With consumers looking for products with a low carbon foot-print around the home, loose covers can go along way towards this:

Is recycling old furniture set to become more popular?

But this goes for any product around the home from, especially ones made from materials that can be recycled such as; glass and metal etc. These will play a big part in this year’s renovations.

One such product is a work surface created using pure natural quartz and recycled metallic chips. As well as being kind to the environment it is a durable solid surface offering excellent resistance to acids, abrasion and wear. The surface comes in four polished colour tones: white, black and two shades of grey. The worktops are also able to be created to support the stylish continental trend of slimline work surfaces.

For further information please contact: Chiltern Marble Group

If location, location, location is the motto of estate agents. You could say an interior designers slogan would be lighting, lighting, lighting but is also usually the most overlooked aspect when a person comes to re-decorating. Many of the most successful hotels and restaurants you will notice have got lighting down to a fine art by creating a welcoming atmosphere.

So before you begin planning a restoration, building a new home or just up-dating your current decor. Remember when it comes to lighting you can never have too many light sources.

Decor that is well designed and thought-out will utilise all three types of lighting:
• General Lighting – this illuminates an entire space.
• Task Lighting – bright lights used to focus lights on a particular area for tasks such as reading, writing or cooking.
• Accent Lighting – used to spotlight decorative objects and create mood.

Walk into many thousands of homes across the UK and you will find one light fitting in the centre of the room and not much else. Just by the addition of extra lighting a room can feel warmer and more inviting, with strategically place spotlights you can direct the light to various areas to help with certain tasks.

The ability to transform a room just by adding different types of lighting is amazing. Up-lights, which are canned lights that sit on the floor, are wonderful items to use in corners, especially with large plants. They shine the light up onto the walls and ceiling creating a warm glow to an otherwise dark corner. Small rooms will seem larger with the installation of recessed ceiling can lights or wall washers, which will shine the light down onto the peripheral walls. Hallways and entranceways are sometimes dark; brighten them by adding canned light, track lights or picture lights.

If you need to get some inspiration or just simple ideas why not Visit high-end restaurants, hotels or bars and you’ll see the incredible difference lighting can make – and duplicating those effects can be simpler and less expensive than you think. The reward is a lighting atmosphere in your rooms that will be warm, unique and very inviting.

We would like to welcome Helen Silver as out newest Guest Author, who will be contributing to our Article directory. Helen is a Property Stylist based in Bath, her business “The Property Styling Company“, has had great success stemming from Helen’s innovative style and award winning reputation.

Being passionate about beautiful interior design is reflected in the finishing touches of Helen’s portfolio of client properties from all over the UK.

Helen has written an article about how to feel at home after moving house with some great tips and advice, please read it here:

Got the New House Blues? Your new place doesn’t quite feel like “home”?

Throughout homes this spring, on all types of furnishings from fabrics and wallpaper to homewares, leaf motifs and tree designs and patterns are blooming. It seems like the biggest trend this season is ‘going back to nature’.

“Its appeal is perhaps symbolic of our desire for a simpler life and a need for a stronger connection with the natural world,” suggests Sarah Quilliam, head of product design for Hillarys, a window blinds specialist.

“When times get tough there’s a tendency to return to a more organic, holistic and nature-inspired feel in the home.”

Annie Deakin, editor of online home shopping emporium mydeco.com, agrees: “This year marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the focus on nature has helped heighten the focus on textiles and home products which echo that theme,” she said.

Deakin says it’s time to turn on to funky botanical wallpaper and fabrics for a bang-up-to-date take on bringing the ‘outdoors in’.

There are many ways in which to reproduce this look in your home by using a feature wall of woodland print wallpaper and scatter cushions.

“Woodland patterns are huge this season,” says House Beautiful style editor Charlotte Boyd.

“Even if you don’t have a large garden, it’s possible to create a sense of the natural world in your home by using one of the new designs.”

She suggests adding a touch of woodland spirit with one of the new metallic tree motif papers.

With the housing market crawling to a halt and Spring just around the corner, people are looking for cheap ways update their tired decor and give it a brand new twist.

There is a great article here:

Give tired decor a modern twist

From the Hexham Courant, there’re some really good ideas on how to do this. Take a look!

Every year many sofas get thrown into landfills or left on the streets to rot, this is because no-one really knows what can be done; this is where Save Our Sofas come in.

Save Our Sofas gives you advice and ideas of ways to keep your old sofa, giving it a new lease of life, or provide environmentally friendly ways for disposal if it is beyond repair.

Plumbs, along with Save Our Sofas believe every sofa deserves a long life in a good home.

In just the last couple of weeks two articles have been extolling the virtues of loose covers as a credit crunch busting way to imrpove the look of your home environment.

 The January 2009 Country Living runs a great article ‘Recycled Chic’ on page 27. The essence of the feature is about finding and restoring interesting furniture tracked down through charity shops or ebay.

You may not need to trawl through ebay looking for ‘elegant upholstered pieces simply in need of new covers’ as Country Living journalist Caroline Reeves suggests. Take a look at what’s already in the family. Now picture that interesting old couch transformed with a new fabric outer and looking just like new. How would it look in your living room. It’s worth considering.

 Good Housekeeping January 2009 edition number 1 tip on page 66 – “Expert updates on a credit crunch budget” is….yes you’ve guessed it….”Give your threadbare sofa a new incarnation by shielding the shabbiness with removable washable loose covers.”

