Going for the Gold in Fall Home Decore

(ARA) - The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games were a time of great anticipation. We held our collective breath to see which athletes would emerge victorious, and were awed by what these talented individuals were able to achieve in their respective areas of expertise.

There's a similar sense of excitement when it comes to home decorating this fall. With the kids back in school or settled into college, parents have renewed energy and newfound time to make home improvements.

Here are the trends leading interior designers and industry experts across the country have predicted will be hot this season, to help consumers realize their personal bests when it comes to maximizing their homes' potential.

1. The gold medal standard
Wall murals remain reigning champions, according to Todd Imholte, president of www.MuralsYourWay.com -- a leader in the production of decorative products for more than 40 years. "Like the Olympic athletes, we're always striving to improve what we do," says Imholte. "We recently introduced 60 new mural designs that feature everything from Parisian storefronts, Tuscan landscapes and whimsical fairies to city skylines, vintage signs and safari scenes."

Murals Your Way offers a gallery of more than 5,000 images, as well as the ability to personalize an existing gallery image or create a custom mural from a personal photo or artwork.

2. Team USA
Baby boomers are asking for a new American design that is less traditional yet sensible, and reflects who they are as people, says Jan Hubbard, ASID with JH Design Group. They may incorporate Mom's furniture into at least one of their rooms, while seeking an updated look in the rest of the house. McKinley Adams, ASID with McKinley's Design, sees textures evoking a similar sense of nostalgia, as they tactilely take us back to earlier, pleasurable times in our lives.

3. Lighting the torch
This fall, conventional lighting will be used in unconventional ways, according to Jeff Dross, senior product manager at Kichler Lighting. Chandeliers in the bedroom, pendants in dining rooms and multi-tier sconces in powder rooms and in the foyer will make definitive visual changes in the home. Lighting manufacturers will also continue to offer creative solutions using less electricity to promote energy efficiency.

4. The furniture favorites to win
Shapely and comfortable chairs in bold colors will make an exclamation point in any room, and should be accented by a nice contrast and blend of straight-lined and round size tables, suggests celebrity design expert, author, and national TV host/spokesperson Kathy Peterson. Furniture blends in eclectic styles with an eye-appealing mix of bold patterns such as broad stripes, abstract animal prints, circles or mixed graphics will add even more life to living rooms.

5. Synchronized colors
Susan Pantaleo, ASID with Concepts in Design Inc., notes that yellow is emerging as a very versatile color. From sunlight to Dijon mustard, the yellow palette is attention-getting, works with most design schemes, and adds life and vibrancy to a room. On the other side of the rainbow, Peterson sees cool grays, silvers, black and stone colors along with an unexpected hint of gold-tone accents this fall. She recommends metallics or pearlized paints on accent walls, ceilings, backdrop covers for shelves, and accent shelves.

6. Preliminaries on staging a bedroom
According to Davis Remignanti, FurnitureFind.com's lead design consultant, consumers are interested in creating a bedroom retreat that calms, centers and energizes. He suggests looking for opportunities to showcase souvenirs and family photos, and utilizing walls effectively by adding a fresh coat of paint and an interesting piece of artwork. Another way Peterson recommends to enhance a bedroom is to incorporate an oversized, opulent and tufted upholstered headboard, using tone-on-tone colors that touch the ceiling.

7. Silver medalists
This fall, we should expect to see a bit more chrome and variations such as brushed nickel, polished silver, and polished nickel, adds Dross. This trend has taken a long time to travel from Europe to the United States, but this is the year it should finally take seed.

8. Competing for wall space
According to Candice Matthews, ASID with CMR Interiors Inc., green goods and wall finishes will dominate this season. Finishes with burlap, limed walls and straw bale walls will be popular, as will burlap-covered walls, Belgium linens, interesting high-end finishes on millwork like driftwood, grey stains, rift wood ceruses, and lacquered millwork.

9. All-around family entertainment
Due to the rising popularity of the Nintendo Wii, Xbox, PlayStation and other gaming consoles, homeowners will continue to seek ways to incorporate technology into their living areas in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Home theater cabinets from BDI, the leading manufacturer of home entertainment furnishings featuring storage for three or more components and wire management to hide all necessary connections are available in a variety of gloss and natural stained wood finishes.

Hubbard also recommends consumers place flat-screened televisions within attractive furniture pieces designed specifically for them. Whole-house technology systems that are future proof will also be in demand as technology advances at world-record pace.

10. Celebrate the Olympic culture
Follow the ages-old Chinese practice of Feng Shui to honor the environment indoors. Remingnanti recommends introducing water, wind chimes, color and crystals into your bedroom design to enhance the positive energy and romantic appeal while creating a shared sanctuary.

Like the Olympic athletes, all of these are winners in the home decorating arena. The key is to balance diving into popular home decor trends with fine-tuning fundamental styles and techniques that will go the distance.

Home improvement planning

The Fun Stuff

Planning home improvements necessarily involves addressing numerous practical matters. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the fun stuff!

The first thing to plan for in home improvements is the practical stuff. The second thing you need to talk to family members about is the fun stuff.

Most people have colors they like and colors they don’t like. They have things that interest them and things that don’t. Get your family to talk to you about those things. Each person’s bedroom, or bedroom area, should reflect his or her taste and interests.

A boy who likes green, football, and backpacking can easily have a sage green (it “reads” as more neutral than many shades of green if re-sale of your home is a concern) room with cream woodwork, cream interior shutters, and cream ceiling. Framed football posters and wilderness scenes might be pleasant. Bedding with a rustic motif (rows of stylized pine trees?) from L.L. Bean or Plow and Hearth would work right in. Add a touch or two of a bright color like red or yellow.

A girl who loves pink, the ballet, and swimming can have woodwork the same cream as her brother’s while her walls are a soft pink (a pink with a hint of yellow in it tends to go well with cream), and her art work reflects her interests. If she loves to read, make sure she has a good reading lamp near her bed, or near a comfortable chair, or both.

A cream colored dust ruffle with widely spaced pink stripes and a quilted plaid coverlet in pink, green, yellow, and blue on a cream background might look nice. Add cream fabric window shades with large pink polka dots and I’ll bet she’ll smile.

The bigger point is to simply have fun with some of your home improvements. There is no need to look exclusively at practical matters.

home decore with chairs

decore with 6 chairs

Since prehistoric days, when our ancient ancestors rolled rocks into their caves to sit on in front of their television sets, mankind has been in search of the perfect chair. Most of the chairs people sit on are uncomfortable.

Manufacturers make chairs as though we were all the same size and shape, and we're not.

It's as important for a person to have a chair that fits as it is for that person to have shoes that fit, yet we seldom think of fit when we buy a chair.

Every one of us should have a chair size just as we have a hat size, a shirt size and a glove size.

"One size fits all" is a dumb phrase, whether you're talking about clothes or chairs. One size doesn't fit everybody. As an amateur woodworker, I have made some chairs, and they're difficult to build.

You can measure everything and design the chair so you think it's going to be comfortable, but until you actually sit down and try it, you don't really know how it's going to feel. By that time, it's too late to make adjustments.

You have the chair all glued together. You can cut a little off the legs and see if that helps, and maybe even cut a little more off the front legs than the back legs to change the angle, but you can't alter the basic contour of the chair.