Tag Archives: interior design

How to Create the Perfect Reading Nook

Curling up with a good book becomes heavenly when you have a great place to curl up. The best part of a “nook” is that it’s literally all you need space-wise. Use what you have and see how easy it is to create your very own imagination station, aka reading nook.

 


 

1. Spot the spot

Take a look around your living area for any of the following: a window, an alcove, a corner, extra closet, space under the stairs. All count as excellent choices for a reading nook. Move around a few things to uncover tucked away spots. Ideally, you want a space away from TVs. If possible, use natural light as your focal point.

 

reading nook
Photo by: flickr/Wicker Paradise under license CC BY 2.0


 

2. Brighten it up

Nothing beats sunlight for daytime reading but you definitely want a good reading light for all the pages consumed after dark. Keeping your reading space uncluttered is best, so keep things minimal with a book light or a serpentine lamp (the ones with long, flexible necks). Clamped lights also offer versatility for limited options because you can affix them almost anywhere.

 

Cory Doctorow reading monkey lamp
Photo by: flickr/Cory Doctorow under license CC BY-SA 2.0

 

3. Have a seat

This might be the most important part of creating your perfect reading spot. A cozy, fluffy place to sink into, like an oversized chair, a beanbag, or even a spare mattress (with some modification) can offer a relaxing place to soak up your stories. Work with your space. Sometimes, cushions might be all you really need.

 

reading nook
Photo by: flickr/Peter Alfred Hess under license CC BY 2.0

 

4. Secure a surface

A small end table or upturned crate can give you just the space you need for a mug of hot chocolate or glass of Malbec. Some readers like to have pens and a notepad to jot down ideas while they read. If you have the space, consider a DIY bookshelf to include within your nook.

 

reading table
Photo by: flickr/Wicker Paradise under license CC BY 2.0

 

5. Remove yourself

If you need privacy or like to feel enswathed in a cocoon, consider curtains, wall dividers, or Japanese screens to partition yourself off from the rest of the room. These simple solutions can really carve out a space where you thought there was none.

 

wicker chair nook
Photo by: flickr/Peter Alfred Hess under license CC BY 2.0

 

Remember, you might need to experiment with a few spots to see what works well. That’s part of the fun. Raid the linens and hit vintage shops for more ideas about how to decorate your nook. A few interesting textiles can take you on a journey of room decorating ideas.

And, of course, now it’s time to get busy on your home library.

Fabulous Home Decor Finds in Lavender

Move over millennial pink and sunshine yellow. Lavender—which may be derived from Latin “livere,” which means blueish—is the most soothing color on the spectrum. It includes light purples to pale pinks, which are feminine, youthful, and fresh, and blues to grays, which are luxurious, spiritual, and “grown-up”. A balance between fiery red and calm blue, it’s associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic. When it comes to this pretty pastel shade, it can recede into the background or command center stage.  It can be whimsical or traditional—and everything in between.

Looking to liven up your home with this simply oh-so spring shade? Here are our favorite finds in lavender.

Blankets and Pillows

DawnDerman-Lavender-Hummer-BlanketPerk up your plain sofa with this buttery soft Lavender Hummer Sherpa Blanket (DiaNoche Designs), featuring a hummingbird sipping nectar in a sea of lavender. Design by Dawn Derman, a self-taught artist from Larkspur, Colorado, it has a silky smooth top and extra snuggly bottom that will make it your go-to cuddle buddy year-round.

lavender decor

 

 

 

Or check out this generously-sized throw blanket from Z Gallerie in the perfect hue of amethyst.

 

 

lavender decor 1Break free from solid color palettes: punctuate your couches, chairs, or hallway benches with this throw pillow (Wayfair) designed by Meredith Wing, a mixed-media fashion illustrator from Sydney, Australia. Made with artificial flowers, its lavender-adorned lady–printed on the front and back–is femininity all grown up, bringing refinement, grace, and elegance to every space.

 

 

Lavender Bed SetTransform your bedroom into a restful retreat with this five-piece Florentina Comforter Set (Kohls) that includes two shams, a square pillow, and an oblong pillow. With elegant ruffles, pleated florets, and rhinestone accents, you’ll fall asleep in a field of refreshing and welcoming flowers—waking up on the right side of the bed every single morning.

 

Seating

Hayneedle Gaiam Adjustable Custom-Fit Balance Ball Chair, PurpleMany of us spend a good chunk of our professional lives sitting making the office chair an all-important piece of furniture.  Looking for an innovative seating solution? Gaiam turns a standard, lavender balance ball into a posture-improving, core-strengthening chair on wheels with the Gaiam Custom-Fit Adjustable Balance Ball (Hayneedle).

 

lavender chair

 

If you’re looking for a traditional chair for a bedroom or living room, a beautiful lavender option is the Nya Accent Chair in Belgium Orchid from Z Gallerie.

