2008-07-11 02:00:00
Instant Decorating Tips for Every Room in Your House from Hunter Douglas
Decorating does not have to involve a lot of time or expense when you follow these inventive tips from Sally Morse, Director of Creative Services for Hunter Douglas, North America's largest and most successful manufacturer of custom window fashions, to give an instant uplift to every room in your house.
Upper Saddle River, N.J. (eMediaWorld) July 11, 2008 -- As the days stretch into the long, light, hazy days of summer, thoughts turn to vacations. This year, with the escalating costs of gas and a weak dollar "homecations" are becoming popular. Vacationing at home can be a great incentive to update and upgrade your surroundings. Decorating does not have to involve a lot of time or expense when you follow these inventive tips from Sally Morse, Director of Creative Services for Hunter Douglas, North America's largest and most successful manufacturer of custom window fashions, to give an instant uplift to every room in your house:
Refresh your living room for summer with slipcovers in light, washable fabrics. Morse suggests bringing standard slipcovers to a monogram shop where you can add your initials, a family crest or motto to give them a custom look. Lighten up that dark fireplace with the addition of some pale wood strung with lights and replace pictures with groupings of mirrors to add reflected light to a room.
Take down heavy draperies and bring the outdoors in with Hunter Douglas Silhouette® window shadings. Featuring soft fabric vanes suspended between two sheer facings, this window fashion allows you to have your view and even with the vanes open, filter out up to 88 percent of harmful UV rays. A new Bouclé fabric for this product features an organic-inspired, natural look in the three-inch and a four-inch vane size that is ideal for a lighter look for summer.
To refresh your bedroom for a "homecation" Morse suggests new bedding to make the room seem like it belongs in a luxurious boutique hotel. Add some pillows in a variety of sizes anchored by a bolster. Top the bed with a lightweight blanket or pretty sheet and roll a comforter at the foot to have on hand for chilly evenings. Morse also recommends adding some "green" to your rooms with new bamboo fabrics that offer great softness and moisture absorption, making them an especially good choice for summer.
According to Morse, a new coat of paint is one of the quickest and most dramatic decorating uplifts. Bring home those tranquil colors from a seaside vacation, especially the soft blue / greens at the point where the sky meets the sea.
As psychologists advise that we sleep better in a dark room, add some room-darkening window treatments. New Pirouette® window shadings are available in two opacities -- semi-opaque and room-darkening -- in a delightful array of textured fabrics and colors. This innovative window fashion resembles a hobbled Roman shade, but features soft horizontal fabric vanes attached to a sheer backing that open into soft contoured folds for an enhanced view and slide into a flattened position for excellent light blockage -- and a good night's sleep, especially in the room-darkening option.
Morse suggests turning your master bath into a spa with the addition of piles of white towels, scented candles and a fresh coat of paint. And don't forget the "fifth" wall...if you choose white for the walls try painting the ceiling sky blue. To have privacy plus a real sky view in your bath select a window fashion with a Top-Down / Bottom-Up design option such as Duette® Architella™ honeycomb shades. This product features a patented honeycomb-within-a-honeycomb construction for more air pockets than traditional honeycomb shades. It dramatically increases insulating R-values (resistance to heat flow) in colder months and offers impressive Solar Heat Gain Coefficients (SHGC) ratings to cut cooling costs in warmer months.
Don't be afraid of adding color to your kitchen, Morse advises. She reports that the recent addition of a black glass backsplash to her counters sets off other colors and adds space by creating an optical illusion of infinity. Something as simple as changing your kitchen towels can add color and "spice" to a kitchen. At the windows, consider the addition of Heritance® hardwood shutters. These custom-crafted shutters add architectural interest to a room, are easy to maintain and are now available in more colors than ever.
To dress up your dining room, get your silver, mercury glass and china out from the cupboard and put it on display. Add an area rug and change the shades on lamps and ceiling fixtures. Sheer shades will create a soft translucent light. Put all lighting on dimmers so that you can be the movie director of your meals! For summer don't forget natural light. Now is a good time to send heavy draperies to the dry cleaner or replace them all together with a more versatile window fashion like Silhouette window shadings, or Luminette® Privacy Sheers, a product similar to Silhouette shadings but on the vertical.
These are now perhaps the most popular new room in the house. To make yours seem like a movie theater, take some tips from Morse and add movie posters (available on the Internet) and a popcorn machine.
Be sure to have opaque window coverings. A good choice is newly updated Somner® Custom Vertical Blinds, the most complete collection of vinyl and fabric styles on the market with the rich look of hardwood offered as well. Motorization and specialty track systems make it possible to operate these blinds with a touch of a button for show time.
Another excellence choice is Vignette® Modern Roman Shades, a dramatically improved innovation on the traditional Roman shade available in everything from seersucker to satin weaves, with PowerRise® with Platinum™ Technology for remote control operation at the touch of a button. Duette Architella honeycomb shades in an opaque fabric with PowerRise with Platinum Technology are another option. Both of these products also offer high sound absorption ratings.
Follow Morse's tips for children's rooms to better organize the space, eliminate clutter and provide the kids with a room they'll want to spend time in. For an inexpensive headboard that also has shelf space, Morse suggests painting a ladder in bright colors. And brighten up standard white or wood-tone storage units with brightly colored paint or fun decals. Decorate the walls to reflect your child's special interests -- hang a tutu on the wall for a budding ballerina and for your little league star create a window valance with a bat. Make curtains from blue denim and add giant red pockets where your little leaguer can stash his treasure instead of heaping them on the floor! For privacy and soft, diffused light control at the window, use the Playful Possibilities™ collection from Nantucket window shadings, a casual, limited product offering for the budget-minded consumer that allows you to mix and match fabrics and hardware in colors like Spinnaker Blue, Yellow Canopy, Limeade and Cotton Candy. A glue gun can transform an inexpensive lamp into something personal and pretty with the addition of bright buttons.
To address the hazards to young children that can be posed by window covering cords, Hunter Douglas has pioneered safety at the window with the LiteRise® Touch System for cordless operation as well single-cord lift systems, break-away tassels and cord stops, cord tensioners, wand/cord controls and other safety options.
Today as many people are work at home some or all of the time, chances are you need a home office but frequently that space has to serve more than one purpose. Morse advises adding a sleep sofa so your office can also serve as a guest room. Here again she suggests using paint to personalize standard storage units Add family photos and a comfortable chair to make your home office seem more residential and less commercial. That way work won't seem so tough.
With these tips, your home will have an instant uplift for the summer and beyond.
Hunter Douglas Inc. is a national sponsor of Habitat for Humanity, covering windows in every Habitat home built in the U.S. and Canada. Headquartered in Upper Saddle River N.J., the company is the leading manufacturer of custom window coverings in North America.
For more information, contact Hunter Douglas at 1-800-274-2985 or visit: www.hunterdouglas.com.
