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decorating ideas

Ideas for Decorating Your Home

When people think about making changes to their home, either one or two rooms or the entire space, most often they imagine color. Generally people choose colors they are fond of or those which correspond with pieces of furniture. When searching for ideas for decorating a home, one idea which is perhaps overlooked is decorating with the two basic colors – black and white.

Black and white, used in decorating, creates drama and pizzazz. It is said that every room can benefit by using a touch of black. Black is a color which anchors and grounds a room. Adding sophistication, black is definitely a color that demands attention.  Ideas for decorating a home using black may include accessories such as light fixtures, trim or furniture. Black serves to add definition to focal points of a room. Black is just one color that stands out or makes a statement.

Bold and bright colors can totally change the mood of a room. Painting one wall a bold color and leaving the others walls with a less dramatic color can make a nice statement. Perhaps decorating some smaller room items or furnishings in bold colors while leaving the larger areas of the room in lighter shades is more your style.

Using black and white when decorating a home, provides a clean, fresh, elegant atmosphere. This combination can be added to any room in a home making it a sophisticated space. Black and white are often used in contemporary home decorating and often used to accent other colors in French Country design. It may be hard to visualize but there are many ideas for decorating a home using only these two basic colors.

The floor is a great place to start in decorating a space. Black and white vinyl tiles laid alternately makes a beautiful checkerboard pattern and looks clean and elegant. Black marble used on the floor, accented by wide white baseboards, another beautiful idea for decorating a home. White ceramic tiles with a black border or simply paint the floor black or white and use stencils of the opposite color for decoration. These are great ideas for decorating a home.

White walls, is there anything more perfect? Painting the walls white or even an off-white, would make a perfect background for accessories such as artwork framed in black. That you can imagine. Elegant black window treatments or black shutter against a clean, crisp white wall would definitely create an aura of sophistication. Perhaps a glass-top table with black iron trim and black chairs, these are terrific ideas for decorating a home using black and white.

A bedroom decorated using black and white would be lovely, but don’t be afraid to use bold and bright colors. An iron bed-frame in black or white, covered with a striped black and white comforter. For the pillow shames, you could use either all black or all white and could add throw cushions in the opposite color. A nice leather black or white chair in the corner would be certainly accent the room. Then the white walls with an elegant piece of artwork, framed in black hanging on it, this would surely add to the contemporary feel. Black furniture against the crisp white walls would look neat and tidy. Jazz up the room with accessories such as pewter or silver candlesticks, jugs or vases. If you think the room needs a little color to complete the look, perhaps a throw or cushion in a bold color like red or gold, for the chair in the corner of the room would be enough to accent the room.

There are numerous ideas for decorating a home. Finding one that suits you and those that live in your home is important. It’s nice to do something radical and off-the-wall but remember you must be able to live with it for a while.

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Simple Seasonal Decorating Ideas
by Joey Pebble

As the seasons pass from year to year, the world outside of our homes changes, each day shifting from hot to cold and then back again in a never ending dance of natural wonder. And yet, all too often our homes remain the same, an unchanging misnomer, standing out like a stagnant sore thumb in a world of constant flux. Luckily, you can add vigor and life to your environment, and pull it back in line with the natural cycle of the seasons, using just a few very simple decorating tricks.

The first step is probably the most obvious. The introduction of a few seasonal home décor items into the space lets you invoke the nature of the natural world, without necessarily having to change up the pre-existing nature of the room. You can get a variety of products, plates, drink coasters, clocks, tapestries, throws, wall hangings, and art work in a multitude of mediums, printed with familiar images of the season, or patterns that invoke either the warmer or colder months. The addition of these simple items adds just a hint of a theme, invigorating the space each season without overwhelming it.

One of the best ways to find decorative items to help bring your home in line with the seasons is to take your cues from the natural world outdoors. These types of items will vary depending on the time of the year, and yet there is almost no better way to intricately unite your homes style with that of the living earth.

In the spring, a variety of floral displays can be used. Leafy boughs, twigs, branches, river stones, and flower petals are all natural elements that can evoke this season. As you get on into summer, sandy displays such as tiny novelty Zen gardens, or even just pails of beach sand, or bowls of the sifting substance, decorated with attractive stones, can help give the place a tropical feel. As the months get colder, switching to multi colored autumn leaf décor, or even sprigs of holly and fir tree, taken from winter resistant plants will help you to simulate the feeling of the world outdoors.

Color is another evocative element which can help to alter the nature of an environment in powerful ways. Generally lighter, airier tones will represent the summer months better. Pastels tend to indicate spring, while summer colors are usually more washed out, faded, as if their lack of intensity can help to restrict the amount of heat they radiate. In the winter months the opposite is true. Darker, richer, more dramatic colors tend to rule the day. These colors tend to be a balance against the pale cold of a faded, snow swept landscape.

One of the easiest ways to add some seasonal sensibilities to your home is to invoke the holidays that occur around that time of year. Holiday decorating allows you to start a few weeks before the big date, and end a week or so after, giving you a broad time period along which you can bring up seasonal cues by simply being festive.

Decorating your home to dynamically change from season to season is a great way to add vigor and vitality to the space. It will also connect your life and environment with the outside world, giving you an intricate tie to the natural world around you. This can be accomplished with just a few simple decorating tricks, which will allow you to invoke the spirit of the season, without totally overhauling your home every few weeks.

About the author:

This article was written on behalf of PebbleZ.com – the manufacturers of a stunning line of absorbent stone drink coasters, and mountain born stone home décor. The author of the piece is stone design consultant Joey Pebble.

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