Nice Home Live

Houses nowadays often have relatively small bedrooms even if the rooms downstairs are large. However, with a few tricks when furnishing and decorating you can make the most of the smallest of rooms.

by sarahridgley

Here are our tips to maximise your space and fool the eye!

• Remove clutter which always makes a room look smaller than it actually is. Be creative with your storage solutions (pretty baskets on shelves, under-bed storage drawers etc) so that your room does not look cramped. Read the rest of this entry »

While you may not want a permanent transformation in your home for Halloween, you’ll definitely want to decorate your property, especially if you’ve got little ones to please.

Photo: Marissa Babin

Traditionally, colours associated with the Pagan event tend to include orange and black, with green and purple tending to be linked with witches, but all of these are perfectly apt if you’re decorating. Whether you’re making your home Halloween themed to entertain children or adults, you’ll need to have some basic things strewn around to make sure it looks the part. Read the rest of this entry »

There is something really satisfying about renovating your own home. Watching the building change from the state it was in when you bought it to something approaching your dream home is a fantastic experience and one which is often a once in a lifetime journey. Daunting though it may seem when you first begin, there are some jobs which can very quickly make a big difference.

Photo: j l t

If you have the luxury of working on the property whilst it is empty then doing remedial works such as re-wiring or plumbing are achieved more easily, and empty rooms are much easier to decorate too. One of the projects which you might tackle fairly early on in the process is the wood work such as skirting, architraves, doors and floors. Replacing interior doors with hardwood doors throughout will instantly lift the house to be something special, and matching that with new woodwork elsewhere gives every room a fresh new look. Repairing plaster and starting your interior design scheme from a blank canvas will have much the same effect. Read the rest of this entry »

So, what do you think this article might be about then? Hmmm… difficult one… well, not really! Proportion is one of those interior design essentials which many people assess instinctively rather than applying any science, let alone a ruler. The relationship between the size of a space and the things in it is a key factor which will determine the look and feel of any room, regardless of anything else you do with colours or textures and so on.

Photo: These Days Blog

We are all able to identify the basics: sparse furnishings create a minimalist look, overstuffed furniture a cosy feel and so on but what about the more subtle spacial relationships. For example, if you are purchasing new bedroom furniture to revamp you bedroom you may want a particular piece to become the focal point. To do this, you need to make a bold statement and make sure that the rest of the pieces in the room don’t ‘fight’ visually. A huge and ornate four poster bed will look fantastically dramatic in a large bedroom, but needs to be surrounded by plainer furniture to really present it to the greatest effect. In a smaller room you may decide to feature a large, elaborate mirror which will change the proportions of the room through reflections alone. Read the rest of this entry »