Jubilee Joy

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The Queens Jubilee is just around the corner and you can’t fail to notice all the gorgeous patriotic designs to fill our homes and gardens. If you are organising a family get together, Union Jack bunting is a must and of course crockery featuring the Queen is perfect to celebrate the Jubilee year.

As we are being gifted with an extra Bank holiday, it is the perfect time to get those decorating ideas in action. The current trend does revolve around the celebrations but there are other areas springing forth including furniture that is both versatile indoors and which can be migrated outdoors when the weather is good to us. There is some delightful and organically designed seating, which looks good in the home and also is weather resistant for outside. Perfect for relaxing with a nice cuppa and of course a comfy cushion depicting our heritage.

There is so much to look forward to this year and we can’t forget about the Olympics, their impact is also part of the inspiration towards all things British hitting our stores. If there is just once piece you purchase this summer it has to be a mug to celebrate a wonderful year to come.

Far From Boring

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The design trends for the coming seasons are bright, bold and tropical. Forget about miserable weather and turn your eyes to the tropics, with lotus blooms and large trailing leaves. Pink flamingos and gorgeous butterflies are featuring heavily on fabrics and wallpaper. The look can be worked in the majority of rooms in the household, with the butterfly theme working well in the bedroom.

You’ll find the trend on virtually everything from bedding to crockery. As the look is bold, you only need a little of it, a feature wall, a few cushions or even some tasteful butterfly stencils to add a touch of design style to dated furniture. Of course, the bolder the room, the more you have to think about the furniture within, consider white bedroom furniture set against a dark cerise and jungle green or the pink of the flamingo against dark wood wardrobes. This trend is seriously fun, in fact even a little bit of this style in your home will bring a smile to your face.

Take a Seat

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Chairs, armchairs and sofas are featuring dramatic designs and they are bold, truly a style statement for your lounge or a relaxing corner in your bedroom. The variety hitting the stores is mind-boggling, although the key is to forget about trying to match it with your current suite, this is all about contrast.

Graphic prints are featured heavily, alongside the swinging sixties big impact tropical flowers, in fact flowers are the key trend this season, with large blooms and striking leaves placed on a subtle background colour. If your tastes are more traditional you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the array of striped chairs, from wide stripes epitomising the seaside feel to the thinner stripes perfect for the French traditionalist décor.

You may also notice the other trend this season, butterflies, nature is shouting out and the elegant winged creatures are being seen everywhere, from bedding to armchairs with beautiful fabrics and even wallpaper.

If there is just one thing this season to bring into your home, take a seat and add some sumptuous luxury to your bedroom or lounge.

Coastal Chuckle

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Summer will soon be upon us and the trend emerging is a nautical theme, but with a quirky sense of humour.  It’s not just about scenes featuring coastal views or boats bobbing about on the ocean, nor is it coastal colours.  It’s about the accessories and furniture, to give a room that extra bit of oomph and to add a touch of joviality.

Little wooden lighthouses, beach hut lights, port and starboard lanterns, anchors away all feature among the designs in the shops, all with a little quirky twist.  Furniture gets the hand-painted look, old bedroom furniture can be given an overhaul with a lick of paint and then sanded down for a rustic look.  If you want to buy new wardrobes, think along the lines of driftwood and choose a finish reflecting this, space2 has a coastal range to inspire you.

Chairs feature nautical stripes and many throws and cushions depict anchors and sail boats in blues, reds and whites.  If there is one thing you buy for your home this summer, make it cheeky and fun and imagine you’re by the sea.

Colour Bold

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The secret to achieving a nice room and turning it into a great room is by using colour that complements the room and brings an added element to your lifestyle.  There are some vivid changes you can make with just a little decorating knowledge.

Nearly every decorating programme or home make-over show talk about feature walls, nearly everyone is aware of this phenomenon.  For instance, in the bedroom the feature wall could be behind the bed and the bedding incorporating on the key colours of the wall.  It’s not just feature walls that can create impact in the bedroom; bold bedroom furniture can give an instant lift to tired decor.

You can make the whole room striking from the beginning.   If your style is more classic than modern, a great colour would be olive green, although you de need to stay away from overly yellow greens as this can make the space look dull.  The best way to find the perfect colour for your room, is to make use of paint samples, ensure you are generous with painting blocks of colours.  You will need to view the colour at differing times of the day to ensure, it still looks good with varying light conditions.  Once you’ve chosen your colour, make sure you paint your woodwork white and if you can get white with a hint of lime, it will only add to the striking effect of your room.

You can also create a spectacular room with the use of darker tones. An important aspect is not to drown the room in a solid dark colour but to counterbalance it with crisp white woodwork or white gloss wardrobes if in a bedroom, this all helps to break up the darkness.

A little know-how can create a wonderful home for you and your family, with outstanding contrasts and brave statement decor which will give the edge to any room, giving your home the wow factor.

Colour Your Way

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If your walls are of a neutral tone, then it is time to add a splash of colour to your home.  The trend for this year is bright, bright, bright, too much to handle, not to worry, this year there are soft pastels with modern overtones, still bringing in the colour but with a more muted effect.  You can even blend the bright and muted with patterns.  Pattern is really big this year, from tribal prints to eclectic mismatch fabric patterns, seen adorning upholstered armchairs’ and pouffe’s.

