Shabby chic is an interior design style which is very popular nowadays. It can be relatively easily realized in any home.
A shabby chic interior is feminine, light and has a little bit warn effect, despite of this, still elegant. Dominant colors are white, grey, powder blue, pink, crème, light green and beige. Furnishing is made of wood, chairs are upholstered comfortably soft, or even wicker braided. Basically it has French style characteristics. Although the overall effect is rural, yet it fits well even in an aristocratic environment. The double doored large wardrobe, the Bergére armchair and the great variety of fabrics provide the luxurious, but still muted feeling. Feels like if we spend our holiday in our country castle.
We can produce the furnishing ourselves for this style. Let’s paint the old furnitures purchased at a flea market with off-white and generate the antique feeling using some umbra brown. Another method, if the paint is burnished back at the edges, at the handles and at the bottom of the legs. This simulates the worn effect gained by the heavy years of usage. At accessories, avoid using strong colors. Flower bouquet is always an important decoration element. It can be placed in practically anything, like a watering can, a jar or old cookie box. Select pastel coloured flowers, which fit to the rural atmosphere, like lavender, roses, tulip or wild flowers. Prefer natural materials at fabrics, like cotton or linen. Use patterned material or plain weaved ones occasionally with toile pattern using only two colors. Use them brevely, combine several hues of a given color. For metallic accessories, silver or gold color is the best choice.
If you like shabby chic, but don’t know how to start, ask help from an interior designer.
Archives
Painted wood
Shaker style
The shakers are a religious community established in the 18th century. The members moved from England to North America. They are famous about their love of peace, puritanism and the equality between the genders.
Shaker style is simple, practical and thrifty. All household objects are produced by themselves. Forms are determined by function. Ornamentation hardly used, if they do, they are most often the heart, hand and star motif. Paints are made of natural materials. Most characteristic colors are rust brown, aquamarine, ocher, sage green, claret and beige. Most of the fabrics used are made of wool, cotton or linen, which are simple and monochrome textiles, sometimes with a small chequered pattern. From warn fabrics they sew patchwork blankets or rag rugs.
Furnitures are simple, wooden ones. Door panels of wardrobes have frame insert structure. Ladder backed chairs can be hanged up when out of use. They make wall-mounted hangers on which almost anything can be hung securely. Also characteristic item is the thin sheet box, which has a round or oval shape and requires high skills to prepare.
The function and simplicity oriented way of thinking of shakers can be actual even todays modern world. Kitchen furnishing in shaker style can be a definitive element of classic or rural style kitchens. Placing some shaker storage boxes can decorate a work room, living room or bathroom. Using their color palette we can realize a warm, friendly interior with natural feeling.
Ask an interior designer to help implementing shaker style in your home.
Garden accessories 2.
Provence
Provence. A word that enchants most people immediately. Large lavender fields, calm country cottages and millions of hues of white, gray and blue appear in our mind. This landscape inspired lots of poets, painters and writers.
Who wouldn’t like to live in a large house made of stone with blue shutters and a garden? Old wooden furniture, wrought iron accessories and terracotta flooring in the interior and a calming atmosphere welcomes the visitor. The furnishing reminds us to the passing time and eternal values with a worn elegance. We are talking about handmade of natural materials, each of them served several generations already.
Let’s imagine a bedroom, where tranquillity radiates from the painted, but warn walls. Where the beautiful, carved bed and the fresh, embroidered white bedding provide pleasant sleep despite of the warm climate. Where we can sit out to the small balcony in the morning to drink a coffee by the wrought iron table, later we can go down to the terrace to have our breakfast made of local foods and products – sitting on a cosy bench.
In the kitchen, there is a large, top glassed sideboard with two door panels standing near the wall. This is also painted wood, such as most of the furnitures. In the massive stone fireplace, there is a big earthenware full of fres lavender instead of fire. A solid wood table looms proudly in the middle. It is used for cooking activities such as serving the lunch or dinner. Opening the double French door, we can feel ourselves almost in the garden, the whole house is filled by the scent of flowers and the cool breeze.
Unfortunately, not everyone can live in Provence or can buy a cottage there. But we can smuggle the feeling and the view to our home even if we live in a completely different country. It’s all the same we have a floor apartment or a house with modern design, with clever tricks we can realize the mood. Everyone deserve to have their dreams come true – at least this one…