Dining Room with Books

A makeover of an open plan apartment space, adding color, texture and focal points to the room. A contemporary apartment can successfully host a collection of antiques and artwork to create the ideal "bachelor pad".
Interior design and decorating creates major changes in people's lives. Done well it can improve the way we feel in our home environment, giving us a more positive start to each day.
This project has created definite spaces within a contemporary open plan apartment making it more intimate and functional, and has changed the entire modern design with the use of furniture, fabrics, paint color and artwork, providing a more rich and luxurious look, as well as feeling homely and comfortable.
The solid timber bookcases have made the biggest impact. They have the same motif on the ends as the library table in the corner. They are dark and dramatic and the books add a lot of texture, movement and color into the space.

The existing dining space.

The Design Brief:

This open plan room was currently in transition, the client was moving in, but had decided to use the far corner for a dining area. He wanted to create a more appropriate space to house his antiques and artwork. The existing scheme was very contemporary and had a sterile feeling, charcoal carpet, white walls, white vertical and mini blinds that were not in good order.

The client wanted a definite space for dining and to house a superb collection of books. He wanted a softer look, but not feminine, he wanted to create the ideal "bachelor pad"

The Design Method:

• Select a masculine theme.
• Design solid timber bookcases to tie in with existing antique furniture.
• Remove blinds as room was to be used mostly in the evening, drapes were all that was necessary.
• Paint the walls in a warm but still light color to bring out the richness in the timber antiques, and create a cozy atmosphere.

Design Conclusion:

A warm taupe with a hint of yellow was used for the wall color to enhance the richness of the antique timber furniture. Vertical striped opulent red, gold and taupe drapes were used to add some height to the space, soften the room, add texture and color making it more intimate at night.

The solid timber bookcases have made the biggest impact.

They have the same motif on the ends as the library table in the corner. They are dark and dramatic and the books add a lot of texture, movement and color into the space.

The sofa has been recovered in a luxurious fabric to match the wall color with checked cushions from the same range as the drapery fabric, and has a sofa table behind it. Together they act as a visual division between the dining and living room spaces.

  

articel resource: http://www.interiordezine.com

How to Minimise Your Home Building or Renovation Costs Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6229397

So you've decided to build a new home or renovate / remodel an existing home, you're on a budget, want to minimise your building costs and get the most value for your money.

The best time to save money is before you start building. Pre-planning and defining your home building or renovation project is a key factor in minimising your home building cost. Once you have employed and signed a contract with a home building contractor, the chances to save money on your home building cost is reduced significantly.

You will never get all the details of any building project 100% perfectly planned before you start, however you can certainly remove many unknowns and have a chance to minimise the home building cost.

Also remember that the cost is not just the money you hand over to the contractor, it includes ancillary costs which can occur if the project is delayed like additional rent in another place or the emotional cost of waiting for the project to be completed which can stretch even the best relationships to breaking point.

The main ways to minimise your home building costs are:

1. Define what you want - Take your time to think through what you want for your home renovation or building. The clearer your definition of what you want is before you sign the contract the less variations to the contract which will occur and so the lower will be your home building costs.

2. Overall Total Home Building Costs - select the best contractor for your project, this may not always the cheapest. Too often in building large projects, for various reasons, clients have decided to accept the lowest initial cost from a builder, when clearly at the end of the day it would cost my client more with hidden extras, delays and stressful negotiations to resolve issues. The building process is stressful enough don't add to your potential problems and always consider the overall total home building costs.

3. Money - the financing cost of any project can be significant whether you have the cash in the bank or you are borrowing it from the bank. When making decisions on which contractor to employ, sometimes it will be beneficial to not always employ the lowest home building cost contractor as they may take longer and cost you more in things like interest, alternative rental costs and more.

4. Set time aside to Manage the Process - any building or renovation project is going to take a significant amount of your time prior to construction, during construction and to a lesser extent after completion. This will occur no matter how good your contractor, architect or project manager are at their jobs. Don't start the project until you have the time to dedicate to be available to make decisions on what you want in the project on a daily basis.

5. Be Decisive - Time is money in any project for both you and your contractor. By being decisive you will allow the project to keep flowing, which ultimately be one of the key factors which will determine how long the project will take.

6. If Unsure about Advice - if you are getting "contrary" advice or if the advice you are receiving from experts does not feel right, do not be afraid to call in an independent expert or friend to help you clarify any issue. Trust your instincts and gut feeling as people involved in a project can sometimes become too close the project and lose their objectivity.

