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Trend Spots
Remodeling your home is about creating the right space and layout to suit your lifestyle, but it’s also about the colors, styles, shapes and textures that truly make your home your own. Your remodeler will ask you to make a myriad of selections for materials and finishes, and you’ll want them to work well with the furnishings and accessories you choose. It can be a daunting task or a fun and creative process. ?If you’re in the former category, your best bet is to hire a professional interior designer. If you’re the latter, we can help start your journey with these top design trends from top national designers.
Carmen M. Natschke, Editor-in-Chief/Founder of The Decorating Diva LLC provides her top ten list for 2008:
1. Home Design Style with a Conscience - it's all about eco-friendly design, products and implementation - focus on organic, natural, recycled and re-purposed products. In the past eco-friendly or Green design could be summed up in three words: ugly, dowdy and boring. That isn't the case anymore. Eco-friendly design has met stylish interpretation proving that earth friendly decor can at the same time be elegant, beautiful and exciting as well as Green.
2. Contrast Makes The Difference - high contrast color combinations such as robin egg blue set against dark cocoa or white and black. Contrasting textures like smooth against rough such as man-made steel juxtaposed with the roughness of natural shell or wood against steel. Add a touch of the unexpected to your decor by pairing up accessories or furnishings of mixed media - a soft chenille sofa dressed with a rough textured horsehair or zebra pillow or velvet against metal.
3. It's All About the X - The "X” (the shape) is everywhere in furniture and accessory design. It was spotted at Highpoint, the European Shows and has been slowly making itself available in furniture and decor stores.
4. Multi-Purpose Furniture and Accessories - Beautiful design is simply not enough for today's discerning home decor shoppers, they want utility driven, multi-purpose furniture and decorative accessories that will make their everyday life easier, less hectic and more organized.
5. Leather with a Feminine Touch - Leather is still a hot trend however this year expect to see the softer side of leather, furniture in smaller scale, earthy golden warm tones such as caramel, cappuccino, cocoa and cinnamon as well as what are considered more "traditional" feminine colors ranging from pastel pinks to robin egg blue with contrasting accent colors of dark chocolate.
6. Understated Luxe - 2008 is all about "whispering" luxury and elegance via your home decor, furnishings and accessories.
7. All Shades of White - from the purest whites to the softest ivories, the white color family will be seen everywhere from walls to sofas to lamps to picture frames.
8. Really Big Furniture and Accessories - it's all about design drama, over-sized lamps, chandeliers, florals, mirrors, decorative accessories and other design elements.
9. Cool Metals - gray tone metals such as silver, pewter, brushed nickel, aluminum, steel, charcoal and platinum.
10. Zen at Home - we want peace at home and furnishing your home with design elements that make you feel at peace and grounded are the keys to achieving a home sanctuary.
The Decorating Diva.com is an online decorating magazine covering the latest trends in home design, Green design, color, home decor and healthy home living, as well as reviews of a variety of home decorating products written by design industry insiders. ?Visit thedecoratingdiva.com online for decorating and design articles, reviews, tips and advice.
Boston designer, C. Davis Remignanti, Lead Design Consultant for Furniture.com and several other national web sites believes “design rules are stupid things.” He went on to offer what he sees as “the most important trends currently in interior design.”
“Trends are fascinating things to observe,” said Remignanti. “They can grow in parallel to current tastes, creating subtle variations; they can also veer wildly in unpredictable directions. Both phenomena are seen this year.”
1. The Return of Glamour, or as Remignanti puts it “Luxe Deluxe.” Reminiscent of the early 20th century, this look is all sleek lines and strongly geometric, but without the exaggerated extremes of the Deco movement. “The look has a certain matinee idol appeal – think of the smart interiors found in West Coast homes circa 1935-40. Glamorous, yes, but in an approachable way that’s meant to be incorporated into rooms that are welcoming, not cordoned off behind velvet ropes.”
2. The Up Side of Downscaling. This look retreats from the oversized furniture that helped fill rooms with high vaulted ceilings “that makes the average person resemble Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann.” Coincidentally large-scale prints are gaining popularity for fabrics, floor and wall coverings. “Look for large scale, graphic black and white prints to dominate the look.”
3. Full Spectrum Black and White. Remignanti says “the trend toward darker, mineral tones in interiors continues full tilt, resulting in a renewed interest in black as the focal color for rooms.” He says combined with white, but not in equal parts for any particular room, the “results can be refreshingly and maturely chic.” His hot accent colors are “clear but natural-looking tones.” Think acid green, carnelian, flax and russet red.
4. Making it Multi-Generational. There’s an “increasingly robust trend of mixing vintage and new pieces in such a way that it’s difficult to tell which is which,” he says. It’s a great way to make your own decor truly unique, and “vintage furniture comes with instant ya-ya — a hard-to-define energy that can simultaneously elevate a room’s sense of humor and gravitas.”
5. Light Fantastic. “Accent materials that reflect, refract and bend light,” are important today says Remignanti. “Materials such as silver, chrome, mercury glass, mirrors, crystal, and Lucite are part of this key trend, and are being used as decorative accents as well as being incorporated into furniture pieces themselves.”
Remignanti’s final note is dear to the hearts of many Minnesotans who grew up with formal living room furniture wrapped in plastic, “remember that however well put together a room may be, it’s meant to be used. If a room isn’t comfortable and inviting for those inside it, it’s a design failure, no matter how stylish it may be.”
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