Interior Decorating in Your Home

Fabric

Fabric is a wonderful place to start when looking for a colour scheme. You may have some wonderful fabric on an upholstered piece or window treatments that we can draw from or something new may be desired. Fabric on upholstered furniture, on your windows and wrapped around pillows can add layers of  wonderful texture to any room.  I have access to thousands of fabric samples from many different suppliers to find the perfect fabric for your project.

Paint

Just about any colour you can imagine or pull from a fabric can be duplicated in paint. Sometimes simply painting a room, some cabinets or a piece of furniture a new colour makes all the difference on how a room looks and feels.

Lighting

Lighting may be the single most important element in any space. You can decorate a room beautifully but without correct lighting it can fall flat and not be viewed at it's best. The first layer of lighting would be any natural light that you are fortunate to have. South facing windows should give you a good amount of direct natural light all day. East and west facing are also great to take advantage of the morning and afternoon sun. North facing windows will also give you some natural light but it is indirect. Ambient lighting would be next, this is the lighting that will light up all or most of the room usually overhead lighting in the ceiling. Task would be next, such as a reading lamp or under counter lighting. Then accent lighting, this can be used to highlight an object such as a piece of art, accent lighting says ‘look over here'. Decorative lighting becomes a focal point all on it's own and can come in the form of ambient, task or accent lighting, a spectacular chandelier is an example of this type of lighting . Mirrors can often be used strategically across from windows to reflect more natural light in the room as well as reflecting lighting fixtures to give the illusion that more lighting has been used.

Flooring

Flooring is important for many reasons. First it's functional, we need to have something solid and safe to walk on. In the bathroom a non-slip surface is vital for safety reasons but it doesn't mean we have to comprise on the look. There are endless amounts of choices in flooring for the bathroom, from tile look vinyls to ceramic, porcelain and real stone, they all serve a purpose and a budget.

For bedrooms, hallways and other living areas I am a lover of wood flooring, love the look, the sound and the feel under my feet. And, when taken care of, and maintained it should last forever. If you are concerned about the effect on our forests there are companies pulling old pine logs out of the Ottawa river and turning them into the most beautiful new old pine floors. Others are salvaging barn and old factory wood and turning it into amazing flooring. And there is a company in Quebec that is using wood from forests that have a tree management system in place. The colours and finishes available are numerous to suit just about every desire.

There are engineered wood flooring, and laminates with a wood looking finish or a stone or tile look if you prefer those products. Cork is a great alternative when looking for something different, as is bamboo. Environmentally speaking though , concern should be used when choosing man-made flooring as to what is used to bond it together especially if there are young children, seniors or allergies are a concern.

Furniture

The placement of furniture is quite important in a room. We need to look at how the room needs to function - is it a bedroom, living room, kitchen and then determine the number of people having to use the room vs available space. A floor plan is advisable which takes into consideration ease of traffic flowing through the room and the best size of furniture to suit the space and body count.