Ten Do's and Don'ts of Picture Hanging

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To help you get the “hang” of artful arranging, the following are some positive pointers on picture grouping. REMEMBER! Your front door talks about you to everyone who passes by... your walls gossip about you to all your friends. Walls are the largest single feature in any room! Be sure yours make a positive statement by careful selection of your artwork, framing and hanging!

1. COMPOSITION is the key. Consider your grouping as a single unit. LINE, BALANCE, RHYTHM and SCALE. 
2. First, work out an attractive arrangement on the floor. Remembering to measure out the entire amount of wall space you have to work in. Trace an outline of each picture on paper and use these as guides for placement on the walls. This will eliminate unnecessary nailholes. (Newspaper, freezer paper, brown craft paper). 
3. The eye craves order, so remember your practical geometry. Hang pictures so that they form at least one horizontal, and one vertical line. (With the exception of a round grouping.) 
4. Your arrangement should hang-together, literally. Too much space between pictures disrupts the graphic effect. (Use your hand width as a good spacing between pieces.) 
5.  Remember, not only size, but color and textures will affect the balance. Always integrate groupings for balance by keeping the weight of your composition well distributed. 
6. Add Rhythm by combining large and small squares, rectangles and circles, but mingle the various shapes and sizes throughout to add visual interest. 
7. Permanent accessories such as lamps, are important to remember, so include them into your plan.  
8. Correct scale is such a common factor in decorating that we are not aware of it until it is absent. Sizes of objects used together. Standing a pony beside an elephant will make the pony look smaller or the elephant look larger… tiny pictures over a large overstuffed sofa or vice versa is incorrect. 
9. Stair-stepping pictures is a no-no unless hanging them on a stairway wall. How HIGH or How LOW???? Remember, everyone’s “eye-level” is different. 
10. The Rule to remember is: No more than 6 to 8 inches above a piece of furniture or at average eye level if not above furniture. 

You can view other free framing articles and tips for arranging artwork at the photograph's website. The artist offers free screensavers along with affordable prices for beautiful pictures. Mr. McNulty’s web site www.premierphotographer.com offers some of the finest fine art photography available online. You can reach Pat McNulty at 610-395-1834 or via e-mail at webmaster@premierphotographer.com Take a look at www.premierphotographer.com for several other free articles on framing and arranging artwork, along with free decorating articles. “ Happy Hanging”

Why Custom Furniture May Be Better for Your Budget

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When we hear the phrase “custom built,” the thought that often automatically follows is “expensive” – and with good reason. Since custom-built furniture is takes up more time and effort and expert know-how to make than mass produced items, there is naturally more cost involved.

But do you know that there are actually times when custom furniture can be less expensive in the long run? Here are three reasons why:

1. Custom furniture stays in good shape longer. Generally speaking, custom-built furniture will keep in good shape long after that store-bought cabinet’s doors have gone askew. One reason for this is that you could specify the materials you wish to be used, and how you want it to be treated, so that it does not rot or mold or break easily.

This means you’ll only need to buy that piece of furniture once. It will not be an expense that recurs every other year.

2. Custom furniture retains its value. When custom furniture is properly built, its value appreciates over time, unlike mass-produced furniture, which begin to depreciate the moment they are loaded onto the delivery van. It is, when well made, a work of art. If, someday, you decide to sell it off, you may even make some profit from the deal.

3. You can make one piece of furniture do the work of two. For instance, it’s not every day that you can find office tables that can also be used as a reliable safety deposit box in your neighborhood furniture store. Getting one custom built will spare you from having to buy an office table and a separate safety deposit box – which, by the way, will eat up extra space you may wish to use for something else.

It will also be a good way of hiding your valuables. Who would have thought that table had a secret compartment? Only you and your furniture builder would know.

The Importance of Accessories in Decorating

 

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For many of us, accessories are the last things we consider when we design our homes and offices. Often, we plan the materials for the floors, the color of the wall, maybe even the finish for the ceiling, and the type of furniture we will put in. But seldom do we think about the accessories that will finish it all off.

In the end, we come up with a room that feels comfortable, looks decent, but somehow feels incomplete – like a salad without dressing, or an iced cake without flowerettes, or a low-cut dress without a necklace to match.

Now if you’re still wondering why the room feels incomplete, let me spell it out for you: it is incomplete. You haven’t put in the accessories yet!

Paint and floors and ceiling and furniture make a room – but it is the accessories that make it your room. In exactly the same way, offices have hundreds of identical cubicles. Only when you’ve put in your family pictures and potted plants does it become your cubicle.

Without the accessories that mark a territory as your territory, that piece of space will never completely feel like home. It will feel like a nice hotel room – shiny, anonymous, impersonal.

So when you design your room or office, remember not to stop halfway. Put some pictures or other interesting items on the walls, tables, or shelves. Put in your favorite books or magazines, and let the world know what you feed your mind with. Let your choice of blinds or curtains reflect who you are: bamboo, lace, or beads, perhaps?

Of course, make sure that all these things combine harmoniously with each other. You don’t want your picture frames or curtains to clash with your furniture or walls. And this is why you need to plan your accessories along with everything else; they should not be an afterthought, because really, your room will never be truly finished without them.

(Can you imagine how annoying it would be if, after all the time you’ve spent cutting and washing up veggies for your salad, anticipating how heavenly it would taste after you’ve tossed it in with your favorite dressing, you discover that there’s nothing but chocolate syrup in the house?)

Decorating with Plants: Tips and Tricks

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Plants are a great way to add color, life, and a refreshing dose of nature and oxygen into a room. They can be intimidating to some of us, though, because they are living things and need a little more care than picture frames and figurines.

