I personally love to watch the interior decorating shows on HGTV because I believe they have some excellent tips, tricks and color and material combinations. I have renovated and added on to my home and have used a lot of the advice from HGTV. For instance, my favorite color combination which is used quite a bit on HGTV is chocolate brown and sky blue. I used that particular color combination in the main living areas of my home. My dining room has light green walls and red accessories and I get a lot of compliments on that room. So, what are the decorating trends and am I in style? Let’s find out together!
According to RUM, an interior decorating magazine which has an on-line site noted in their blog some really good guesses about the trends; and one of their first guesses for design trends is the use of natural wood in design, in furniture and almost everywhere you will look. I actually had all of my floors in my home done in either hard unfinished Red Oak, which was finished after it was laid, or ceramic tile. I must say that I absolutely love my hardwood floors! They are gorgeous, durable and only get better with age. Hardwood floors and furniture are well worth the investment.
Another furniture and interior design trend, according to RUM magazine, is eclecticism. Eclecticism is a style generated by combining different styles or ideas. For instance, you could mix both traditional and transitional styles in your home to come up with your own signature style. To me, eclecticism makes a home look more natural and comfortable because the home appears to have collections within it which came over time. Eclecticism is definitely not buying the entire matched set on the showroom floor; it is about purchasing quality pieces of furniture which are similar in some ways and different in others.
An interesting furniture trend which the writers of RUM picked is the use of Plexiglas. Plexiglas furniture is built of the see-through Plexiglas hard plastic. You could use Plexiglas furniture to make a room appear much larger than it really is. Since you can see through, say, the coffee table, it would give the appearance of more space in the room than there is. You would want to use Plexiglas furniture in a small apartment to make it appear larger. In addition, Plexiglas is a snap to clean!
Also, according to the writers of RUM magazine, a furniture and interior design trend is a hand-picked style which goes along with eclecticism. When you are designing a space, you can let your personality show through by handpicking furniture from different styles or eras that you really like and then tie it together with color. When you go shopping you should have a color scheme in mind and pick different pieces within the scheme.
You want to end up with 60% of the main color on the wall, 30% of a different color generally within the furniture and 10% of an accent color you can get throws, pillows, and accessories in.
A fifth furniture and interior design trend is choosing classical pieces of furniture that never go out of style. When you pick the furniture for your home, pick well-made furniture which will outlast you if you can afford it. Well-made wood, leather, and upholstered furniture may seem to cost a lot on the front end, but it is furniture that is durable enough that you will never need to replace it and it will be handed down to your children and grandchildren. If you choose to buy cheap furniture that breaks easily, you will end up putting more money into your furniture by needing to replace it every time you turn around than you would have if you would have bought good solid furniture from the start.
According to the writers of RUM magazine, black has become a classical color; which means that you could choose furniture from different time periods all in black and end up with a classic, collected look to your home. For instance, why not choose black wing back solid wood chairs to go with a dark solid oak table. Black is a color which will make your room feel handsome and rich!
According to RUM magazine, people will need that pop or explosion of color paired with their classic pieces of furniture. This is the 10% of your accent color. Your walls could be off-white, your floor light Red Oak, your furniture dark oak and black and you could have any accent color you choose such as red, green, blue or orange. Your accent color is the color you can have fun with because it is in the room’s accessories.
RUM magazine takes the color trend further by saying that what is in for interior design aren’t just accent colors, but colors with attitude. For example, you could choose orange as your accent color and then purchase an original painting or a giclee print with the orange accent color and other bright colors to play off of the orange. Have you ever seen a Kandinsky painting? Kandinsky’s paintings are rich with color in geometric patterns and a painting like that with complementary colors to the orange accent would liven your room up and give it even more personality!
According to RUM magazine, glosses are in for the furniture trends. How about a black high gloss set of chairs or a set of lamps. If you get the high gloss black there are infinite accent color possibilities, just remember to keep your wall color and your floor color classic and neutral. Against an off-white wall and light oak floors, you can decorate your room in any colors you can imagine!
For a final furniture and interior design trend, RUM magazine suggests going with timeless pieces that you will love now and twenty years from now. For instance, choose the classic leather couch instead of one upholstered in fabric. Leather wears well and only looks better with age. Also, instead of choosing poorly put together stock chairs for your table, choose the well-made solid wood chairs because they will prove to be well worth the money in the long run.
In conclusion, it sounds like furniture and interior design trends will be choosing timeless pieces of furniture that last and going beyond just an accent color and choosing paintings for your room which build on your accent color to give the room some real life after this gloomy economy. Also, since apartments tend to be micro spaces at best nowadays, people will be choosing furniture made of durable Plexiglas in an effort to maximize the appearance of space in the room.