Accessories

Target Lavender LampTurn your bedroom, living room, or office into an oasis of tranquility with the Geo Ceramic Candle in Vanilla Lavender (Target). The perfect mix of fresh lavender, warm vanilla, and calming eucalyptus—which has a minty smell with a hint of honey—this 11.3-ounce candle will help you drift into dreamland while putting a pep in your step from sunrise to sunset. Plus, its modern and simple geometric pattern will add eye-catching vigor to your abode.

 

ABC Home & Carpet bleu d'argile tea cup & mug mauve.Splash some springtime into your table settings with the lavender Bleu D’Argile Teacup and Mug (ABC Home & Carpet). Crafted from 1920’s molds with the passion, soul, and ancestral know-how of master craftsman potters, these romantically-styled cups have delicately looped handles that will invite you to envision the warmth of the French countryside with every sip.

 

QuarryBottleStopper

 

 

geo large slice cb2For some striking lavender accents, take a look at some natural form pieces like the large slice made from grey marble from CB2, or ones that serve a purpose, like their quarry geode bottle stopper.

 

The Beginner’s Guide to Feng Shui

Have you ever walked into a room and everything just felt right? Like you immediately felt at peace with the world because all of your surroundings were balanced and the room had nothing but good vibes? With how hectic modern life is, don’t feel bad if you haven’t. We’re not exactly taught how to be at one with our surroundings.

living room

We can still learn to value and balance our surroundings. The ancient art of Feng Shui can teach us how to arrange our surroundings in ways that promote peace, relaxation and balance. The art can get a bit complex, but there are simple contemporary ways for anyone to get the best of this practice.

 

Keep out clutter

One of the main components of Feng Shui is getting rid of clutter. Traditionally in Feng Shui, clutter means stuck energy and being tied down into the past. Clutter is thought to prevent new opportunities, since you live with unproductive and outdated reminders of the past junking up your space in the form of old papers and expired food on the counter.

modern bathroom

In the modern home, it’s an excellent reason to get your space in order. Mercilessly clear out anything you don’t use or even like. Dump that old box of a new fiber bar brand you barely touched, get rid of those gifts where “it’s the thought that counts,” shred old direct deposit forms and purge anything else that is cluttering your life. With less reminders of the past, you may see new opportunities.

 

Bagua basics

Feng Shui Bagua

Another huge cornerstone of traditional Feng Shui is the Bagua Map, pictured above.  It’s a map you mentally place over your home. The map shows which parts of a home correspond to certain lifestyle attributes.

For instance, the center of the space, as the map shows, is devoted to health. The north part of the house is devoted to career, and all the way around the compass different parts of the home relate to different attributes.

front door
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

Now unless you are building a brand new home from scratch, you may not be able to align the attributes perfectly with the cardinal directions. To get a mental image of this map over your home, align the bottom of the map with the main entryway you use, so you’re entering through career, helpful people or wisdom. What this does is tell you which parts of your space correlate with different aspects of your life.

organized bedroom with patio

For a more simple approach, you can also do the same with a single room, putting the doorway at the bottom of the map. You can even apply it to your desktop, placing the bottom of the map where you sit.

What this means in terms of a modern and practical approach is that you can use those spaces to align your home and psyche with certain goals. For instance, getting the upper righthand corner of your home or room organized and appropriately decorated will remind you to value relationships or leave you more open to them. But what does it mean to get those areas “appropriately decorated”? That’s where Feng Shui colors and décor pieces come into play.

Feng Shui colors

Colors can carry some strong psychological associations, and the ancient art of Feng Shui is no stranger to the notion. Certain colors carry certain attributes for bringing your environment in line with your desires. Below is a basic guide on what colors mean in the framework of Feng Shui:

Green: Development, healing, harmony and vigor.

Yellow/gold: Happiness/peace.

Turquoise: Achievement and tranquility.

Dark blue/black: Truth, attention and contemplation.

Orange: Happiness, openness and completion.

Red: Motivation, action, accomplishment and passion.

Pink: Love, relationships and emotional fulfillment.

White: Clarity, focus and purposeful activity.

Purple: Thankfulness, plenty and leadership.

Living room with furnishings in a new house with nice wood floors!

Today, that translates into being mindful of what colors you paint your rooms and what colors you bring into the home in terms of fabric and décor. For instance, you may paint your dining room a shade of purple to represent thankfulness. Or your home office may be red to help you get in touch with your motivated, action-oriented side. Your sofa may have a pink throw over it to foster positive relationships. As such, all of these colors help orient your surroundings with the sort of life you’d like to lead.

Colors can also be used in relation to the Bagua Map. Going back to relationships, if you’d like to get that area in your life more aligned, you might paint a room at the upper righthand corner of your home pink or hang a pink painting in the upper righthand corner of a room.

