The Best Room Decorations
The best room decorations infuse your space with style without making it feel generic or cluttered. Decorations can be simple things you actually use. A cluster of fake fruit in a heavily varnished basket says "decoration" all right, but a bright blue cereal bowl filled with fresh plums from the farmer's market is inexpensive, visually attractive and functional. Does this Spark an idea?
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Display Collections
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Share a collection to personalize a room. You may not think of yourself as a collector, but a collection doesn't have to be coins, stamps or baseball cards. Do you have a ton of nightgowns? Hang them in a rolling vintage wardrobe to enjoy their colors and textures every day, rather than letting them languish deep inside a dresser drawer. Are you an antique camera nut? Dedicate a shelf in the living room to house them. Even household necessities like glassware and towels can be decorative when they are well-chosen and organized for display, rather than hidden in storage.
Plants and Animals
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It might sound strange to think of a pet as a decoration, but there is no arguing that a goldfish in a handsome brandy snifter setting on a windowsill over the kitchen sink makes it a more pleasant place to wash the dishes. Create a terrarium using a chic cloche unearthed from the basement. Plant it with moss and a fern for a low-maintenance addition to a living room. Boxes of culinary herbs add color and flavor to the kitchen; a jasmine tree lends fragrance and elegance to a bathroom. A reptile terrarium makes a great gift for a child with a zoological bent and can be the starting point for a jungle-themed redecoration.
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Family Portrait Twists
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Rather than displaying snapshots of your family, use photos as a starting point to create original portraits. Enlarge just one element of your parents' wedding photo -- say, their hands -- to poster size. Copy it in black and white, and mount it in an electric blue frame. Align childhood portraits of you and your honey along a hallway -- one portrait for each year of your lives. Grow up again every time you walk down the hall. Trace photos of your family onto drawing paper, leaving out some features and exaggerating others. Color them with crayons. Hang them from bulldog clips over the couch. Everyone will wonder who the artist is.
DIY Projects
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Decoupage a medicine cabinet with copies of retro ads for shaving cream. Make pillow covers from your great grandmother's patterned dresses. Resurface your kitchen cabinets. Paint stripes on the bathroom wall. Create a broken-china mosaic on a patio table. Build a lamp from a whiskey bottle. Construct a couch using foam, plywood and heavy-duty elastic. Stitch a lap quilt. Turn a dresser into a bathroom vanity. Braid recycled plastic bags; coil them to make a welcome mat. Draw a picture. Embroider your dog's name on her doggie bed. Paint a gigantic portrait of your dog to camouflage your damaged wood floors.
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References
- Photo Credit herbs boxes on kitchen shelf image by araraadt from Fotolia.com
