Creative Resources for Holiday Decorating (and gift giving)

It's getting closer to the holidays and we are all thinking about decorating our homes to welcome loved ones and nuture ourselves but if you're like most of us, the budget hardly supports seasonal gifts much less holiday decorating. Here are 4 creative resources for decorating (and gift shopping) in this economy to inspire you...

1. Swap Meets:
Have you ever eyed an item your neighbor had and wished you could have it? Well, maybe now you can!! Perhaps you can swap an item that you don't want with an item your neighbor or friend has that they don't want. Your Christmas decorations may bore you but may bring cheer to a home with none and the table lamp they no longer need might provide the perfect light by your reading chair.

2. $0.99 stores:
The dollar stores never cease to amaze me with the variety of unexpected items that they carry - candles that ae at least $5 less than in departement stores, mesh baskets for fruits and organizing, pictures frames that you can paint any color without fear of ruining because of the cost. Visit a dollar store this week to see the many items that will surprise and inspire you.

3. Thrift stores:
Thrift stores are making a comback in style! Now days it's considered chic to shop in a thrift store full of economical items that have a history to them. Another great reason to shop a thrift shop is that most are associated with a charity so while you are helping yourself decorate in style, you are also helping a good cause.

4. Move and reuse:
Do you want to shop for items without spending money or even driving around town looking for them? You can - by shopping within your own home! Look around and see what furniture pieces or accessories you can use to decorate your home to feel and look better by placing them in different rooms or spaces.

Find Your Style

One of my client’s biggest challenges is finding their decorating style. What they don’t know is that while their home may need a facelift, it speaks volumes about their style. Taking a close look not only at your home but at your life preferences will give you clues to your style:

1. Where do you like to shop? Were you first in line when Ikea opened in Tampa or does a flea market make your heart beat fast? Do you collect West Elm catalogs or Pottery Barn? Maybe you don’t shop for furnishings at all but collect family heirlooms. It sounds too easy but where your furniture comes from represents your style.

2. Where do you like to travel? Where you choose to spend your vacations and what you bring back with you are good indicators of your style. If you love family vacations at the beach and collect seaglass and shells then coastal is your style. If a week in NYC relaxes you then urban might be your style.

3. What’s your favorite vacation accommodation? A cozy country B& B? A San Francisco boutique hotel? A Paris apartment? Hotels and lodgings have clear design styles so use that information to your advantage.

4. What was your most recent purchase? What you buy is an accurate indicator of your style, especially if it is different from other style elements in your home. Your current décor might be lace, pillows and dried flowers but if your last purchase was a glass and chrome desk for your home office then perhaps you are outgrowing your previous romantic style and leaning into a simpler more modern one. 

Still can’t find your style? Check out one of my favorite online design assessments at Lifetraits.

Make a Room Feel Larger

Everyone wants their home to feel warm and inviting but we also want the room to appear larger. As a rule, we recommend mounting window treatments several inches above the window. For example, say you have an 8' ceiling height and you mount your window treatment under your crown molding or just below the ceiling, not only will the room appear larger but the ceiling height will appear taller as well.Another mistake a homeowner might make would be to add a cornice with a straight bottom and then mount that cornice at the top of the window. Below I have created a rendering with our "Minutes Matter Studio" graphic design software to illustrate the different look achieved when the cornice is mounted near the crown molding or ceiling opposed to mounting at the top of the window. See how much taller the ceiling height appears and how much larger the room looks.


Here is another design tip when trying to make a ceiling look higher. Add a shape to the bottom of the cornice. By adding movement to the bottom of the cornice it can trick the eye into moving up and down so the eye does not stop at the longest point of the cornice.


You could also accomplish extra height with drapery panels and a decorative rod. Notice the difference when you mount the drapery rod at the top of the window or when you mount the rod under the crown molding or near the ceiling.


We recommend giving every room that extra lift! Would you like to see how new window treatments could change your room? As part of our service we create renderings to help our clients visualize how new window treatments will look on their windows.

Top 3 Window Problems - SOLVED!

