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DecoDreams
Your Guide to Creating Beautiful Spaces, FAST!
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July 14, 2003
Issue #007
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THE MISSION...DecoDreams is the home-decorating-made-
easy.com e-zine that delivers interior decorating tips, ideas, and solutions to enhance all rooms of your home. Staying on top of what's hot in decorating has never been so easy or fun!
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DON'T FORGET Your Friends!...If you like DecoDreams, please do a friend and me a huge favor and "pass it along"...
...or ask them to subscribe by visiting
Home Decorating Made Easy.com
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***********************ACKNOWLEDGEMENT********************
Diversity of creative ideas has always been the hallmark of home decorating. That's why I've asked designer, artist, educator and writer, Marney Makridakis, to share her own unique brand of decorating advice in our "Ask the Decorator" column. I think you'll enjoy her wit and original insights.
Submit your questions to Marney by clicking here.
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> TABLE OF CONTENTS
o News
1) What Do You Think?
o Featured Article
1) Decorating Around Lousy Paint Colors!
o Turning Ideas Into Action!
1) Ask the Decorator
- Marney Makridakis, The DecoDiva, Answers Your Questions About Dealing With Lousy Paint Colors
o Today's Quote
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEWS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I hope that you're enjoying your summer. If not, just think back to those endless cold winter days and nights...brrr.
For those of you who haven't visited Home Decorating Made Easy in a while, you may want to check out the new changes. Hopefully, you'll find the site easier to navigate.
-News--
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-News--
What Do You Think?
Speaking of changes to Home Decorating Made Easy, I'd like to get your input. After all, the whole point of the Web site...and this newsletter...is to provide you with information that you can use.
So, let me hear what's on your mind. Tell me what we can do to make the site and/or this newsletter better? Are the articles too short, too long, too few, or too many? Are there topics you'd like us to cover?
It doesn't matter. We want to know what's on your mind. You can send your thoughts directly to me by clicking on this email link:
mythoughts@home-decorating-made-easy.com
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FEATURED ARTICLE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Decorating Around Lousy Paint Colors
If you’ve just moved into a home, there’s a good chance that you may not like the paint color that’s already on the walls. However, you may not have the time, money, or inclination to repaint them anytime soon.
It may seem like you’re stuck, but there actually are some easy tricks that can help an undesirable paint color take a back seat to the overall look of the room.
These tricks are also helpful if you’re renting your home or apartment, and you’re not permitted to paint the walls.
On the other hand, perhaps you’re just not sure of your decorating plan for your new space. Or maybe you’ve already painted your walls, but you don’t care for the result.
If any of these sound like your predicament...don’t worry, you’re not trapped!
In this article, I’m going to give you a few tricks that will make it easier to live with a paint color you don’t like.
Before I launch into the tips, I’ll point out that a less-than-desirable paint color in a room doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t like the color. It could be that the color just doesn’t fit the style of your furniture.
For example, a deep, dramatic eggplant color may not work well with American Country wicker. And bright turquoise may not blend with your traditional Louis XIV living room set.
On the flip side, it could be that the lack of color is what’s bothering you. If your home is painted in neutrals and you’re longing to add more personality to your rooms, you’re bound to be frustrated until you infuse the room with color.
It’s also worth noting that colors have a huge impact on your emotional and mental attitude.
Some colors make you feel energized, while some make you feel restful. Some make you feel sociable, while others make you feel more reserved.
You may find that while you love the color orange, a tangerine-colored bedroom is not allowing to you wind down at the end of the night.
-----------Side Bar-----------
If selecting colors terrifies you,
then take the color quiz in our book,
Awaken Your Interior Designer. On
top of that, we provide 135
ready-to-go paint color schemes
that make selecting unifying colors for
all rooms in your home home a no-brainer!
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No matter your reason for wanting to camouflage, tone down, or "tone up" your existing wall color, here are some hints and tricks to try:
- Hang artwork generously, with an emphasis on
large pieces
This is an easy way to ensure that the wall color takes up less visual space in a room. When large portions of the wall are covered, you see less wall, and therefore the wall color becomes more subtle.
If your walls are neutral, you can add a lot of color to the room by selecting vivid and dynamic artwork.
If you are looking to tone down an intense wall color, wall hangings and artwork in neutral tones will soften the look.
But be careful when using black and white photographs and/or artwork on a brightly colored wall. The stark contrast between black and white tends to draw more attention to the bold wall color.
The type of artwork you select will depend largely on the style of your room. For traditionally-decorated rooms, large paintings with wide or elaborate frames work well… as do tapestries or oriental rugs hung on the wall.
For more contemporary styles, art posters (framed or unframed) are great to cover large walls. Place them symmetrically across the wall to create a gallery-type look.
Rustic styles are greatly enhanced by Native-American tapestries, weavings, and blankets.