 

Feng Shui décor pieces

One of the easiest ways to achieve great Feng Shui is to bring items that have what practitioners call good “energy” or “chi” into the home. In a modern sense, that translates into items of great personal value and beauty, like art or houseplants.

house plant
Image via Stocksnap under license CC0

There are a lot of complicated and ancient rules about how to arrange a home to attract love and money, balance a home and align a space with certain goals. From a modern, beginner’s standpoint, it’ll help to go off of intuition and personal preference.

plants
Image via Stocksnap under license CC0

In a corresponding Bagua area, place what personally represents the approriate goals you wish to achieve. For instance, in that relationship corner you could have gifts from a significant other or art depicting relationships.

The overall key to Feng Shui is to create a flowing living space that helps you live life to your fullest potential. At the end of the day, you should make your space meaningful for you.

Designing Your Home Around a Theme

Looking for a lake theme? Can’t get enough American Southwest memorabilia? Or maybe you prefer beach themes, Batman-everything or a style you invented called Martian Postmodernist Funk. Whatever your interest, designing by theme can make for a unique and beautiful aspect to your home.

animal print decor

A theme is a great way to tie together individual design elements. But our tastes are as varied as our personalities. Below is your guide to applying some of the basic principles of designing around a theme within any home and interest.

Choosing Your Theme

The first step is, of course, to choose a theme. You may already have a solid theme in mind based on a fanatical interest or specific lifestyle pattern. For instance, a beach theme is a logical choice for a beach home you recently purchased.

Image via Pixabay under license CC0
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

Or you may know you want a theme, but have no idea where to begin. With the amount of décor themes out there, it’s hard to know where to start. In these cases, it helps to create a few lists:

  • Create a list of your favorite interests, and list them by rank.
  • Look at themed rooms on Houzz.com and list out some of the themes you see that appeal to you.
  • Peruse décor items and make a list of which jump out at you.
  • List what places you like to visit most, or want to visit.

You may see patterns once you complete these lists. For instance, your number one interest might be country music; you may like country home styles. Paintings of horses might stick out to you and you really like going to Wyoming. Or, if there is no consistent pattern, pick a theme from any of the lists that sticks out to you the most. And there’s no shame in not being able to decide between several themes.

ethnic pillows
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

Design by Room

Now that you have a theme (or several) nailed down, you’ll want to decide how pervasive you want the theme to be. Do you want the theme throughout your whole house, or just located in one room? If you’re the eclectic type with a number of interests that pop out to you, you’ll want to strongly consider taking a separate themed room approach.

Image via Pixabay under license CC0
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

A good rule of thumb to remember is to not overload your home with themes. Have neutral rooms to give the themes a rest, or intersperse your themed elements with some basic elements.

Placing Themed Décor Elements

Now for the specifics on how to place your décor elements. The first thing you’ll want to do is get a few décor elements displaying that theme, of course. You don’t have to run out and restock your house; just find a few visual focal points, like wall art and decorative items.

Image via Pixabay under license CC0
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

On the other hand, if you’re basing your theme off of strong, established interests, you’ll probably have plenty of themed items around. Now’s the time to gather them all together, whether you’re removing them from where you haphazardly placed them on a wall or where you stowed them in a closet.

bicycle decor
Image via Pixabay under license CC0

Intersperse your items throughout the room in a balanced way to round out the room. For instance, place a themed painting across the room from a themed throw.  Matching themed lamps look great on either side of a sofa. Think symmetry.

What to do With Collections

Don’t discount the power of collections. If you managed to amass a large quantity of bird statues, for instance, a classy way to display them is to create a themed shelf or table full of the statues. That collection will act as its own cohesive design element, and you can place a similar painting on the opposite end of the room from it to create balance.

babushka dolls

But don’t be afraid to combine items, like placing some bird statues on a hearth under a bird painting. Those items could create a cohesive display element across from pillows of the same theme, as an example.

Getting Subtle With Themed Décor Elements

If you’re not big on overt collections and large art pieces, there are other ways to incorporate a theme in a subtle, classy way. Below are just a few ideas for being subtle with a theme:

  • Get customized prints detailing a specific theme. Put them on smaller pillows as accents. National flags work well for regional themes.
  • Bring in a few small, natural elements to place on tables that play to a theme, if it fits. For instance, a bit of sandstone works great in American Southwest themes.
  • Remember that your lighting fixtures are a good way to give a subtle accent to your theme, like colonial fixtures or even pothole sconces.
  • Think textured accents. A rope accent on a coffee table could add to a nautical theme.
  • Camouflage your décor by repurposing items. Getting back to the nautical theme, buoy markers could make interesting candleholders.
  • Remember your upholstery and window treatments. You may be able to find a pattern with a small themed accent, or the color scheme could match other themed elements in the room. American Southwest styles could work well with a dusty orange fabric color. That would add a slight accent without being too overt.

With all these tips, your home will pay homage to your interests and what inspires you, without looking overwhelming or tacky. Your home will have balance, and you can be as overt or covert in your interests as you want to be. Have fun decorating!