Modern Furniture

You’ve probably heard lots of advice on the importance of color - its psychological effect on a room, the way it draws the eye, and how light colors make a space seem larger. While all of this is helpful, it’s often difficult to translate when it comes to decorating your own home. If you’re like most people, choosing a color palette comes down to selecting a few hues that you consistently love and some accent colors that complement them. One good way to do this is to use a neutral base palette and bring color into the room through accessories.

Keep in mind how the color makes you feel, and be sure it suits the room’s function.  Pay attention to the modern furniture colors and designs. If blue gives you the blues, it doesn’t matter that it’s a “good” color for a bedroom. There’s a wealth of information available about the effects of color: red makes us feel energized, blue makes a room seem cooler, pastels are quieting, and deep purples evoke creativity. But the trick is to focus on your own reaction to color. Does it appear calming? Sensual? Clean and fresh, or spicy and exotic? You can give a bedroom these attributes simply by using a color that evokes these feelings.

To gain confidence with color, use some simple design tricks. First of all, start slowly; bringing a new color scheme into your home is something that takes getting used to. Introduce small doses of a hue you like, in accessories such as a lamp or a vase. If you’re happy with the hue, gradually incorporate larger expanses of the color into the room’s decor: use it in bedding or slipcovers, or paint an old dresser or wooden chair. If you’re feeling daring, go straight for the walls - or paint just one wall. Featuring color on one wall can have a significant impact. Fortunately, paint is relatively inexpensive, so the consequences of changing your mind aren’t too great.

Perhaps you are drawn to vibrant shades of ochre and crimson in the fall and hues of green and pink in the spring. Choose a color scheme that accommodates your changing preferences. If you establish a neutral background, you can accent it with bedding, drapes, area rugs, and other accents of color. In this way, you can easily transform the feel of your bedroom from an autumnal enclave to a cheery summer space.

Also, take a cue from what’s inside your closet. Hues that you instinctively gravitate toward tend to make you look and feel your best. The same colors that work well in your wardrobe can often work wonders for you in your home.

Traditional is a decorating term that describes the general characteristics of the period styles. Traditional implies certain design influences that can be seen in the graceful shapes and stylings of classic furniture designers such as Chippendale or Sheraton. Traditional decorating schemes are not exact re-creations of period styles, but are combinations of an individual’s favorite motifs, colors and patterns from different periods. Lavish and detailed, traditional bedrooms feature rich woods and patterned fabrics in distinctive colors.

Traditional bedrooms are cozy and comfortable, often decorated with a mix of patterns on walls, windows and beds. These bedrooms are the perfect place to express your own personal taste with favorite antiques, family photos and collections of personal memorabilia.

Traditional bedrooms are lavishly decorated with various fabrics, from elaborate tapestries to sateen, with long draperies that flow luxuriously onto the floor. The bed is often dressed with layers of bedspreads and bed skirts. Furniture of rich mahogany or cherry, with intricate details, is common in traditional rooms, as are brass lamps, bishop sleeve curtains, ruffled pillow shams and four-poster beds.

English traditional reflects the cold, damp climate and the warmth that is desired in an English home. This warmth is found in English tweed, as well as hunter green, royal blue, crimson and mustard. Warm English colors also include natural browns, grays and creams, as well as the bright colors of garden flowers.

English traditional style includes Victorian cabinetry, Regency furniture in black and gold, Edinburgh or Waterford crystal and Chippendale desks. A traditional English country bedroom is large and spacious.

French traditional has some similarities to English traditional, but the character and flavor is much different. Since the climate of France is warmer and less rainy, French rooms don’t focus so much on a central fireplace. Pastels don’t work well with the deep, ruddy shades of English traditional, but a French style can be flavored with more subtle shades, such as peach, rose, beige, pale lemon, Wedgwood blue, muted green and rich cream.

The materials used in traditional French rooms are more lush and luxurious. There is much more use of fabric than in traditional British decor. French traditional also includes intricately detailed Austrian shades, with lots of molding, trim and borders.

If there is one universal traditional style, it is wicker. In the East and West alike, the internationally known willow is bent and twisted to a desired shape. Wicker furniture can be found in traditional styles as well as modern, country and Oriental.

For a sophisticated sheer that is worthy of the living room we devise a treatment that is half curtain, half shade.

Hem (at top and bottom) a flat panel of sheer fabric—wool, linen, even a sheer metallic—so it precisely covers the window like a banner. Slip a brass curtain rod through both hems, let-ting the ends of the rod extend an inch past the shade on either side. Hang the top rod from hooks on the wood trim so the sheer drapes before the window like a delicate flag.
To raise the shade, you’ll need to install a pair of cup hooks or plant hooks, one on each side of the window, as high as you can comfortably reach. Lift the bottom rod and set it in the hooks.

The top of the window will still be veiled by the sheer; the bottom reveals a partial view and can now admit the breeze.

So,  you move into a new home. The empty space is the blank canvas that you get to work with. An empty room can be as challenging to a homeowner as a blank page is to a writer - and just as satisfying once you’ve figured out what you want to say. If you’re designing your dream home, you may have the luxury of deciding how many square feet will go where. But most of us work within existing rooms, squeeze favorite possessions into new spaces, and see the spaces transformed. The size of a room may determine proportion, but it needn’t limit your imagination.

Making a success of a small space remains the greatest challenge for many of us, but the imagination and ingenuity required often result in unexpected charm. Every part of the room offers storage possibilities - overhead and under furniture, on floors and on walls. Look for items that can be hung, tucked beneath the bed, or stored up high out of sight. Dual-purpose modern furniture like daybeds and nesting tables also help make economic use of limited space, while floating shelves (rather than solid bookcases) and hanging lights (instead of standing lamps) expand visual space.

Get to know the building thoroughly before you moke any major design decisions. Ask yourself these questions:

• which direction does it face?
• which rooms (ace the road/overlook the garden/have other views?
• which rooms get most light at which times of day?
• Which rooms are the quietest?
• Which rooms have the most wall and floor space?
• Which rooms have the highest ceilings?
• Do any rooms lead into one another?
• Are there any wasted comers or unusable spaces?
• Are there any doors that open awkwardly?
• Are there any narrow corridors causing obstructions?
• Are there any doorways or corners that make furniture access unnecessarily difficult?
• Which walls are structurally supporting and which are partitions?