Oh, to Be a Decorator

Introduction

I have worked in exclusive furniture sales for many years. I have attended many decorator workshops. I am a world traveler. I am also an artist, a poet, a writer, and a decorator.

Decorating is simple if you know what type of furniture to use for your style of home.

Now, eclectic grouping of the three styles of furniture is used as well as antiques. For instance, if your husband insists on using a contemporary sectional, you can use your antique given to you by your aunt if you wish to; it’s okay.

If your home is a colonial brick with columns, chances are you prefer traditional furniture mixed with some antiques and early American. Coffee tables made of mahogany wood or maple wood with a rose wood trim and Queen Ann legs are an excellent choice. However, they are very expensive.

We have a flea market sales at First Monday near where we live. All types of furniture are displayed at First Monday every month in Scottsboro, Alabama, at low flea market prices. The sale of the home merchandise is displayed all around the square in nearby Scottsboro, Alabama.

Sometimes used furniture in good condition can set off your room decor and make your room full of furniture look more elegant and exquisite.

It is a good idea to purchase an antique value book. This will enable you to know the value of the purchase you make, whether it is an antique, a dish, or a furniture item.

When purchasing occasional tables for your home, it is more stylish to have three different shapes, such as a round, a square, or an oval or a butler’s tray octagonal table.

Oriental rugs are fashionable for a dressy up town look. They can be used even over a low pile carpet. This gives the room charm and adds warmth.

Wing chairs are necessary for the elegant dressy look.

A ball and claw foot secretary in mahogany would make the room have more atmosphere in a traditional living room; it would add character. Mahogany is a dark wood usually found on most ball and claw secretaries. My grandmother left one to my daughter. The antique adds a lot to the room. It is priceless to her.

If you purchase one on the open market, the cost is usually three to four thousand dollars. Again, if you can find a used one at a flea market, buy it quickly. It is an excellent buy for the living room. If you were fortunate enough to be left any cherry dining room occasional tables or Chippendale chairs in mahogany, cherish them. They make good additions to your home and help give the decor character.

I was asked to help pick out some paint trim for my parents’ summer home on the lake soon after I became a decorator. The home had a new roof already installed. The home was of gray rock. The roof was a medium brown. The color was not a good combination. It did not look as though the roof went with the house. Dad had purchased a bargain on the roofing material.

The wooden doors were dressy hand-carved wood in squares. The door pulls were pewter.

I remembered in one of my workshops that a home on the lake or sea front should be a loud, festive color. I could have chosen a turquoise blue. I could have chosen a river green. I could have painted the door a mud color. However, I decided to go with a mauve and paint the doors a slate color because the roof lines were sheik, and the home was in a high-income area. The home was valued at three hundred thousand dollars.

The painters were shocked at the color. However, at my insistence, they began to paint. The mauve brought together the mismatched brown roof and gray rock. It brightened the home up. The doors of slate were lightened up a bit. The door pulls were left a pewter. The home was beautiful and looked what it was worth.

Color is important in the interior of the home as well as on the outside of the home. My many courses in color and trips to many countries helped me in choosing the right color.

You can gage color sometimes by your clothing. For instance, if you wear a navy dress, you might brighten up the color up with red accessories. All that you know comes in handy when it comes to color coordinating. Sometimes three lights and darks of one color bring out the wood, such as dark mauve, medium mauve, and light mauve.

The wood carved door on my dad’s lake house could have been in three colors of mauve to show up the woodwork on the door. However, I decided not to do that. The reason was that the house was of a gray rock, and it was cut to look like a long brick. The roofline was long. The home was contemporary in design. It had a lot of class. The home was sheik.

It had a swimming pool as large as the Holiday Inn’s. There was enough wood trim on the house to paint the mauve color, including the private wooden fence that partly surrounded the pool area. The house brought top dollar after a good clean up and a trim paint job of a bright festive color.

After you’ve decided what colors to use for your home, it’s good to draw your rooms off on scale paper before you shop for furniture. First, you need to purchase some scale paper at the store. Each square represents twelve inches. Take a tape measure with you when you go shopping. Also a slide rule is good to have when measuring your floors. The length of the room and the width of the room are what you need. Then draw it off to scale onto the paper. This is much needed so that you can make sure the furniture is spaced far enough apart so you can walk around the room freely with out bumping into it.

Also your furniture needs to be balanced in a room. For instance, if you have a sofa on one side of the room, then perhaps two wing back chairs spaced a little apart for a table and lamp will balance the sofa. This way when some are sitting on the sofa, some guests will sit in the wing chairs. You have to balance the room for good decorating. The chairs don’t have to be wing backs; they can be any design you want.

Also the focal point of the room such as a fireplace mantel has to have balance. You need to have the larger piece, such as a mirror, taller in the center and maybe a big vase a little smaller and not as tall by each side of the mirror. Then, if you have room on the hearth, some candles a little shorter on either end of the mantel are nice. This would be a line elevating up on each side to a point in the center. It is balanced. It’s easy to do.

If you have a wall facing the fireplace and have room, you may want to put in a narrow console curio and hang a painting over it. This would balance the opposite side of the fireplace. It’s all about walkways, balance, and color.

The fabric you choose as well means a lot. If you want to use the room frequently, you might want to use durable fabric. A sales person is qualified to assist you in this case. Freely ask her, or him, any question about the fabric for your furniture, sofa, and chair purchases.

Accents to a room and accessories are a good mixture to have in your room decor. For instance, a ficus tree set in the corner of the room is all the go now. Also candles set on a cocktail table, the fireplace mantel, and the dining room table are very popular.

If you entertain for a special event such as a wedding, fresh roses or some fresh flowers set in a silver container are called for. However, when you’re not entertaining, sometimes silk flowers are a nice arrangement to have.

Aside from silk flowers, real plants of many different kinds of greenery such as ferns and elephant ears scattered throughout the home are a nice touch.

Accessories of many types to accent your decor are in demand for the decorated home. For early American decor, eagles, pilgrims, and baskets of daisies in pictures hung on the walls enhance the early American decor. I saw a painting of a rocker with an afghan folded and placed on the back of the ladder-back rocker. I remember the artist, Hubert Suptrine. I also saw a bucket of apples under a faucet with water running over the bucket and apples. Roosters, ducks, etc., are wonderful complements to the country or early American decor.

Also big poster beds are excellent to use for a country villa or in a farm house with a front porch all the way around the house. Braided rugs are a must for a country look, as are antique headboards, spindle headboards, foot boards, and spindle chairs with early American tables with spindle legs. Spinning wheels, horses, and cows in paintings are also attractive. Just go country all the way when you decorate the farmhouse and the log houses, or if you just simply like the early American country look.

Decorating the old fifty’s downstairs level was also interesting. The size of the downstairs made me think of a ship. The living area was paneled with a maple wood. The fireplace was made of old brick. The brick had been taken from an old burned building. The color of the brick was mauve, silver, and slate. There was a maple wood mantel and an opening at the end of the hearth for a small TV. The kitchen was long, and the appliances were built in. There was a place under the stairs for a small refrigerator. Near the sink on the left side was a small opening for a built-in refrigerator. Two Dutch ovens occupied a space in this kitchen. It was neat. The cabinets were maple with indirect lighting over the cabinets.

There was one master bedroom with double closets, a huge window, and a space for a TV on the opposite wall of the bed. Down the hall were three bedrooms, one small bedroom and two a little