top of page

Designer Tips for Bringing Joy into Your Home



Want more Joy?


Bring Flowers into your home - for good - no watering needed.


This antique painted panel has all my favorite colors, right there, all in one spot.  Warm golds and soft reds and greens. My living room would have had these colors with or without that panel.  What I like about the piece is the simple stylized horses and charming cottage on the top panel and how they’ve got nothing to do with the floral pattern on the bottom.  Quirky.  Just my style.  


I don’t always recommend matching artwork colors to fabrics and furnishings in a room but these are my colors and I had already purchased the living room fabrics so in this case, they coordinate!


When researching colors to use for a space, you can start with a floral fabric or patterned rug and use that pallet of color as inspiration for the room.    n the living room here, we have a combination of fabrics with pattern and solid fabrics.  The Namaysamay Roman Shade fabric is a new addition. The soft caramel color coordinate / blends with the bottom rug of the two layered rugs. The Curtain floral from Brunschwig & Fils I’ve had for nearly 20 years now. By using a floral on a curtain, you see the variation of color more than the actual floral pattern. And we love this floral so we’ve made pillows for the sofa and built ins flanking the fireplace. Designer tip: When making a pillow you can choose what part of the pattern you want to highlight.



The dining room is adjacent to the living room, so we used the same floral fabric on the living room curtains, as we did for shades in the dining room. With a window shade you get to see the pattern in all it’s glory.  Here, too, you can choose where to start the repeat of the floral.  We chose to coordinate with the curtain in the living room so the rhythm of that large floral pattern matches.  


Dylan’s Room

A floral fabric brings a pallet of color. Using a variety of blues, a new rhythm is created. They don’t all match exactly and they don’t have to! The variety of one shade becomes pattern in itself that grabs you by the hand and brings you onto the dance floor.  In other words, no wall flowers here. This floral is printed on a beautiful linen with a number of shades of blue (Cowtan and Tout; Hanbury - Blue,Celadon). Keep in mind that using a pattern on a Roman Shade helps distract the eye from the many potential wrinkles that naturally occur by raising the lowering the shade every day.


In my husband’s office, we chose a wonderful zig zag climbing stripe pattern (Jee Jofa; Whitaker Print / Sand, Grey)  for his window shades, no floral in here, but the softer pallet and the bold pattern feel very at home here. Coco likes it. 


I’ve never appreciated more, the cheerfulness and elegance all the floral pattern and color variety bring to our home since the number of cold rainy gray days reached an all-time high this Spring. If you need new window coverings for any room in your home, or want to brighten up a space, I highly recommend searching for some fabric that brings you joy and making some Roman Shades.


Stay Tuned  

We are making some changes in the Living Room. It’s time anyway. The sofa will be reupholstered with a beautiful warm red wool and linen textured fabric by Holland and Sherry.  My chair & ottoman will be re-covered in a small tiny scale leopard pattern (Thibaut; Masai ) and my husband‘s chair will get a bold, zebra pattern (Material Works; Kalahari).  


I’m excited to see it all come together, even the fireplace cushions will get  refreshed with a lighter fern pattern fabric (Fabricut; Martine).  I’ll keep the existing pillows and since Coco ate a hole in the sofa, it got me thinking to keep using throws. She’s still a puppy so it makes sense that all the new fabrics are stain resistant and or durable in some way. Beautiful & Practical. That’s my style.


 

Need some professional guidance? Please contact us, we'd love to help.



Gretchen Reinheimer Design

Creating extraordinary spaces together









Comments


Recent Posts
Archive
bottom of page