Monthly Archives September 2006

Home Style Concept: The Soft Drama of Earthy Elegance

The predominate home design trend emerging for Fall/Winter 2006 captures the essence of a home filled with traditional heirloom furniture rich with history and décor, pillows and throws that beckon you to the sofa for an indulgent evening of reading your favorite novel while sipping a richly flavored espresso as candles, gracefully displayed on hand-crafted candlesticks with their colorful and rich history etched in a soft green patina, softly illuminate the room for a feeling of warmth and luxurious comfort.

Key Design Elements You Need To Create This Decorating Style

The emphasis is on a distressed, cracked finish to impart a weathered, aged well-lived feeling of classic furniture and décor that has been passed from generation to generation. Upholstery should be rich with texture in any of the following embossed leather finishes such as crocodile, snakeskin and ostrich. Of course do remember that you want a cracked, aged leather look, a shiny new crocodile skin chair won’t do. The feeling of a rich past is also extended to wall décor and picture frames with emphasis placed on historic portraits and ornate jeweled or enameled accent pieces.

Bedding, decorative pillows, throws and other soft furnishings covered in the softest fabrics such as chenille, faux fur and velvet. So soft and comforting it brings to mind a baby bird’s soft down. Visually these textures evoke feelings of comfort, sanctuary and warmth.

The warmth of the antiqued furniture and downy soft fabrics are brought into balance with strategically placed design elements with a slightly colder visual texture such as metals. But these aren’t the same high polish metals of Spring 2006 – the metals have been tarnished and/or patina-rich (patina can be found in any of the following colors: rich greens, browns, blues, grays or reds ) to create a beautiful contrast between light and shadow.

Earthy Elegance Color Palette: Rich, deep colors such as brown, red, purple, orange, green, blue hued with touches of pewter, amber and rose.

Accent Colors : Creamy ivories, antiqued white, mauve, gray-greens, gray-blues, dusty rose, terra-cotta and ecru.

Wall Paint Ideas: Below are two Behr paint color schemes that would fit nicely with the Earthy Elegance design style. The colors trend more to the cooler range but in my opinion it gives the Earthy Elegance style’s “rich heritage” look more of a modern feel that is well suited for more urban home settings such as a loft or condo. I also like the fact that these “cooler” paint colors will help balance out the warmth in the furniture and decor.
You can create your own or use one of the many color inspirations at Behr.com

Fresh Eyes Approach To Decorating

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. You decorating divas who’ve attended the Decorating Divas Workshops have heard me say that great decorating isn’t solely driven by the size of your bank account but by the size of your imagination. Creativity is EVERYTHING. Possessing the vision and creative ability to see something special in an item that all others see as common is the secret to extraordinary decorating – specially for those of us with less than extraordinary home improvement and decorating budgets .

Case in point, Angela M. @ shelterrific. Angela found a ceramic owl at a flea market – an adorable piece that serves both a decorative and functional purpose. Lovely to look at and a glasses holder to boot. Now that’s vision.

Picture This – Drapery Visualizing Tool

I am a visually driven individual – that’s how I learn and how I communicate so I was delighted to find a wonderful software tool that helps you get a clear picture of how fabric window treatments would look in a similar environment such as your home. The site is called Factory Direct Drapes (visualization tool here) h/t to Domestik Goddess.

House Blogs

I recently came across a hub site called HouseBlogs.net which is a must visit and bookmark for all of you DIY decorating divas. The site was started in 2005 by Aaron and Jeannie who had originally created a “house blog” that chronicled their DIY experiences while restoring a 1914′s Craftsman style bungalow.
According to Aaron and Jeannie HouseBlogs.net was created:

as a home improvement resource for DIYers and as a community tying together individuals who write journals (or ‘blogs’) about their own home improvement adventures.

I will definitely be posting more on this great find in the near future.