As mentioned in previous posts, the colour can come from contemporary art, even art of your own making, this colour trend screams individuality.  Gone are the sterile rooms, it is now time to integrate everything you love, if you room looks a little cluttered, add a frame free mirror to give the illusion of space.  If your pastels are making your home more little girls bedroom than boudoir, paint the walls white, to add a grown up element.  If pattern is invading every corner of your home, open up the space with larger and plainer pieces of furniture, such as white wardrobes or a cream sofa.

Colouring your home is about putting your stamp on it, with less of us moving into new homes at the moment, we can afford to personalise the one we live in, the one we call home.

Buying Bedside Tables

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Often the bedside table is classed as an afterthought but they are a much used piece of bedroom furniture.  Often seen housing books, glasses, bedside lamps amongst numerous other items, they are vital.

Bedside tables come in many designs, you really need to think ahead before buying one.  The first thing you need to consider is what you would like it to be used for, do you need drawers or are you happy with a simple shelf.  The more storage you have the likelihood you will inevitably fill it, the less space you have you may wish you had an extra drawer.  However, if you are just using one for a lamp, then a simpler design is suitable.

The next thing to consider is the design, making sure it fits in with the overall theme of your bedroom.  If your bedroom is traditional, a wooden bedside cabinet or a painted one would add to the decorative style.  If your bedroom is more inclined towards the modern design style, choose clean lines and a more simplistic look.

Measurements need to be taken, how much space do you have on either side of your bed, you may find if there is not much room, you will be limited with your choice, squarer bedside cabinets tend to require less room, than curved or circular.  Make sure your room maintains a feeling of space, too much furniture will make the room feel unwelcoming and this could affect your night’s sleep.

A bedside cabinet is normally the first thing you see in the morning and the last at night, make sure the one you choose makes you feel good.

Display Ideas for Wall Space

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Have you got walls in your home that look a little too spacey, as though they just need something to break up the width or height.  There are some great ways to break this area into a cohesive mix with the rest of your room.

If you have lots of little bits you would like to display, but they would get overshadowed in a display cabinet, you can buy simple geometic shelving to create an eye-catching display area, arrange the shelves as the focal point of the wall and adorn with your knick knacks, you can even separate the shelves with a small picture or stencil around them for a more organic feel.

Develop a family gallery, choose a random picture of photos that have great memories, and depending on the style of your room, you can either have all matching picture frames or your style maybe a little eclectic, so a mixture of frames would suit and begin forming your gallery.  You can arrange in a pyramid style for a more formal look, or graduate out from the largest picture frame to the smallest.  This idea gives an instant impact, alongside happy times.

Words can be used on walls, from your favourite poem to a chorus from a cherished song, it also adds a personal touch and gets a conversation going.  Simply stencil your chosen text onto the wall, you can buy various fonts and letters of the alphabet or you can print out from your computer.  Make the letters contrast to the colours of your wall and the larger the letters, the bigger the statement.

There are other ideas to break a wall up, from displaying your ceramic plates to mirrors and large pictures, it all depends on your style, but there is no reason to be shy, make your statement!

New Uses for Wallpaper

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If you thought wallpaper was just for walls, think again, there are many other practical and fun ideas you can use wallpaper for.  Those left over pieces or samples can be put to good use especially in the bedroom, where you can create elegant bedroom screens to decoupage boxes for storing your personal items in.  Not forgetting scented liners for your drawers, just spray the wallpaper with either your favourite perfume or scented water.

If your wardrobe doors have seen better days, you can use wallpaper for a new look, just measure your wallpaper to the size of the doors and apply wallpaper paste and stick.  Make sure you paint the edges on the doors to match or contrast with your wallpaper.

One of the new ideas being used in the home, is using wallpaper in picture frames.  Sometimes you would rather keep walls plain, but with the range of wallpapers about at the moment, with many in bold patterns, a simple picture frame with a sample of wallpaper could look like a work of art.

Just remember to keep your off-cuts, you might be able to think of new ways to use them.

Easy Spring Clean

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It will soon be that time to spring clean the home from top to bottom, but if you feel this is more of a chore than fresh start to welcome in the warmer weather, then hopefully these tips will ease you into it.

It’s always good to have a plan and to be methodical when it comes to big cleaning jobs.  Ideally you want to start from the top and work your towards the bottom.  Use this same method when cleaning each individual room.  Start at the ceilings and work down towards the skirting boards, this way any cobwebs or dust won’t fall onto newly cleaned areas.

Remember you don’t have to do it all in one day, you can spread in out over the week or over weekends and if you have other family members at home, get them involved.  Give the kid’s a duster and they will merrily polish surfaces.  They can even vacuum their own bedrooms leaving you the trickier jobs to attend to.

Make sure you have all the kit you need, from dusters, to new mattress protectors for the beds.  There are some things that just seem to run out when you need them, these are normally bin bags and bleach.  If you gather these things before you start, everything will run smoothly.  Don’t forget there are cheaper alternatives than shop bought sprays.  Lemon juice will remove hard-water marks and soap scum, white vinegar makes a great window cleaner and baking soda mixed with a drop of essential oil freshens up carpets in home, add lavender for bedrooms.

These little tips will get your spring cleaning off to a good start and make a chore into a family day in.