No Comments »

Design Dilemma: Decorating Choices that Deliver

• Tweet

• Tweet

There’s nothing more fantastic in the world of interior design than to pull together a room that feels unique. These are rooms that don’t particularly echo one design trend, but feel curated, cultivated, quirky. And the best thing is when they include some element that is totally unexpected.

What are we talking about? Well, here are a few examples:

Above and below is a fabulously classic Swedish home that diverges dramatically from what you usually see in Sweden. Most Swedes paint their walls a bright white. By going a milk chocolate on the walls, the owners have successfully transformed a more pedestrian look into something dramatic, daring, and far more welcoming.

Here’s another view:

Note how the chocolate walls actually highlight the owner’s art collection, rather than detracting. Maybe all those art collectors who insist on white walls should rethink that choice.

Here’s another surprising choice — a striped ceiling!

Most of us shy away from painting our ceilings anything other than a bright white. We’re afraid that color on the ceiling will make ceilings feel lower. But in this Texas home, a striped ceiling in a baby’s room adds loads of pizazz in a simple way.  And because the stripe is a tranquil blue, it doesn’t feel so busy that it would drive a baby into crying fits.

Below, we’ve got another quirky approach. This Paris apartment exudes uniqueness in the eclectic choice of furnishings that play with scale and eras. The modern chrome and leather chairs paired with the antique farm table is brilliant. So too is the rustic antler horn chandelier paired with a leopard print arm chair. There’s nothing matching here, and you’ll find no cliches. The other brilliant thing about this room — it feels cultivated and collected without feeling frou-frou or overly designed. This room feels real.

Below, we visit Montreal, to find an apartment that manages to feel chic and trendy without relinquishing its soul.

What is it that we love so much about the place? Well, aside from the gorgeous windows, we’re loving the sculpture. Not only does the large sculpture create a dramatic element, but so too, do the sculptural lamps, the wooden ball on the floor and the rounded vase. The fact that the furnishings are all kept dark allows the sculpture to stand out even more. Another unexpected element is the display of artwork against the wall of windows.

Finally, here’s another room that plays against type:

You were expecting chrome and glass, right? Wrong! In a white modern, minimalist home what fun to add a colorful kilim patchwork rug, an oversized industrial pendant lamp and an antique rocking chair!

Find out more home decorating ideas at Reader’s Digest.

Images: via emmasdesignblog.se; Apartmenttherapy; creativeflats.com