Get Inspired!
Learn decorating tips to create unique areas-of-focus throughout your home, using colors and interesting pieces, as seen in CoastalLiving.com and MyHomeIdeas.com. With a little ingenuity and handiwork it is easy to create inviting rooms without spending much money at all.
Focus on Color
Add drama to a dining room by splashing colorful drapes against a backdrop of white, and top off with black-tie invitations to dine in “Classic Elegance”, as presented with bold chair cushions. Style a dramatic table bouquet for even more interest as shown in “Quick Floral Arranging Tips for a Decorator’s Touch”.
A small room can be made to look twice the size by neutral colors, white furniture, and an over-sized painting to focus on. A sunset-shaded palm tree gives the illusion of an open picture window in “Faded by the Elements”.
Soft inviting pastels and neutrals are effectively used in this tiny living room, providing the perfect backdrop for dark-tone woods in “Low-maintenance Appeal”. You probably do not notice the small furniture pieces in this cottage room, as your eye goes directly to the huge dark-wood framed mirror propped over fireplace mantel.
Hideaway Focus
Add a hidden breakfast nook, home office, or meal-planning station at the end of a galley-sized kitchen, fashioned from wooden-planks as shown in “Island Time”. This point-of-interest mini-counter beckons you to sidebar, jot a few notes, and blend into privacy.
Turn unused attic space into a secluded library, where the daydreaming focus could be architectural concepts. Using unorthodox “Smart Thinking” it is possible to turn a structural faux-pas into an artistic maze-of-interest, just by adding bookcases, rugs, and an easy chair.
Create a cozy sitting area in soft colors around a converted fantasy fireplace. Decorated with shells, candles, and sparkles, this once-discarded space becomes a “Fabulous Focal Point” and private retreat.
Focus on the Bedroom
Turn your bedroom hideaway into a fantasy retreat with an unexpected ceiling-suspended bed as the focus of “Quiet Design”. A neutral-color palette enhances the natural wood tones of this nautical hammock, and it’s off to slumber land, or restful mid-day napping.
White-on-white paint and linens will allow you to highlight any of your favorite colors introduced by accessories, or as seen in “Just Right White” a family-heirloom quilted bedspread. The soft pastel hues used in this delicate patchwork pattern might get lost in a busier room, yet becomes the center of attention in an all-white bedroom.
Make your bedroom focus a big surprise, as in this “Well-Suited” example, boasting a repurposed headboard of Victorian-window shutters, against a backdrop of wood tones, whites, and beige (not usually so exciting). Discover more ways to “Revamp Your Headboard for Quick Bedroom Transformations” and create your own surprises.
Learn as You Go!
Repurpose what you have by enhancing with paint or wallpaper, window coverings, and other easy-to-do accessorizing (without spending much money) as found in “Quick Summertime Decorating Projects”, “Extraordinarily Easy Window Treatments” and “Why Replace When You Can Redecorate for Less?” Get inspired to highlight interesting focal points as you walk room-to-room through your home.
