Set the sound in the
front door
If you want to make a
great first impression on your home, paint your exterior doors in a fun, bright
tone. “Red is the color of happiness in many cultures,” says Lara Allen-Brett,
a director from New Jersey. The red door meant a “welcome” for tired tourists
in early America, and in the churches it represented a safe haven.
Two other shades are
gaining traction: orange and yellow, according to San Francisco-based staging
designer Christopher Breining. Both colors are associated with joy and warmth.
One thing to go for: an outdated display door. Get rid of it or replace it with
a full-length glass door that you can change to a display panel.
Paint the walls with
light and neutral colors
Stick to colors like
beige or gray, especially on the first floor where fluency is important. “You
want to minimize disruptive transitions,” Breining says. Neutral walls give you
the most flexibility in decoration, so you can easily change accessories
And if you have two
small rooms side by side, painting them in the same neutral color will make
them look bigger. Look at the paint strip and move it up or down a shade or two
to get a subtle variation from room to room, Allen-Brett suggests.
Living Room: Make sure
your couch speaks to your chairs
Think of the hotel’s
comfortable lobby: the furniture is arranged for groups to invite discussion.
When placing furniture in your living room, look for a similar sense of balance
and closeness.
“A U-shaped discussion
area with a couch and two chairs facing each other at each end of the coffee
table, or an H-shape with the couch facing directly into the middle of the two
chairs and a coffee table, is ideal,” says Michelle Lynne, Dallas ’Actress
Manager.
A common mistake to
avoid: Pushing all furniture against walls. “People do that because they think
it makes their room look bigger, but in fact, moving the furniture away from
the walls makes the room feel bigger,” he says.
Let the sun shine on your kitchen
“When it comes to
heavy, old-fashioned curtains, a bare window bank is better than ugly,” Lynne
says. Ideally, windows should be both functional and stylish - think of views
combined with full-length panels.
If your room has a lot
of sunshine, choose light colors that don’t fade. The most popular lightweight
fabrics for panels are cotton, linen and silk blends as they tend to spread
well.
Hang at least one
mirror in each room
Mirrors can make a
space feel brighter because they bounce light around the room, "Breining
says. But placing one in the wrong place can be almost as bad a thing as not
having one.
Place the mirrors on
the walls perpendicular to the windows, not directly opposite them. Hanging a
mirror directly opposite the window can cause light to bounce out of the
window.
Scale the art on your
wall
“There’s a few more
ridiculous things than hanging small works of art on a wall that’s too high,”
Breining says. The center of the image should hang at eye level. If one person
is short and the other tall, calculate the average of their height.
Also note the scale;
big wall, choose a big oversized piece or group smaller pieces into a gallery
style. In the latter case, do not spread the images too far apart. 2 to 4
inches between subjects usually looks best.
Lay out lighting
Each room should have
three types of lighting: ambient, which provides general lighting and often
comes from ceiling lights; homework, which is often found above the kitchen
island or reading area; and an accent that is more ornate, emphasizing, for
example, works of art.
In the living room, it
should be at least 3 watts (42 lumens) per square foot. The visual trick
Breining invokes: the use of rising lights. “Placing a canister top light or
flashlight in a corner shines on the ceiling and makes the room look bigger,”
he says.
Anchor mats under the
legs of furniture
Follow these basic
rules for the area rug: "In the living room, all four legs of the sofa and
the chairs in the furniture group should fit in it; the rug should define the
seating area," Breining says. “At least the two front legs of the couch
and chairs should rest on top of it,” he adds.
Even living rooms with
smaller proportions usually require an 8 x 10 foot or 9 x 12 foot carpet to
accommodate enough seating. If the size of the rug is too small, everything
will look unfavorable.
instrument.
Give Old Finishes The
Cinderella Treatment
Got dated fixtures?
Reinvent them with spray paint and inexpensive refinishing kits. "A 1980s
brass chandelier can get a new lease on life with a quick coat of
hammered-bronze or satin-nickel spray paint," says Breining.
Even outdated kitchen
cabinets benefit from a few coats of white paint and new hardware. And if you
thought there was no hope for Formica countertops, think again. Breining swears
by Rust-Oleum Countertop Transformations, a DIY counter-coating product that
mimics stone, making even the ugliest 1970s counter look fresh.
What's left to do:
Swap out cracked and mismatched switch plates and outlet covers for updated
matching ones. Says Lynne: "Nothing drags down a refreshed space like a
dingy, almond-colored switch plate."
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