About Paul Andrew: With more than two decades of design experience, designer Paul Andrew's style and intuition has matured and helped to build Style for Life Interiors into a full service design firm that offers home staging, art acquisition, shopping trips, renovations, and new construction consulting. Style for Life Interiors has performed more than 100 transformations for its residential and commercial clients. Having decorated homes in the suburbs of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, Paul especially enjoys creating townhome spaces that give owners the opportunity to be engulfed in special spaces that are uniquely their own. Paul can be reached at http://www.styleforlifeinteriors.com and pandrew@styleforlifeinteriors.com
Textiles have a huge impact on the mood of a room. You should always invest in the highest quality fabrics you can afford. Whether this is your first home or your dream home you can create lush, luxurious spaces by selecting beautiful fabrics to adorn your abode.
The colors and textures you choose will influence the atmosphere, mood and style of your home.
Choosing fabrics can be both fun and stressful. There are so many options to consider such as:
Bouclé
Broadcloth
Brocade
Cashmere
Chenille
Crewel
Damask
Faille
Gros Point
Imberline
Jacquard
Lampas
Linen
Matelassé
Merino Wool
Mohair
Moleskin
Peau De Soie
Pongee
Ramie
Sateen
Satin
Shantung
Silk
Suzani
Taffeta
Tapestries
Toile
Velour
Velvets
Viscose
Voile
Plan on choosing fabric for furniture, wall treatments, accessories, draperies and bedding. Be sure to select fabrics that are the appropriate weight for their intended use. For example, if your dining room chairs are used frequently an upholstery weight fabric that is more durable would be a much better investment than an unlined silk.
Don't be afraid to combine patterns and textures. It is sometimes difficult to see the big picture when looking at small fabric swatches so the help of an interior designer can be extremely useful and cost-effective in making the right decisions.
Match your color choices to the function of the room. For example, you may want a romantic and restful bedroom, a living room that stimulates conversation or a bathroom that calms and relaxes.
Basic colors such as yellow creates a feeling of happiness and sunshine, blue is calm and restful, red increases energy and excitement while crimson can increase anger, deep dark purple brings a feeling of luxury and increases creativity and other lighter shades create a soothing tone, pink evokes a feeling of romance and sweetness, green relieves stress and orange will stimulate energy and excitement. Neutral colors do not affect mood so you can use them as accent pieces or to tone down a too colorful room.
It is important to consider floor coverings, furniture and wall treatments that are included in your design plan before you select fabrics so that the room will have a unified theme. Begin by choosing a beautiful fabric in a print or pattern that you adore for each room of the house. This fabric will provide the overall focus for each room.
Your next step is to choose two or three other fabrics that will include a color from your original fabric choice. Mix and match colors, weight, scale, textures, sheen and patterns to create a unique look for each room. In some rooms you will select a traditional understated fabric scheme and other rooms will be more bold and playful mixing and matching various fabric elements and colors. Limit your pattern choices to no more than three per room to preserve overall design scheme.
To make the process less stressful and more fun consider reading the books "Color Harmony: Fabric Harmony: A Decorating Guide to Creative Fabric and Color Combinations for the Home" and "Decorating With Fabric and Pattern" both available in bookstores and online.
Your interior designer should can help you with your final color and fabric choices. You will discover that some of your favorite designer or luxury fabrics are only available through your interior designer so it is important to choose someone who understands your vision and your lifestyle.
You will live with your choices for years to come, so take your time making selections that make you happy.
2008, Style for Life Interiors. Copying of Contents, in its entirety is permitted provided that author by-lines are kept intact and unchanged. Hyperlinks and/or URLs provided by author must remain active.
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