Archive | April 2016

For Mother’s Day

DIY decoration ideas for Mother’s Day

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Instead of sets

The matter of a furniture set automatically raises when furnishing the bedroom and the living room. Set of furniture family with the same color, pattern and upholstery can be purchased in bigger furniture shops, covering almost the whole flat. This is a safe choice for the unified sight. But let’s take the risk and choose complementary and matching pieces of furniture instead of a set. Classic style won’t vanish with this!
In a living room, cabinets and tables belong to a group, upholstered furniture (sofa, armchair, ottoman) to the other group, commonly these are together the furnishing. Texture shall be more diverse if the colors are similar. For example: a pair of leather armchairs fit perfectly to a sofa upholstered with beige fabric. A table made of black metal complements well the dark wooden cabinets. If all the seats are upholstered, colors of the sofa and armchairs shall be different but in harmony to each other. Inverse upholstery is an elegant solution for this: highlight the lines of furniture with a distinct colored hemming. The other furniture gets the color of this and its hemming’s color is the first one’s base color.
The colors and materials of the bedroom furniture does not necessarily have to match. For example: a mirrored night table can be placed beside a bed made of wood, moreover, two different night tables on the two sides of it. They shall complement each other, that is important. A chair or pouf in distinct color can be placed to a dressing table. The wardrobe can have the same or similar color to the wall, so it will fade into it, this way a characteristic bed could be the focal point.
The same method can be applied in the case of a dinner table and chairs.
The above mentioned provide an opportunity to use inherited or flea market furniture also. Different materials, colors and textures create an exciting and unique view. Ask for help of an interior designer for creating the perfect harmony!

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Iron stairs

The charm of outdoor iron staircases. Best in black?

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Color pairs 14.

Color pairs: brown-purple

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Mediterranean style

Mediterranean style is continuously popular in Hungary. Usually Italy, especially Tuscany comes to mind about it. The main features can be different in the countries of the region but there is a united picture in public awareness of the interiors. The style itself is a bit rustic and rural, with a warming total effect.
Colors are the most determining during construction. Warm earth colors give the most of the palette: terracotta, oranges, several browns, sunny yellow, dull red and claret. Off-white, moderated turquoise, black and dark green appear as additional colors. From materials let’s choose terracotta, glazed ceramics, black wrought iron, natural stones and brown woods.
The floor is usually covered with glazed tiles or natural stones. This provides pleasant coolness inside the house under the warm climate. This is not so comfortable here in Hungary in winter but laying some smaller woven carpets fit to the style is a solution for this if the weather turns cold.
The walls are mostly plastered and painted. The smudgy, bleached-like, even Venetian plastered thick walls help a lot also in keeping the summer heat out. The doors and windows are made of wood. Shutters are not only functional accessories but decorative elements also. Curtains are light, let the soft breeze in but keep the most of the insects out. Roof tiles are harmonizing with the whole house. A fireplace is needed there also in winter.
The garden complements the sight. Meals are usually kept outside under the shadows of pergolas or trees. Water elements (lake, plashing, fountain) make the heat more tolerable.
Many products fit to the style can be purchased here in Hungary because of the popularity of it: pavements, ready-made wall paints, decoration accessories, fabrics and furniture. Ask for help of an interior designer for creating your Mediterranean style home!

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Cafe curtain

Traditional cafe curtain reborn

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Paint palette 5.

Vivid greens of plants in a bouquet

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The entrance

Welcoming guests begins at the front door of our house not just when they step in. That’s why it is important to have a nice, inviting and clean surrounding of the entrance and the pathway leading to it.
The front door should be decorative! It can be a perfect focal point if painted in a bold color. Let’s strive to keep it immaculate: the peeled painting, hardly working handle and dirty glass panel is not an attractive sight. Naturally vintage, rustic and country styles are exceptions; a shabby wooden door nicely fits to them.
The mat is an important element of the general effect, don’t neglect it. Let it be decorative, fitting by its color and not sleazy or ragged. Sometimes clean it also.
Clean the pathway leading to the house and the stairs regularly. Pay attention to the latter’s safety: the steps should be undamaged, immovable, just like the rails and they shouldn’t become slippery in wet weather.
Symmetry always pays off, it’s very easy to achieve an attractive sight with this trick. The front door is the center. The aim is to decorate both sides of it in the same way. This works even in that case if the door is not opposite with the leading path and we have to turn to step in. The simplest solution is placing some kind of potted plants on both sides of the door. Their style has to be matched with the style of the house. We can complement the given parts with a prudent choice of color.
The look can be made unique with a smart street number. If there is a space near the door, we can create a small sitting area. The success is certain by season decors.
The proper lighting is important! Let’s light not only the space before the door but the pathway and the stairs also for avoiding accidents. Maybe the motion sensory lighting is the best solution for this.
Ask for help of an interior designer creating an elegant an inviting outdoor space!

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Variations 6.

Variations for a theme: flying

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Shoe tray

Frosts are over, the ground becomes muddy because of spring rains and roads are wet in towns also. These can be seen on our boots and shoes of course: we bring the dirt to the porch and hallway. Only some can afford to have a mudroom where all muddy things can be left and it doesn’t matter if the floor becomes dirty. If there is no close hallway or it is small, this is a bigger problem.
Common solution is a plus mat in the hallway to put shoes on it. Its disadvantage is getting dirty soon, and if it is made of rubber, the muddy water remains on its surface and has to be cleaned daily.
A shoe-storage tray is a solution for this, which can be bought in shops also – but we can easily make one by ourselves, this way it will be unique and fit to the interior. All we need is a tray with higher edges. This could be made of metal, plastic or wood (it’s easy to make one from rods), depends on the style. If we just simply put the shoes in it, they would stand in the dirty water. So, let’s fill the tray with a material which lets through the water to the bottom of the tray. This way the soles of shoes can dry out. This material could be small river-gravels, white chads, bigger decor pebbles (black, white, grey) but even glass gravels too. These can be washed in some weeks.
Using corks is a decorative but less lasting solution. Juxtapose them tight. We can raise their lifetime by lacquering top and bottom of them. We can put an outdoor plastic or metal grille in the tray also. In this case we can fill the holes with small pebbles or put a leachy faux-grass on it. Some hard-bristle domestic brushes without haft placed with bristles-up are spectacular and useful solution also.
It’s a more creative way to reuse a fitting object instead of a tray: e.g. a drawer, an old tool box without its lid, a smaller suitcase etc. Its width is important because the biggest shoe/boot should be fit in easily. We can fix wheels or legs on the bottom of them for the more interesting look.
Ask for help of an interior designer for solving smaller problems clever and stylish.

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