To get the lowest overall home building cost is always a matter of balance, however if you consider these 6 ways to minimise your home building cost you will be along way to successfully achieving your dream home building project.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6229397

5 Point Checklist for Buying Your First Home

When you are ready to search for the house that could become your home, you'll need the right tools in hand so you can go into negotiations with ease. The more prepared you are, the less time it will hopefully take for closing, and you'll be able to hold your keys in hand. While it's true home buying can be a timely processed, with a five-point checklist in hand your experience should seem like it's taking forever.

Ready to get started? Here is a five-point checklist to keep in mind when you begin your home search:

1) Know your budget. How much can you afford to spend on a home, and what is the absolute maximum amount you can spend on a mortgage payment? Once you have the numbers figured out, you'll have a better idea of the price range in which you can search. Some potential home buyers may consult with a bank or other lending institution to get a feel for their financial situation. Not necessarily a bad idea, and if you work with a real estate agent they will like assist you in this manner.

2) Know your neighborhood. If you have kids, you'll want to narrow your search to neighborhoods with quality schools and recreation areas. Also to consider: neighborhoods near your workplace, church, social activities, and other interests. You can search statistical information on the Internet if you really want details.

3) Make the time to search. You're a busy person, and more than likely you have reserved weekends for the house hunt. That makes sense, but it also stands to reason that everybody else is doing the same thing. Consider taking a personal day during the week to tour available homes for sale. Not only can this put you ahead of the game, but you can get a feel for certain neighborhoods at their most active.

4) Be ready to respond during the bidding process. Phone calls from your agent may come fast and furious if you have a hot prospect, so it's important to have all your information together when you start placing bids. Should you be outbid on a property, don't feel that you have to jump the gun. Consult with your agent and negotiate with a level head.

5) Stay focused. Your goal is to buy home, but you want it to be the home you want. Don't settle for a place because the price is right or because it's the only one available. Listen to your intuition as you tour a house and ask yourself if this is where you want to spend the next thirty years. Learn everything you can about every potential property - needed repairs, history of the previous owners, did they have pets, etc.

Keep your focus, negotiate with calm, and you may find the home buying process isn't painful at all.




Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathryn_Lively

Choosing Colors For Children's Bedrooms

Choosing colors should be fun, an enjoyable experience, until you have to do it for your children. Children now are allowed to have a mind of their own and their own opinion, and boy do they have a lot of opinions. Unfortunately they change their mind like the wind and are the worst clients ever!

So how do you handle choosing colors for children's bedrooms?

Here is how I am about to handle my daughter's bedroom. We are about to have her room repainted due to the earthquake damage, so I said, foolishly, go and pick a paint color that you like, knowing that it is a 2 minute job for me. Well, she fell asleep on the paint fandeck with three colors sticking out of it. Lime green, ice blue and a cream with an orange tint. Having the skills and experience I do with color, I instantly dismissed all three as she has hot pink curtains and candy striped blinds with pink and mint green. Then the painter arrives for me to give him the paint colors.....what do I do? She is at school, no discussion over the paint colors happened this morning, I need to make a decision and I do. A lovely pale dusky blue for her bedroom and her brothers. Way off from what she had picked I know, but I also know my daughter and this is actually her favorite color. I also know that when you choose colors for a children's bedroom, that by the time they have filled it up with all their "stuff" you barely see the wall color anyway. So the painter is coming back tomorrow to start the job, we will wait and see how she handles it, but at the end of the day, I know that I have made the right choice. I will be the worst mother in the world for not letting her choose it, she will hate me, but I am used to that when she doesn't get her own way, and at the blink of an eyelid, I'm the best mother in the world again! Children change their mind like the wind, and have very short memories.

So to summarize, here are my quick tips for choosing children's bedroom colors:

• Keep it simple, children have so much stuff that a great wallpaper, or well planned paint scheme or mural is often lost in the room.
• Find a color that will withstand children's trends. (Pink is a little girls favorite color, then bang over night when you least expect it, pink is the last color they want to see, they won't wear it and will hate having it painted on their walls). Using a neutral color on the walls and then adding the color in the accessories is the best way to manage this, the bed linen is much easier and cost effective to change than repainting or wallpapering. 
• Adding color and design with a wallpaper frieze or border is a way to decorate for their age that can be changed reasonably easily.
• Putting feature colors in a floor rug is a great way to jazz up the space, and kids love to lie on them.
• Add colored bean bags and cushions. These items are easy to replace or recover.
• Stripes are an excellent design choice as they tend to be more timeless than Pooh Bear, Thomas the Tank Engine, Princesses or Fairies. Especially with a more expensive facet of decoration like curtains or blinds, upholstered chairs or sofas.
• Using the current trend of wall art that you and just stick on and peel off when you need a change is a great way to decorate, and you can let kids pick their own with this item.
• In general, selecting a neutral base does sound like a cop out, but unless you want to be constantly redecorating children's bedrooms, then I would recommend this option.
• When it comes to furniture, I would also recommend as above, choosing a neutral finish like timber, or white, grey, cream or black. This way you have so many more options for choosing colors to go with the furniture, and you will get more use from the furniture. I know there are so many gorgeous children's furniture sets available. I learnt from experience with one of our children, my son, that after only two years in his really great bunk bed he has outgrown it, hates it and wants a normal timber bed like his sister.
• Picture frames are a fabulous way to change colors and design. Buy some simple frames and then you can put in pictures, photos, children's art work, old birthday cards, anything that the children like really to change the decor on a regular basis. I do it with our children and it is fun for everyone. We hang them on the walls and when we are tired of them we choose a rainy day to sit down and change them.

If you hate all my advice and have the resources to change your child's bedroom on a regular basis, then go for it, do some research with your child to get a feel for what they like, show them pictures in magazines, visit retail stores and see beds made up, they often have show bedrooms to look at, and it will give you some ideas on what they want and what you think will work for them.

The most important aspect of creating your child's bedroom is making it a comfortable, fun and safe place for them to live in, a space that they can personalize and call their own. Then with a bit of luck they might be so proud of it that they keep it clean and tidy. I am still working on that theory!




articel resource: http://interiordeziner.blogspot.com/

Grecian Themed bathroom

This Grecian Themed bathroom uses mosaic tiles with skill, they adorn the floor, with a dark border and a lighter mosaic tile around the circular bath. The sides of the bath have grecian motifs in mosaic tile and they are a very practical as well as decorative feature to the bathroom.
The walls are painted to resemble stone and the detail is high with swirling scrolls subtly decorating and framing the recess for the joinery unit. A lovely coved high ceiling adds to the opulence of this bathroom space and I feel that there is probably an equally beautiful bedroom beyond.
The formal drapery, with swags and tails, and curtains that are almost pulled with tassels into a bishops sleeve look, is purely decorative, but it brings your eye back down into the room, the dark color of the fabric framing the window and adding a softness to the bathroom space.
The central pendant light, is a focal point along with the bath, once again lowering our eye to focus on the circular bath this time. It is very difficult to make out the tap ware, but this is quite a good feature as in Grecian times, baths weren't filled with high pressure taps as they are today, so not making it have a large presence is a good design quality.

Kitchen Lighting Design Tips

Lighting your kitchen doesn't need to be a complex matter, but it is layered. "The most common mistake people make is trying to light their entire kitchen with one fixture centered in the ceiling," says Randall Whitehead, a lighting designer in San Francisco, and author of Residential Lighting: A Practical Guide. "It ends up being what I call a 'glare bomb,' visually overpowering everything in the space, including family and friends."
According to Randall, the most effective lighting for the kitchen involves four layers blended together: task, ambient, accent and decorative lighting. The end result: a warm and inviting environment that works with your other design elements to create a practical workspace and lively entertainment area.

Task Lighting
"Task lighting is what people think of first when designing a lighting system in the kitchen because it's integral to preparing food," says Joe Rey-Barreau, director of education for the American Lighting Association. "However, if task lighting is misplaced it can actually hinder your ability to work efficiently, throwing shadows on your workspace."
According to Joe, key locations for task lighting include underneath the overhead cabinets and over the island — anywhere you'll be chopping, slicing and reading recipes. The pantry is another place where you'll want bright, focused lighting.
Under-cabinet lights can be a hidden asset in any kitchen, providing task lighting as well as soft ambient lighting to give the room a warm glow with the touch of a dimmer switch. Strip lights are a popular choice, long linear bulbs or a string of lights contained in a single fixture. Another popular option is a puck light system, made up of a series of hockey-puck shaped halogen lights.

