of the ways that you can decorate your windows from curtains and drapes to blinds and shades. All you have to do is go to your favorite search engine and put “window treatment ideas” in the search field. The possibilities are (literally) endless. Have fun!

Image sources: 1, 2

For more small living ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

“Reinvent Your Space” – this phrase best describes how Resource Furniture enhances small urban space into a stylish and impressive area. The collection is a combined creativity of excellent designers like Clei, Lisa Blecker, Randi Piccio / LRS Interior Design, and Original Works Studio. A perfect combination of talents, dedications and artistic quality can be found in one exhibit.

The customized space saving furnishings are the main attractions of this innovative idea. Each furniture has its excellent new features that can fit your limited space at home. You will be amazed at how these designers showcase their masterpiece for better living.

[ad#co-1]

Here are some features that you will certainly love in this innovative small space collection:

High quality materials.

It’s not only the style that matters in this collection but also the quality of materials. The designers choose the best materials like hardwood, plastic, metal and even the fabric that will suit the functionality of the furniture. This will ensure that beauty is not only on the exterior but also in the interior.

Flexibility

As Lisa Blecker of Resource Furniture explained, “Look at the big picture of how you want to live…. Every square foot should be thought about and used to its fullest potential.” This statement says it all. The collection makes certain that every inch of space you have at home counts without compromising the elegance and sophistication.

Multipurpose

This is one of the smartest ways to maximize the limited space you have at home. In this collection, you will see a wall cabinet in the morning that can be pulled down to the floor to be converted into bed in the evening. There’s also a console table that can be transformed into a 9.6 feet dining table.

Indeed, you will never run out of appreciations with this innovative small space collection. Take some time to look at these creative ideas and consider having them in your home.

Eric Blair writes about interior design and spicing up any room with the proper use of unique mirrors from Oval and Round Mirrors.

For more small living ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

I have this love for anything well designed. It can be for your home, your car, office, and yes even for your pets. Today I ran across this beautifully designed Dog Pod from Vurv Design. Made from maple veneer, any small pet would enjoy sitting in this one of a kind piece of art.

[ad#co-1]

‘This piece is more of a recliner than a pet bed, It’s like an Eames chair for your best friend.  This day bed looks great in any living room.  Not only does it look cool, dogs like the sense of security from this this cosy little niche.  Bent ply with a choice of 5 veneers. Removable, washable, and ultimately replaceable pad. Suitable for small dogs.’.. Vurv Design

Priced at $598.00 your small pet’s bed will blend seamlessly with the rest of your modern decor!

For more pet ideas on Stagetecture, click here.