For many of us who live a hectic fast paced lifestyle, coming home to a soothing and relaxing bedroom retreat is a luxury that we can only dream of. These tips will help you create a calming zen bedroom design that will look like you hired a pro.
If you want a relaxing environment, then neutral colors and rich textures are the key. Pick sage green, or tan as a base and go with that. If you like grays you can even use a palette of gray, although this color can be kind of cold. Pick a color that you can use on both the walls and floors as it is desirable to make them the same color. Take your cue from nature and use colors that you might find in a soothing setting outdoors.
You’ll want to accent the room with plants, soothing waterfall bowls and candles to complete the look and feel. Perhaps a meditation mat in front of a candle fireplace?
Choose plain furniture for your Zen bedroom – if your current furniture is old and distracting and you don‘t want to buy new, paint it a neutral color that goes with your color scheme. Think about adding some Japanese paper panels in front of any pieces that detract. If your old furniture just won’t suit the room but you are on a limited budget, shop around at your local consignment store for pieces that match. You may have to go every day but sooner or later that perfect set is bound to show up!
You want your Zen bedroom design to have a monochromatic look with different shades of the same color, but you an add some punch with a complimentary accent color which you can spread around in pillows, wall art and vases in a few places around the room (not too much).
The window treatments should be light and flowing – simple sheers in white that flow down to the floor would work. Lighting should be calming and not distracting – something with clean square lines and very simple.
Now if you are thinking your Zen bedroom is going to be looking pretty plain, you can use your bedding to add some interest. You want to keep with a monochromatic look to the bedding, but you can make it stick out by using layers of color that are a subtle shade off and rich quality fabrics. Try some sheets or a comforter that has a design embroidered or embossed in the same color as the fabric. Add interest by using materials with a nice texture – crisp cotton, soft velvet or dupioni silk can add interest and be soothing to the touch and comfy to relax in!
Accents are what make a room unique so your Zen bedroom deserves some relaxing accessories. Not too many though as you want to avoid clutter. How about a soothing tabletop waterfall or some aromatherapy candles? You can buy structures that hold candles in sort of a pyramid and create a faux fireplace with candles as the feature. Or maybe you want a mini Zen garden? Use a small coffee table and put a sand garden with mini rake on top. A shoji screen can work to divide the room or add a nice accent to a corner – you can make them yourself using rice paper and wood.
Imagine that you’ve revealed a designer’s talent in you and did your best to create a kitchen of your dream. The floor ornament ideally matches the curtain fringing, as well as the vases perfectly match the colour of the lamp. Yet, something is still missing. Kitchen comfort depends not only on your good taste and productive imagination. The air should be fresh but not cold. Materials should possess good cleaning properties, but not be toxic. Just a creative approach is surely not enough – you should study a more down-to-earth side of the question.
Breathe in a chestful of clean air.
The kitchen like no other room in the house requires fresh air. It is especially true if you enjoy cooking and spend a lot of time in the kitchen. The fragrance of grilled chicken or baked layer cake which was not aired on time quickly loses its pleasant flavor. And it is not an appetizing fragrance any more, but a bad whiff penetrating into all rooms of the house. So, if your dwelling still bears the scent of yesterday’s ravioli, think, maybe there are problems with ventilation in your kitchen?
It’s easy to check if the kitchen extractor works properly. Put the sheet of paper to the air diffuser: if it “adheres” to the hole, then the system is all right.
There can be various reasons of the disabled ventilation: electricity fault, the channel was littered up, or some quick bird nested there etc.
How to choose an exhaust hood.
If you want the air in the kitchen to be clean and fresh, even the best ventilation system will not be enough.
It is known that combustion residue are produced while cooking. It is not healthy to inhale them. Besides, fat and smoke is not good for kitchen furniture, ceiling and walls either. So, you should buy a kitchen exhaust hood or as the specialists call it a canopy hood.
What to choose? First, you should consider performance of the device. The cleanness of the kitchen air can be measured in figures. Multiply the room area by its height. The air should be renewed 10 times per hour according to the sanitary standards. So, let’s multiply the volume by ten and we have the required performance of the kitchen exhaust hood. The index 300 m3/h is quite normal for the average kitchen of 3 ? 4 metres. If you bake and roast a lot, and like to smoke in the kitchen, you’d better take the hood with characteristics – 400 – 600 m3/hr. On the whole, you can find models from 180 to 1200 m3/hr in the kitchen appliances shops.
Secondly, you should pay attention to the size of the exhaust hood. Standard devices can be 50, 60, 90 or 120 cm wide. Anyway, the exhaust hood must be wider than the kitchen cooker. The principle factor is operating mode of the hood. We have two options: recirculation or air vent. In the latter case the exhaust hood absorbs the air and then releases it. In the first case it goes through the fat filter that refines it from small particles of smoke, ash, fat and then through angle filter that neutralizes the scents. Then the renewed air returns to the kitchen. The extracting mode, of course, is better for eliminating the kitchen scents and such a device makes less noise. You also do not have to change or wash the filters regularly. On the other hand, you don’t always have the opportunity to extract the air outside.
There are also versatile hoods which combine both the modes. You can just block the out valve with the special screen (press the button or turn the handle depending on the model), and the air will not go into the pipe, but will be forwarded to the filters and then back to the kitchen.