The Top 3 Window Problems - SOLVED!

problem: too much light
Sunlight flooding a room can be delightful but not on Saturday morning when your trying to catch up on your sleep or later that afternoon when you're trying to watch a movie

solution: blackout shades
Simple spring tension roller shades made from an opaque material can turn day into night but for a more refined look nothing beats Hunter Douglas Duette Architella shades for leaving you in the dark and with Power Rise with Platinum Technology and the battery operated remote you won't ever have to leave your bed or sofa again.

problem: no privacy
You're looking for some quality tub time without having to bathe in the dark. How can you let the sunlight flow without attracting peeping toms?

solution: shutters with tilting slats
Adjustable shutters allow you to customize the view (yours and the one offered to passersby). Hunter Douglas Palm Beach Polysatin shutters are 100% PVC so you never have to worry about water or moisture from the bath and with the midrail option you can have complete privacy on the bottom with sun and view from the top.

problem: a room with a bad (or good) view
The window that sheds light on your favorite reading nook just happens to overlook your neighbor's trash cans or you paid $$$ for that view of the beach but not the roof of the clubhouse.

solution: top down bottom up shades
These Hunter Douglas Vignette shades may look as if they were installed upside down, but that's no mistake. It uses two sets of lift cords, allowing you to choose which way (and by how much) the shades open and close: from the bottom up or from the top down.

Space

At this point, you are probably wondering exactly where I am going with this and what on earth fierce conversations have to do with interior design. What first struck me was how similar the principles of fierce conversations are to the principles of interior design - balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion and scale, harmony and unity, but what really piqued my interest was the correlation between silence in a conversation and space, empty space, uncluttered space, is in an interior.

We Americans feel the need to stuff our homes with more and more things and fill our conversations with words and small talk. As Susan Scott notes in Fierce Conversations "It is a phenomenon of our times that, for many people, silence is almost unendurable. Silence makes us nervous. So do innovation, change and genius." In the movie, Proof, Jake Gyllenhaals character, Hal, wrote a song for his band entitled "i". It is not a song at all but silence. No lyrics, no melody - just silence. When his band plays "i" at the funeral for his teacher, Robert, everyone sits quietly except Roberts daughter, Claire who, unable to endure the silence, nervously fills the empty space with her laughter.

Embrace space in your interiors with these rules of thumb:

1.Avoid placing furniture around the perimeter of the room. This "ballroom" feel is not conducive to interaction and conversation.
2.Allow a minimum of 24" to 36" between furniture for traffic flow.
3.Avoid placing the sofa on the longest wall; this reinforces a bowling alley type of feel to a room. Try floating the sofa into the room to create visual impact.
4.Mount window treatments 8" to 11" above the window frame depending on the height of your ceiling. This balances the entire treatment on the wall and visually makes the room seem larger.
5.Leave a place for the eye to rest. Don't be afraid to leave some spaces unadorned. Less can be more!

"Memorable conversations include breathing space -or just space, of any kind. My motto is: Don't just rearrange the furniture. Toss it out. Become a minimalist."
- Susan Scott

Fierce Conversations

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF FIERCE CONVERSATIONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Principle 1: Master the courage to interrogate reality.
We are all changing all the time. Not only do we neglect to share this with others, we are skilled at masking it even to ourselves.

Principle 2: Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real.
While many fear "real," it is the unreal conversation that should scare us to death. You will accomplish your goals in large part by making every conversation you have as real as possible.

Principle 3: Be here, prepared to be nowhere else.
Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will every have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does.

Principle 4: Tackle your toughest challenge today.
Burnout doesn't occur because we're solving problems; it occurs because we've been trying to solve the same problem over and over. Travel light, agenda-free.

Principle 5: Obey your instincts.
Your radar screen works perfectly. It's the operator who is in question. What we label as illusion is the scent of something real coming close.

Principle 6: Take responsibility for your emotional wake.
The conversation is not about the relationship; the conversation is the relationship. Learning to deliver the message without the load allows you to speak with clarity, conviction, and compassion.

Principle 7: Let silence do the heavy lifting.
Memorable conversations include breathing space. Slow down the conversation, so that insight can occur in the space between words and you can discover what the conversation really wants and needs to be about.

Excerpted from Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott

Tips for Hanging Art

The art of hanging art came up at an appointment this week as one of my clients, frustrated by where her husband had hung their artwork (high), asked me where I thought the paintings should have been hung. Here are the tips I gave them:

• Artwork should be hung so that the center point of the picture or the grouping is at eye level for the average person.


• With the above in mind, it should also be hung from eye level of where the art is most often enjoyed. Higher if you view the art standing as in a gallery and lower if usually seated as in a dining room.


• When hanging a group of pictures, treat them as one unit. Test the arrangement by laying them out on the floor or make paper templates and tape the paper on the wall to determine where the hangers should be installed.


• Relate the art to the wall size. Choose smaller pictures for narrow walls and larger pictures for big spaces. Keep in mind that small pictures can be hung vertically over each other to fill a long narrow space and two pictures can be hung horizontally to fill a large one.


• Relate art to the size of the furniture. Generally, a piece of art should not be wider than the table width nor should it be heavier in feeling than the piece below it.
  

To learn how your artwork can enhance your life and goals call me today to schedule a feng shui consultation.