For many, choosing the right colors for the ceiling, trim and walls when painting a room for the first time can be a daunting household task. But, just like learning how to cook a great meal, creating the perfect room can be achieved with the right ingredients and a good recipe.
“Spicing up the home with color is a great way to brighten the indoors-but the actual color selection process often can be quite overwhelming,” said Barbara Richardson, director of color marketing for ICI Paints and a licensed interior designer. “Follow these simple, sensible tips, and you’ll paint like a pro to create a delectable treat of a colorful new home–and have fun in the process.”
Consult a color “cookbook”
You wouldn’t attempt to whip up a gourmet meal without consulting a cookbook or an experienced chef. Similarly, take advantage of the design assistance that is available to you. For computer-savvy do-it-yourselfers, free design advice is available with the simple click of a computer mouse.
For example, the Glidden Online Color Consultant, located at www.glidden.com, combines individual tastes with direction from color experts to determine a user’s ideal paint palette through a step-by-step guided process.
Color chips of shades chosen online can be ordered and sent free of charge. Since it’s preferable to make paint selections surrounded by the furniture, lighting and accessories of a room, reviewing color chips in the comfort of home provides the extra confidence needed to proceed with a paint project.
Read More…
These days, anyone looking to purchase home furnishings is faced with a seemingly endless range of choices. There is enough bedding, bathroom accessories and furniture products available for you to indulge in all your interior decoration desires, but with the wide assortment available it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start!
A popular method nowadays is to decorate a room according to a theme; haphazard décor displays just doesn’t cut it anymore. For example, you can choose to go the modern route with steel, glass and leather or an Eastern-inspired theme complete with a divan and mirrored bedspreads. However, one the most popular choices among home decorators remains the tried and true theme of a rustic lodge or cabin.
Rustic-inspired furnishings usually feature warm colors and tend towards practicality and comfort. You can co-ordinate your whole bedroom with appropriate rustic bedding accessories, matching drapes, carpets, lighting fixtures and bathroom accessories. One of the more distinctive features of a rustic bedding set is its colors and motifs. They usually come in warm colors like brick red, deep greens, oranges, blues and dark grays – all colors inspired from nature. The motifs are distinct in that they sport the themes of wildlife and the wild outdoors. They evoke the comfortable and relaxed atmosphere of a lodge or cabin.
Most rustic bedding sets are available in a wide variety of sizes and sheet combinations. A standard sheet set usually includes a top sheet along with a fitted bottom sheet and two pillowcases. It should be noted that in many cases only a single pillowcase is provided with the twin set of sheets. Rustic bedding sets come in all the standardized sizes – Twin, Full, Queen, King and CAL king. This makes it easier for you to choose a set according to your needs and you don’t have to worry about the bedding set being either too small or too large for your bed.
You generally have the choice of two types of fabric: flannel and percale. While flannel is made from 100% cotton fibers, percale is 30% cotton and 70% polyester. The pricing also differs for the two fabrics – on the whole the percale bedding sets are somewhat cheaper than flannel ones. Apart from the usual themes like woods, moose, bear, fishing etc., some companies also offer a ‘heritage’ bedding collection. These are classic designs for the more traditionally inclined.
Read More…
Painting can be an easy, economical way to spruce up your home, inside and out. Each year, millions of Americans put a new coat on their homes, touch up furniture, paint fences or decks. Apart from being tedious, it can be messy, take forever to complete and, in many cases, may not result in the smooth, professional finish you were hoping to achieve.
A new painting technology overcomes all this and at the same time saves you time and money. Touted as “The New Way to Spray,” High Volume/Low Pressure (HVLP) spray-painting systems make large or detail jobs faster, easier, more precise and more controlled than the traditional paintbrush, electric gun or compressor system. Manufacturers say HVLP users find painting friendlier and more enjoyable due to its efficiency in application and control-and no previous spraying experience is required.
The preferred choice of many Europeans, HVLP systems, from companies such as Earlex, Inc., use one-third less paint to do the job because of exceptional paint transfer efficiency, minimal over-spray, almost zero bounce back and less waste common with other methods.
These versatile systems let users spray any surface, from siding to decking, doors, walls and ceilings, furniture, wicker, fences, sheds, kitchen/bathroom tile-even flowerpots. The gun rarely clogs and cleanup is “faster than a paintbrush.”
Read More…
A lot of sports fans support their favorite teams by wearing hats or uniforms with logos, colors and even mascots on them. If you’re looking for additional ways to show your team spirit, how about painting a room with the exact colors of your favorite team?
“Sports fans have a special connection to the colors of their favorite teams,” said sport psychologist Dr. Joel Fish, director, Center for Sport Psychology in Philadelphia and an expert in fan behavior. “Paint is another easy way for fans to bring their teams home with them.”
To help fans showcase their passion for and support of their favorite teams, The Home Depot now offers a new sports-themed paint program called “Team Colors.” Through this program, customers can purchase paint in the exact colors of their favorite professional and college sports teams-even including NASCAR.
Here are a few tips on how to add your team’s colors to any room of the house:
• Select a feature wall in an area, usually one without doors or windows, to use as a focal point in a room. This wall could be perfect for accenting. The remaining walls may be painted a neutral color for a contrast with the colorful wall.
Read More…
admin
26 Jun 2011
