When it comes to home decor in 2007, the experts are predicting it’s all about creating a comfortable space that reflects personal style.
It’s no longer enough for a room to be beautiful. The best-designed rooms should be stylish and so inviting you want to put your feet up and stay awhile.
“It’s all about combinations,” said Davis Remignanti, a lead design consultant at Furniture.com, “getting the right mix of colors and materials and silhouettes. But now more than ever before, the coming year will be about blending the two most important ingredients for any well-designed interior: style and comfort. No matter how stylish it may be, if a room doesn’t make you feel relaxed and comfortable, it’s not well-designed.”
Whew, finally. It’s now in vogue to mix and match what you’ve got.
The best-designed rooms should have a layered look, as if pieces were acquired over time rather than purchased in a matching set. Classic wood furniture with different finishes can be mixed in one setting, for instance.
It’s even OK to mix formal and traditional decorating styles. It used to be only high-end designers who would dare – and pull off – mixing traditional with casual or modern dcor. Now more young homeowners are pairing seemingly disparate styles, said Vicki Ingham, a senior editor for Home Decorating &Design Books. She cites Vera Wang’s new line of home goods for Kohl’s targeted at the consumer who wants “classic style with a modern twist.”
In the ultimate attempt to make decor relaxed, the trendsetters are creating a cottage look in their homes. No need to retreat to the lake cabin when your living room already looks like one.
Planning a kitchen or bath remodel? Stainless steel is on the way out. Warm-toned, oil-rubbed bronze and copper will become more prevalent in hardware, plumbing and lighting fixtures. You’ll also see more small and large appliances in these metals.
Kitchen and bath cabinets will continue to look more like custom furniture. You’ll see more cabinets with painted and glazed finishes and combinations of wood, glass, stone and metal, including wire mesh in cabinet doors.
Two colors banished with leisure suits are making a comeback: orange and brown. Mineral tones including grays, browns and blacks and yellows are back too, especially in wall colors. Painting walls black is the rage. Clear, bright Caribbean tones, used with restraint, are replacing the pastel tones popular in previous years.
If you’d rather not paint your walls black, experts said decorative wall treatments continue to be a cost-effective way to change a room’s appearance. Madonna’s new son has one. An artist can paint a custom mural on a wall or homeowners can order one made from a stock image or their own personal photographs or illustrations.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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