Ambient Lighting
According to Randall, ambient lighting is an important layer that is often overlooked in the kitchen. "This indirect lighting is what I like to call the humanizing ingredient to any lighting design," says the designer. "It softens the lines and shadows on people's faces and creates a warm inviting glow in the room."
The kitchen used to be strictly for food preparation and children who were not to be seen or heard. Now, floor plans are more open and parties often flow from the living room through the dining room and into the kitchen. "Ambient lighting will attract people into the kitchen and make them feel welcome while eating appetizers and sipping wine at the island," says Randall. Ambient lighting fixtures may include flush-mounted ceiling fixtures, a pendant hanging over the island and adjustable track lighting.

Accent Lighting
"Accent lighting is the least common layer in the kitchen, but it is becoming more common as people spend more time in the kitchen for casual entertaining," says Joe. You may want to hang a piece of artwork on the wall behind the breakfast table, or a tile splashback over the sink may be a decorative focal point. Occasionally, Randall installs lighting inside glass cabinets to illuminate collections of china and glassware.
Track lighting, up-lighters, directional eyeball lights and wall sconces are all accent fixtures. Randall recommends recessed adjustable low voltage fixtures to highlight artwork. The MR16 bulbs often used in these fixtures come in a variety of beam spreads. If the diameter of the art changes, a simple change of bulb will be all that is needed to illuminate the new art.

resource: http://www.hgtv.com

Interior Design Tips - Decorating Oversized Bedroom

While it can be a great joy to have an oversized bedroom, such room can be a huge challenge to decorate. It may be difficult give a large space the cozy feeling necessary in a bedroom. Here are some ideas to make your oversized bedroom more conducive to sleep, rest and relaxation.

Keep it simple: Just because the room is large does not mean that you need to fill it with lots of things like exercise equipment computer systems. These things do not promote rest. All you really need in your bedroom is a bed, the bigger the better. All other items are expendable.

Get it off the wall: In a very large room, there is no reason to place your bed against the wall. Put it in the center of the room facing the windows with the best view. It is preferable for the bed to be facing a direction so someone entering the room would not be able to see the bed, but only the headboard. You can add to more privacy to the bed by placing a large armoire or dresser with the back of it to the headboard. If the back of the dresser shows through the headboard, you can upholster the back of the dresser with fabric, to coordinate with the bed. Sleigh beds adapt well to this placement because they have high headboards.

Canopy beds would work as well because you can use fabric hanging from the bed poles as a screen. Folding floor screens can be placed at the head of the bed if you do not have a dresser or armoire that will fit in the space. For side tables, find pieces that look good from all sides like round tables instead of traditional nightstands. You can also choose to purchase a headboard unit designed for such a placement. Side tables are usually attached.

Break it up: Break the room into two or three zones, sleeping, lounging and dressing. Creating a sleeping area is obvious. Place the bed and side tables in one area of the room. For the lounging area, add sofas and chairs to the bedroom for an area to sit and talk, or even furnish an area where the children can feel comfortable. If you find you are sharing your bed with children, and want them to transition into their own beds, make sure that your bedroom sofa or lounge chair is comfortable. You may even want to add a day bed to your room. This way they can sleep in your room, but not in your bed.

Once they can sleep without being next to you, transitioning them to their own bed will be easier. For your dressing areas, you can place your dressers, armoires and mirrors grouped together and add a bench or chaise that you can sit on when dressing. You can separate the room for more privacy if you wish. To do this, add a folding screen to block the view to your dressing area or use a two-sided bookshelf. The shelves can display beautiful items on the side facing the bed, and clothing related items on the other side.

Super-size it: Buy big furniture. A big room calls for big furniture. Get a king bed size with a double pillow top mattress that sits high off the floor. Add a set of bed steps or stools so you will not have to pole vault into the bed. Instead of traditional side tables, use three or four-drawer dressers on each side of the bed. Placed next to a large bed, they will look like night tables. You can use the drawers to eliminate clutter around the bed as well. Instead of a bench or regular chest at the foot of the bed, as they will tend to look like miniatures, place a low dresser without the mirror. You will have a super sized footlocker in which you can store spare bedding. Another option for the foot of the bed is a cabinet in which a television on a hydraulic system is housed. This way the TV is seen only when it is in use. Instead of traditional dressers in a room of this size, you might opt for a full wall unit or built in cabinets instead.

Take advantage of the shape: Many large rooms are also odd shaped rooms. Use the shape of the room to your advantage. You can place one of your room zones, like your dressing area out of sight in an L-shaped room. Alternatively, you can tuck your sleeping area into the nook of a T-shaped room.

resource: http://architectaria.com