News

Top Window Dressing Trends for 2015

In the world of blinds and curtains exciting things have been happening in terms of what’s hot and what’s not. At the forefront of all things curtains and blinds Leicestershire,we’re in the perfect position to hand out our tips for revamping your window dressings this year.

Grey days

In keeping with the integration of concrete and concrete look in interior design, greys are very much in, with neutral greys dominating in curtains and blinds. You might be asking ‘how can I make this change without leaving my room looking stark and soulless?’

Well here are a few tips…

Contrast the grey with a splash of carefully chosen colour. Burnt oranges, lemon yellows and soothing blues are all very much in vogue and for good reason. Blues offer calming properties, oranges work stunningly with the greys and lemon is always great for a splash of vibrancy. Greys can be complemented by warm and cool tones alike – so your options are endless.

Add silver touches like candlesticks and trays, light fittings and picture frames, to lend a magical touch to the room. This is an alternative option to the grey/copper contrast that is dominating of late and is another stunning alternative.

Time tested olive greens

If the thought of a trend-driven shift frightens you, then olive greens are stylish with little chance of them going out of fashion any time soon.

Our tips for integrating olive green

Use neutral furnishings, as olive green curtains will provide a stunning backdrop.

Dip one foot into the copper trend as olive green and copper are a match made in heaven, while greys also go extremely well with the colour, so concrete effect wallpaper or grey painted walls will not only be extremely in, but will maximise the impact of your new window dressings!

Blind Faith

Blinds can also be used as statement pieces to offset a more minimal, stark wall paint and colour scheme. A hot tip for 2015 is adding to the ‘go to’ neutral of the moment – grey – with a set of vibrant burnt orange blinds, adding warmth to the room. Of course, you might already have enough warmth with some carefully chosen soft furnishings or a feature wall, in which case, art-deco inspired metallic hues are all the rage for retaining the glamour and chic. For kitchens and bathrooms, where perhaps a fresher more invigorating tone is desired, there are some great options, but green tea shades are especially delicate and refreshing.

Sometimes it Really is Black and White

There are many ways this spring to give a room in your home a makeover – often involving a feature wall adding a splash of colour, reflecting what’s happening in the natural world. And yet sometimes working within the confines of good old black and white is just what you need to create a chic and elegant room. This piece focuses on the bathroom, from the perspective of our team involved in bathroom refurbishment Leicestershire.

Bathroom design has so much potential – boundless really and it can be great to let your imagination run wild. However working within the confines of a monochromatic scheme not only frames your project with a dose of realism it also helps avoid the mistake of over-gilding the lily.

In addition, there is little as eye-catching as a well designed black and white room with matching accessories. Let’s start with these.

Crisp, white towels offset with a sharp black edge can really look the business.
Soap dispensers or dishes, toilet brush holders and toothbrush holders can all be found in either black or white. Keep consistent both in style and colour and they will add much for little outlay.
For those blessed with larger bathroom spaces, you’ll have the luxury of being able to choose some suitable furniture – from chairs to benches. For the smaller bathroom a little black stool can work as a compromise. Soft furnishings in black or white not only fit in with the scheme but also add a touch of softness to what can be an unforgiving palette.
All black is a real possibility. If quality matte tiles adorn the walls and floor and a nice matte paint is applied to the ceiling, then there is no reason why you can’t go the whole (black) hog, even opting for black ceramics. The effects of this wholesale switch to the dark side can be surprisingly therapeutic. There’s a fabulous all black tiled swimming pool in the spa at The Grove hotel, where the England footballers stay before matches at Wembley and it is a truly memorable and very calming experience.
Black brick-effect tiled walls can look fantastic and fits in with the trend that has seen a shift towards incorporating the industrial into the home.

Black and white really are a perfect pairing – white reflects and black absorbs – which is why this combination can really yield superb results in the bathroom where bold angles and clean lines dominate.

Inviting Spring into Your Home

As the winter months become a cold memory and the snowdrops and bluebells warm our hearts with news of spring, it is time to look at our homes in a new light and think of how we can re-energise them with the vibrancy of this season of change. With a little thought your home can be transformed.

Spring clean

It may not be the glamorous option, but a top to bottom spring clean of your home will not only leave your house looking wonderful, but it will leave you feeling energised and you will become fully re-acquainted with your home, helping the ideas as to how to revamp and re-style your property flow. With the car boot season ready to rock now is the time to turn up the music and get those boxes filled with unwanted knickknacks that will free up valuable space.

New carpets or wooden flooring

There’s nothing quite like the satisfying smell of a new carpet and with all those scintillating colour and textile options, new carpets can provide a breathtaking platform for change. Perhaps, on the other hand you’ve always dreamt of that stylish, dust-free wooden floor. A super stylish option is a distressed oak floor, which may have you embarking on a mission to find those statement furniture pieces to do up in a shabby chic style to match.

Bright statements

Nothing says fresh and spring-friendly like a splash of life-affirming green or ocean blue. A bright tiling or wallpaper revamp in the bathroom may seem drastic but those energising blues and greens can make a bold spring statement. This principle can be carried on into the kitchen with whites and greens sure to brighten up your space. Perhaps some green and white chairs for the breakfast bar and a nice shade for that pendant light above the bar might to the trick?