You don’t need to be daunted by the prospect of decorating with plants, though. All you need to do is remember a few simple things.

1. Choose a sunny spot for your plant. As you know, plants get their food from the sun. Without sunlight, your plant will die, and instead of adding oxygen into your room, it will add carbon dioxide instead.

2. Choose plants that thrive indoors. Some plants survive indoor conditions better than others. Cacti, bamboo palms, ivies, and philodendrons are some. Herbs such as basil and thyme generally survive pretty well on a kitchen window sill – and they are often useful for more than decoration there too.

3. Make your pots match your décor. Terra cotta pots are popular, but they aren’t your only option, and they certainly won’t work well for all kinds of decors. If your home has a sleek, modern look, you want sleek, modern pots. If you have bamboo furniture, you can put your terra cotta pots inside wicker baskets. If you have an all white motif, with white sofa covers and white frames hanging on the wall, you may need white pots as well.

4. Choose different sizes of plants. Big plants, small plants, plants with different shapes of leaves – these are more interesting to look at than several tiny pots of barrel cacti scattered all over your living room.

5. Match the size of the plant with the space. If you have a large empty space, you don’t want to hang a tiny little plant there. You need something that will match the space. Likewise, a large potted plant should not be placed on top of a small corner table. Your plants should nicely fill out the space available for them.

Urban Scope Design Tip: Use Mirrors to Enlarge a Room

Here's an actual Urban Scope Designs' client's home. We furnished the room in neutrals and creams, accenting the appointments with a few accessories that gave the space a Zen-like quality. Since this home was particularly narrow, too, we opted to use panel mirrors on one side of the condominium unit. This gave the illusion that the space was actually bigger and wider. It's a less expensive alternative to extending the unit with an annex.

How to Achieve an Uncluttered Children’s Playroom

Photo credit: Christaface

 An “uncluttered playroom” almost sounds oxymoronic, a contradiction of terms, like “open secret,” “serious comedy,” and “airline food.”

But believe it or not, it is possible to achieve an uncluttered playroom for your kids – at least for those times when they are not playing in it. Here are two easy steps for doing just that:

1. Ditch the shelves. Use boxes instead. All those toys, in plain sight and easy access – it’s just too tempting for your children to pull them all down onto the floor, whether or not they wish to play with them.

It will help minimize your clutter if, instead of open shelves, you have large chest boxes instead. It is far quicker and easier for your kids to dump everything into a box than to pile items one by one back into a shelf.

To keep little ones from getting their fingers caught in a hinged lid, choose a box with a light unhinged lid instead. (You want it to be light so that it won’t slip out of their hands and fall onto their little feet – and even if it does, it won’t cause injury because it’s light.)

Of course, you’ve got to manage your expectations. If you’ve got multiple boxes – one for wood toys, another for plush toys, and another for plastic toys, perhaps – expect that you’ll find wood, plastic, and plush all mixed together in each box every time you check, unless you had taken the time to rigorously train your child to categorize according to your standards.

Well, at least they’re not cluttered up on the floor.

2. Keep the “one in, one out” rule. Toys have a way of accumulating, especially during birthdays and Christmas. At some point, you simply run out of places to put them in.

If your current storage is no longer sufficient for the amount of toys your kids have, don’t add more storage! Send out some of the toys. Do an inventory and simply throw away the broken ones. Ask your kids, too, which toys they no longer want.

Toys that are still nice but are no longer attractive to your children could be stored in some inaccessible shelf, out of the playroom and out of the way. Better yet, give them away to other children who may get more enjoyment from them. This way, those other kids get new playthings, you have less clutter in the house, and your own kids have more space for new toys – so everybody’s happy!

Frugal Ways to Decorate with Jars

Photo credit: ]babi]

Jars make interesting and versatile decorative items, since they come in a variety of attractive shapes and different sizes. And since you’ve already paid for them when you bought the foodstuff they contained, your jars are now practically free! What more could a frugal decorator ask for?

Here are some ways you can decorate with jars:

1. Use them as vases. Jars can make good flower vases. Just make sure you regularly change the water to keep it clean and clear and nice to look at. A row of these jars, each filled with colorful flowers, can make an eye-catching décor.

Or try using gel beads – brightly colored, translucent, water-soaked beads that your plants can get hydration from. Choose a color that will match or complement your room décor, then skip the flowers altogether and stick in something more subtle, like the lucky bamboo plant. Even just one of these jars in a room can be a very effective conversation piece.

2. Make a kitchen herbarium. Grow your own cooking herbs right in your kitchen, and infuse some green freshness into the area. And to highlight the kitchen motif, use your food jars to grow the herbs in.

Just fill the jars with soil and compost, plant a few herb seedlings, then line the jars up near the windowsill. Snip a few leaves when you need them for your dishes.

Some good herbs for an indoor garden are thyme, rosemary, mint, parsley, and basil, because they don’t grow too big.

3. Turn them in candle holders. Small wide-bottomed jars make good tea candle holders. Five or more identical jars such as these, lighted at the same time, can give any room a relaxing atmosphere and a romantic ambience.

4. Fill them with colorful trinkets and other stuff. A row of jars filled with different things often make very interesting décors. In the kitchen, you can fill your jars with cereal, cookies, candies, or uncooked pasta. In the bathroom, try small colored hand soaps, cotton balls, bath salts, or rolled wash cloths. In the living room, you can fill your jars with potpourri, pine cones, sea shells, glass pebbles, Christmas balls, spools of thread, balls of yarn, candy hearts, etc. Or you could put a photograph in each jar and turn them into picture “frames.”