American Country and the very popular romantic styles such as “cottage style” and “shabby chic” are paired wonderfully with quilts hung on the wall, either on a quilt rack or just hung with tacks or nails.
- Cover the wall completely with fabric
This is an easy way to camouflage an undesirable wall color. You can purchase fabric yardage and use a staple gun to staple it right into the wall.
Covering a wall with fabric is quicker than both paint and wallpapering, and is easily reversible.
The most time consuming element of this kind of project is if you are using a patterned fabric that needs to match up from panel to panel. It’s like matching patterned wallpaper.
-----------Side Bar-----------
If you have our book, Quick & Stylish
Decorative Crafts, you'll find a great
Pleated Wall Fabric Treatment project
inside.
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Another bonus to this technique is the fact that staples leave very subtle marks in the wall. These marks are much smaller and easier to manage than holes left my nails.
For even fewer staple marks, you can buy ready-made drapery panels and hang them from the top of the wall. Either staple or tack them at the top, or hang them on a rod that extends across the wall.
Allow the panels to hang down freely, which provides a subtle amount of movement and texture, and creates a romantic look.
- Select eye-catching window treatments
Adding eye-catching window treatments is a great way to take the attention off a wall color. If you make a window the focal point of a room by framing it attractively, then the window is seen first upon entering the room.
After resting on the window, the eye moves inward to the other elements in the center of the room (the furniture, accents, lighting, etc.), never resting on the wall color itself. It’s a deceptively simple trick...and it works!
If your style is very casual, don’t think that the window treatments have to be formal, elaborate, and fussy. Take a look at the bedroom shown below
The homeowner didn’t care for the pale pink wall color, so she used window treatments to distract from it.
This room has three windows, and each one is adorned with the same treatment. The style of the treatment is classic, yet whimsical.
The colors are bold and fun, and make even more of an impact since they are grouped in a set of three treatments over three windows. When entering the room, it’s the windows that get the focus, not the pastel-colored wall.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TURNING IDEAS INTO ACTION!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Ask the Decorator
DecoDiva, Marney Makridakis, Answers Your Questions About Decorating Around Lousy Paint Colors
QUESTION: I have a bathroom with a lot of pink tile and am not ready to rip it out yet and don't trust that these type of surfaces can be successfully painted.
So what color could I paint the rest of the walls to coordinate with pink in a man's bathroom. Am I correct in the assumption that the lighter the coordinating color, the pinker the tile looks?
ANSWER: You’re right that painting the walls in a light color will emphasize the pastel hues in the bathroom. A darker color, such as a burgundy or forest green, will tone down the pink in the tiles.
If your style is contemporary and you’d like to have a little fun, a masculine way to pull off pink is to combine it with a dark slate gray color, or even black.
These combinations result in a fun and sophisticated “retro” look that will make your bathroom look anything but frilly and feminine.
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QUESTION: My wife and I have just painted our den. It is kind of a Pumpkin color. We have painted over the old paneling with vertical grooves. The job looks good; however, the color is now too strong of an orange and overpowers the room.
Is there something we could do to tone down the bright orange without repainting the entire room and change to a little lighter shade? Maybe some kind of sponging with some kind of softer finish?
ANSWER: Adding a faux finish to soften a wall’s color is an excellent, quick solution to your dilemma. The trick is to select a color that is very similar to the existing color, not more than three shades lighter that the original color. If you selected a paint color from a paint sample strip, it’s easy to select a new shade…just go one to three shades lighter on that very strip.
Mix the lighter shade with a glazing medium (available at your paint store or home improvement store), according to the directions on the product (it’s usually 1 cup paint to 1 cup glaze). Dip a sponge into the glazed paint and apply it to the wall.
You can experiment with different kinds of sponges (a sea sponge leaves a different texture and pattern than a kitchen sponge) and different spacing of the sponged application.
For a less subtle look, you can consider sponging on top of the Pumpkin color with a cream, off-white, or very pale yellow shade. There will be more contrast between the two layers of paint, which will create a dramatic texture and visual effect, without overpowering the room.
Remember to use the glazing medium to ensure that the sponged paint goes on smoothly and does not dry too quickly.
If you can get your hands on a piece of plywood, go ahead and paint it in the Pumpkin color, and then try different sponged top coats to see which look you prefer.
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***************** TODAY'S QUOTE ***************************
"We do not remember days, we remember moments."
-Cesare Pavese
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Wishing you all the best,
Michael J. Holland - President
Home Decorating Made Easy
Copyright © 2003
P.S. Don't forget your fr*ee chapters of Awaken Your Interior Designer. You'll get 72 pages, filled with lots of ideas and photos to put you on the right decorating path.Click here to download your copy right away
P.P.S. If you're thinking of starting a part-time or full-time business for crafts or home decorating, be sure to download our complimentary ebook called From Passion to Cash: How to Make Money With Your Passion of Crafts and Decorating. You'll find lots
of helpful ideas to get you going in the right direction. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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