Finally, as the exhaust hood is not a small device, you should think how it will blend with the kitchen interior.
Kitchen: don’t confuse it with sauna!
What is the most humid place in the apartment? A bathroom? Not only. The climate of the kitchen may sometimes be similar to tropical. Especially if you have taken all the measures to make this room warm, but you have forgotten to make the air of normal humidity. This problem can also be solved by setting the ventilation system, as air renewal is very important for creating comfort in the kitchen. In fact you should think about the climate in the kitchen (as well as in the whole apartment).
It is not peanuts!
Beauty and comfort of the kitchen mostly depend on what you have on the floor, the walls and the ceiling.
Let’s start with the bottom. It is known, that large drawings on the floor visually downsize the room and small ones visually “extend” the borders. Gloss finishing visually extends the space and matt finishing narrows it.
Kitchen flooring.
However, the main thing in selecting the floor is, of course, the material. Vinyl flooring is durable and modern. Linoleum is also firm and antistatic. Any dirt can be easily removed from it. Even if the stain is “complex”, it can be removed from the floor with the solvent agent and the flooring will not be damaged. Natural linoleum is better for the kitchen as it is more ecologically safe. Natural wooden floor looks cozy and at the same time respectably.
©Copyright 2007-2009 www.builderstown.co.uk
These days bathroom interior design is even more important and attract much more attention of the owners than kitchen design. In a modern design concept a bathroom is no longer just a functional zone but turned to be one of the main components of a stylish interior.
The role of a bathroom in our life has been misjudged for too long. Meanwhile, the way how our bathroom looks fundamentally influences our everyday mood. We don’t simply accomplish essential hygienic procedure there – this is a place where we start and finish our day. And that is why its atmosphere is of a great importance: it can energize or prepare you for sleep, cheer up, generate necessary mood.
With changed attitude to a bathroom itself the main components, forming its space, remained the same. Yes, undoubtedly the bathroom fixtures selection is important, however the main element, appointing to the bathroom style stays tiles. It’s impossible to be replaced.
The Art of Imitation.
It looks like couturieres’ laurels keep on the run the bathrooms interior designers: in increasing frequency they use textiles in the most different projects and can’t stop making various materials imitating it. So the ceramic tiles became a show-piece of a new art – there used to be collections where ceramic tiles were imitating natural stone, wood or metal, however nowadays designers moved to a new level. A new trend is ceramic tiles adroitly disguising into luxurious silk wallpaper or weightless French lacework impression.
Visual effect is awesome – you can recognize “fake” only at very short range, or even only after touching the tiles. Skilful leather imitations of different types are already common, but “ceramic leather” is an obvious new season hit.
Another trend – historical catchwords – can set wits to imitation. This is not just a new vintage – skilful, but still a fake, – that is a retrospect, reference to classics and traditions, to the warmth of a family estate in the midst of a noisy city, if you prefer. Here one can see not only designers’ desire to create an outer effect, adding olden time imitation to surroundings, here aspiration of creating something historically veracious is absolutely clear. In addition to such surroundings designers offer already well-known trend, which is popular during several seasons, – vintage terra-cotta tiles with baroque ornament of cracks and attrition as if left after the hot Italian sun.
Ecological Rhetoric
Fortunately modern design fashion is far from being monotonous, it is various, contradictory, and there is always a counterbalance to every modern trend: so historical catchwords nostalgia and imitations flimsiness neighbors on bionic trend. Perhaps there is nothing new in it – well- known 60-70th yet again. This trend will no doubt find its fans among former school students and new intellectuals. In fact coming into this style designed bathroom one wants to think about sense of life as well as caducity and eternity of all existing… In this trend ergonomic forms and outrageous colors are not as important as up-to-date ecological rhetoric.
Art-Delicacy
The last in the list of new trends is one more bright direction. Both classical and mould-breaking art theme was always used with pleasure by the bathroom designers while creating new collections of ceramic tiles. From year to year craftsmen reproduce pictures of well-known artists, photos elements, sketches or children drawings on ceramics. These days art trend moved to a new level – with both selecting objects for reproducing and implementation of the design idea.
New Classics of Any Genre
Variety of new trends in ceramic tiles design amazes and gives full scope to art and selection of the only correct trend. Today fashion is good by being cosmopolite. However on closer look one can notice some similarity specific to all interior design in general.
One way or another, with all variety of themes, forms and colors – either it is ceramic tiles or sliding wardrobe model – art deco style rules the object design world these days, invisibly and subtly but skillfully and persistently. Don’t the same imitations and paintings, luxurious leather and expensive species of wood imitations, painting of various flora and fauna objects refer exactly to it? Today’s art-deco is different – it is based on nuances and touches, not showing up to the full extent. But because of it its presence isn’t less visible. Using its motifs designers skillfully spice almost any bathroom interior – from high-tech to country. It is also used in design of luxurious hotels, as well as in gallery space, private inns and bathrooms… So imitation, bionics and art are samples of art-deco style implementation in its new interpretation. This style is expensive, intellectual, presentable – became a trend already. Art-deco elements usage demands professional skills and good taste, but result usually exceeds the best expectations.
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