Who am I to argue with Good Housekeeping journalist Samantha Trapp.

Best wishes one and all for a very Happy Christmas and remember, if it’s all starting to look a bit tired and worn in the new year, just follow the advice of the home magasine experts and consider loose covers or reupholstery to breathe new life into the look of your home.

In a previous post I hopefully helped you understand how colour can affect your mood and bring out your personality. If you haven’t read it, please click on the link below:

Colour can effect your mood in all sorts of ways

You should have a vague idea of what colours you are wanting to use in your home. The tricky part now is, how do you put them together to give a cohesive and flowing feel throughout your home?

Often people assume paint is the main factor when decorating a room, in fact it is as much about the colour of accessories, furniture and soft furnishings. You should always consider the contrast between them all. When painting a room, remember that paint looks a different colour in the shop than it is in your home, so always take a test sample home with you to try out before buying in quantity! Whatever you do though don’t worry about choosing the wrong colour, walls can easily be painted over.

When using bold and spicy colours, also known as ‘Active’ colours, keep them simple and in small doses so they are not competing. ‘Active’ colours such as yellow, orange and red will stand out in a room and dominate most other colours so should ideally be used against a neutral backdrop.

Using bold colours to achieve a visual effect can also be done by combining neutral colours with different textures, which can be just as visually stimulating. Also lighter, less saturated, natural colours will make a room seem larger than it is, whereas the deeper and more intense range of the spectrum will pull the walls in around you and give a cosier felling.

When mixing and matching colours, natural shades of greens and browns are by far the easiest to use, as you tend to find them in nature. If decorating with a brown colour scheme, adding plants and greenery will lighten up the feeling and bring life to your room.

A flowing feel of colour throughout your home creates a greater impact but can sometimes be quite difficult to achieve. However, simple touches such as using the same colour in the skirting boards and door surrounds can go a long way to pull it all together.

When you have large areas or objects to colour like floors and sofas that generally have a higher price associated. Keeping them neutral will help when tastes and fashions inevitably change. Painting over a few walls is always going to be more cost effective than changing a carpet or sofa. If you don’t have the time or energy to start painting again, the alternative option for your sofa would be loose covers, which are far cheaper than buying new and have the same effect.

People generally forget about ceilings so most often than not are just left white. If you do want to be different then using a lighter shade of the wall colour will usually work quite well, unless the ceiling is over 8 feet then use a darker shade.

Just remember getting used to a new room colour might take a few days. Once you start filling a room with other elements you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised to see that your new colours harmonise

Learn more tips here about how to choose a colour scheme here.

Read Part 1 here….

If you are thinking of buying a decorative rug either for your wall or floor, here are just a few things you might want to consider.

As colour takes on the most fundamental role in any decor, this should be your highest priority when choosing a rug for your home. If a room’s existing colour scheme is very bright and fussy the rug needs to be a controlling natural colour / design. On the other had, if you already have a natural scheme, a nice bright splash of colour and striking design will really make it the centre piece of any room. Sometimes a rug should enhance the existing decor and not stand out, using an already dominant or accent colouration will have this effect.

I’ve written a previous post about how using colour in a room affects you mood, which might be helpful in deciding your colours:

Colour can effect your mood in all sorts of ways

You might also want to consider how much wear and tear the rug will go through, if you have children or pets a darker and intricate patterned rug will fare far better over time. Just remember to make sure any patterns on the rug do not clash with those on the wall-paper or other soft-furnishings.

You might think that you can just go out and buy a rug without giving too much thought into the size and where exactly it fits into your room’s layout. This really depends on the purpose of the rug and which room it will belong. If you are planning on the rug covering the majority of the room then there should be the same amount of floor space on each side, even if the room is an irregular shape then it still needs to have some sort of symmetry.

There are some basic rules when adding rugs to certain rooms, take the lounge for example. If the rug is going to sit under a coffee table then the entire table should be on the run and all pieces of furniture set back from it at equal distances. You should always consider where a rug will be placed in a room in relation to everything else, as long as there symmetry generally you will be ok. If you find it hard visualising where the rug will site, use some masking tape to define the space and play around until you are comfortable with the position.

Just remember that there are a huge variety of styles, and sizes to fit any decor or budget. So make sure you find the right one before buying.

I’ve always thought of a rug to be something that is placed on the floor to add a touch of warmth and comfort along with an touch of colour to a room, even sometimes being more practical rather than decorative.

However there is a growing trend of using rugs as purely decorative features to revitalise a home by hanging them on walls, these are known as decorative rugs / wall hanging / tapestry. Generally having little or no practical value, these rugs are mostly exhibited on walls in the living room or bedroom but can also been used on beds and as table, chair and sofa covers. Although I would always have to recommend made to measure sofa covers if you wanted to restore an old sofa.

If searching online you’ll most likely come across many Persian or Oriental styled rugs from Asia and other countries such as Turkey, Iran & Egypt with a few modern and contemporary designs here and there. I would definitely recommend buying a rug made from natural materials such as silk and cotton not only for quality reasons but also they have less environmental impact. You could also find a number of companies producing bespoke rugs, which are great if you are looking for a specific design, colour or size.

Decorative Rugs can be a stunning addition to your home bringing dramatic effects to every room, you can even change them with seasonal fashions and take them with you when you move.

Use decorative rugs to spruce up your home – part 2