High contrast colors & textiles in your retro bedroom

Nothing says vintage like high contrast colors and textiles, especially in your bedroom. The 70’s were a wonderful era of lava lamps, high voltage prints in bold and dynamic shapes and orange, green, purple, turquoise, and yellow were favorites among home and fashion designers alike. Bring a taste of retro styling into your bedroom with upholstered headboard made from velvet, velour, and pair accents decor with pops of color in accent pillows, shag rug and a eye-popping accent wall of color! What bedroom won’t look psychedelic with these pairings?

Upholstered headboard, high contrast color palette & accessories for your retro bedroom. source

How To Decorate A Small Living Room

Photo ©: Freshhome.com

Let’s face it, when you are living in a tiny apartment, you sometimes run out of ideas on how you can open up the space in your living room.
Decorating small spaces can be a nightmare because you want your space to reflect your personality and style, but it is kind of hard when you don’t have a lot of space to work on.
Every inch counts
In a small room everything counts - you need to find tricks and ideas that will not clutter the  room and most of all something that will not leave a big hole in your pocket.
Most people can’t afford the help of an interior decorator so you have to use your own creativity to get the job done.
Below are some ways to turn that tiny room into a multi-purpose area:
Stay away from large pieces of furniture
When decorating a small living room, you need to pay special attention to things like lighting, by choosing décor pieces with proper scale and proportion. When shopping for furniture to fit a small room you need to bring a tape measure (believe me you don’t want to have to take back something because it doesn’t fit properly in the room).
Avoid traditional coffee tables
Instead of buying a traditional coffee table, why not use coffee table ottomans?
Not only are they stylish but they are practical and can operate as a dual functioning piece of furniture as well. Your main issue is space, so these will come in handy because you can simply use them as alternate seating when you have guests.
Ottomans are versatile
Not only are they stylish but they also can serve as coffee table and in some cases you can use them as storage for your small items such books, magazines and those remote controls that are always lying around.
Whether you choose to use them as a table or for storage, you will love these small pieces for easy cleaning too. (It is wise to get leather ones if you have little ones in the house.)
Play around with colour and different shapes
The nice thing about ottomans is they come in a range of colours, shapes and sizes - so you can shop to your heart’s content.
Mirror mirror on the wall
Another trick to making your room appear larger is to add mirrors.
Adding a mirror in any room is a classic trick for opening up the room. You can put up a mirror on the wall, but try to find the perfect place for it in your living room. Wall mirrors reflect both natural and artificial light to make a room bigger.
There are quite a variety of mirrors available: they come in amazing frames, different sizes and shapes...
I’m sure you can find the one that suits your needs at any of the décor shops.
Add a bright colour to the walls
Paint is also a great way to add space in your living room. Pay attention to the colour you choose because dark colours will make your room all dull and gloomy, not to mention smaller, and you don’t want that.
Creamy colours are just some of the colours that can open up a tiny room into a bigger living area. You can also use yellows, greens as well as those bright blue colours; it all depends on your taste.
Light and brightly-coloured walls are more reflective making a space feel open and airy which makes your room look bigger and brighter.
Place the furniture in the right places
It is also important to pay special attention to how and where you place your furniture: avoid big pieces such as oversized sofas and large TV stands and keep the furniture away from walkways. 

Happy decorating! Source

How To Decorate Kitchen Walls

It is interesting how you can go into a well decorated home and find a ho-hum kitchen. Sure, the kitchen has nice finishes such as marble countertops and travertine tiles, but the walls are often devoid of decoration. This is probably because kitchens have moisture and oils in the air from cooking that can get into the air and ruin common household decorations. This does not mean however that you cannot decorate your kitchen beautifully.

Instructions

1. • 
     

     Your kitchen walls should be decorated in layers beginning with the wall color or pattern. A pattern for the kitchen does not mean wallpaper, which can peel and quickly get dated, though if you find the right wall border, you certainly should use it. Patterns can be added to your kitchen walls in the form of stenciled patterns, simple stripes or diamond patterns.
   • 2
     
     
     

     Your next layer of decoration for your kitchen walls will be functional. Install a curved pot rack on a wall near the stove, or perhaps a series of stainless steel rods to hold utensils. Pots, pans and silverware can make beautiful kitchen decorations. A lovely spice rack will also fall into this category. You can even find a clever place to hang your cookie baking rack when it is not in use.

   • 3
     Once all of your pots, pans and utensils are displayed beautiful, you will want to add some art work. You can go with a kitchen them such as baked breads, vegetables or kitchy type prints. Just don't go overboard with these. Instead use three-dimensional wall plaques that add dimension to the wall, or other architectural wall art such as iron grates or large painted tiles.
   • 4
     Remember, all kitchen décor does not have to be hung on the wall. You can place items on a high shelf and also on top of kitchen cabinets.

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DIY Iron Railing Designs

If you're a little bit on budget but you don't want to compromise the design and the safety of the iron railings on your staircase, you can actually go for DIY iron railing designs. Now, maybe it will delight you with the fact that you don't have to pay for a designer; all you need to do is eye some designs, work up your imagination a bit, and consult with your builder if it's feasible.

There are a lot of reasons why it's good to do DIY iron railing designs aside from the savings part. First, if you will be the one to provide the design for your iron railings, then you are bound to work hands-on for your staircase or baluster. You would want your designs to be considered, evaluated, and, most of all, to be finally executed. This is why you are forced to oversee every little thing and you can view your railing designs as personal projects. Gives you that extra feeling of inspiration and fulfillment once it's done, too.
The consultation that you must solicit from your builder regarding your DIY iron railing designs will also be a good avenue for you to learn about baluster building and home improvement in general. Judge your project according to how it affects the rest of the space, not just how it looks by itself. Take this opportunity to ask many questions and to understand the basic principles of balustrade building and beautification.
Of course after the railings are installed, you wouldn't just look at the balustrade but you will also regard it as a part of a room, a room that must have a unified aura. Therefore, along with what you will learn from the consultation, take time to do a little research (before the consultation) and read about iron designs which worked best on the specifications of your space. Is it a small room or a big room? Indoors or outdoors? Vintage or contemporary? Do some preliminary reading. At the end of the day you get to ask the builder less questions and believe me, he will thank you for that.
See, isn't making and executing your very own iron railing designs both exciting and inspiring? Your staircase would be truly something worth holding your breath for! Don't forget to always check for feasibility when a new idea springs on your mind and take a lot of notes for quick reference!

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