Into the bedroom

For that splash of spring life in the bedroom, now is the time to add that feature wall. There are so many wonderful wallpapers out there that enable you to add a feature tailored to your tastes to your boudoir. With spring in mind, perhaps you could choose from some of those wonderful butterfly-themed pieces or opt for something with those garden birds that have kept you company through the winter and will flourish with the advent of spring.

The fresh spring vibe can be channelled throughout the home with a bit of a clean-up and a splash of colour and the interior design company in Leicester is ready to help you on your journey.

Gas fires vs. Wood-burning Stoves: Modern vs. Traditional

In spite of the fact that winter is finally just a memory, now is the time to get planning if you are considering adding or renovating an existing fireplace in your home in time for the next frost. There are very few homes with rooms that would not benefit from a fireplace feature as the centrepiece and even fewer people for whom the idea of huddling round a fire in the depths of winter with a glass of wine does not hold great appeal. The challenge of you dreamers as well as the interior designer Leicestershire is selecting the right fireplace for each home.

This choice may represent country cottages with traditional inglenook fireplaces that simply cry out for a traditional wood-burning stove, or Edwardian houses with a blend of period features and modern touches that could look great with either a traditional option or a glass fronted gas fire with a sleek black surround that sits comfortably below a wall mounted flat screen high definition TV.

When choosing the right fireplace for you and your home, you should ask yourselves the following questions.

What is the primary desired function – heat or decoration?
What is more important among ease of use, authenticity or fuel efficiency?
Do you have a fuel preference?

These three questions can go a long way to narrowing down your range of options before you look into the minutiae of detail and the myriad options on the market today. In today’s fast-moving and costly age the gas fireplace has gained in popularity, bolstered also by the minimal design options that match the sleek technology-centred living spaces that many people choose for their homes. Gas, despite recent price hikes remains a competitively priced fuel option and is especially attractive for those whose homes do not benefit from existing masonry chimneys. Gas fireplaces also provide comparable heat and radiance without the mess and storage required for wood-burning stoves. For the young, working couple the time, money and space saving nature of the gas fireplace is an attractive draw. Elegant and modern glass fronted gas fireplaces can look stunning even in big, old properties, a stand-out nod to the modern world in an otherwise rustic surround can be truly stunning.

This all said, if you are blessed with a property benefiting from a good masonry chimney, properly lined and with a hearty draw, there is nothing quite as satisfying as lighting a real, wood-burning stove and while it can provoke lively debate in the household (“it’s your turn to put another log!”) they really do radiate quite a wonderful heat and atmosphere and you can’t toast a marshmallow through a glass panel.

Open Plan Living vs. Separate Rooms

If there has been one trend in home renovation Leicestershire and indeed in home design in general that has stood out over the last 20 years then it is the shift aware from conventional room divisions to open plan living spaces. There is, of course also the in-between option of a little bit of open-plan space such as a kitchen/diner, with separate living room and bedrooms and even a partially open-plan kitchen/dining space that is more about good flow between rooms than a complete abandonment of division.

It stands to reason that as the typical family dynamic has become more fluid and less traditional, then so has the layout of the average family’s living space. The barriers between male and female division of labour have continued to be dismantled and there are increasingly blurred lines between housework (especially cooking) and leisure time. As cooking and smoothie-making, juicing and other areas of food preparation have become de riguer and somewhat social activities and cooking has evolved into an often shared activity then the role of the kitchen has also evolved. With working roles also ever-evolving, families now spend more time together than ever before and what better solution to this trend than open plan living?

The benefits of fully opening one’s living space are numerous, but the decision can involve quite drastic building work and before taking the plunge it is wise to consider the pros and cons.

The open plan kitchen/diner is ideal for those who like to revel in the glory of the mealtime, those for whom a dinner is not microwaved and consumed over 10 minutes on a tray in front of the TV. The open plan living space is also conducive to minimalist design and enables watchful parents to keep an eye on their children while preparing dinner. For the stir crazy among us it can be especially liberating not to sit in a room and feel like the walls are closing in and open planned space can certainly feel less claustrophobic.

However, with too much open plan space, privacy can become an issue, especially as those children become teenagers and while of course it is possible to retreat to the bedroom this can bring its own worries on occasion! Those with sensitive noses can be put off by the aromas that spread from the kitchen in an open plan ground floor and while this can be partially remedied with odour-neutralising candles, it would be less of an issue in a kitchen shut off from the rest of the ground floor. Even the cons can become pros, however as few could deny the pleasure in the warm waft of freshly baked bread spreading throughout the house. Another drawback of open plan living is that there are obviously less walls throughout the ground floor. Fewer walls equal less wall space to hang art, shelving and cabinets.

While it is possible that the decision to embrace open plan living could be taken out of your hands by circumstance, if you are thinking of renovating a closed room type house and plumping for the open plan option, hopefully this article will have given you some idea as to where your allegiances lie.

Which Kitchen Worktop?

Why go upmarket
Should I go for Granite, Corian, wood or quartz? It is one of the biggest dilemmas when designing your new kitchen, given that changing your worktop is not a habitual event and plenty of time will be spent using it for years to come. Increasingly people are setting aside a larger portion of their budget for surfaces once considered an extravagant outlay. One of the main attractions of higher end surfaces such as granite and quartz is that they are relatively indestructible and render that awful water-lifting that plagued laminate and scratching that affected stainless steel worktops a thing of the past.

Pricing
Using laminate (cheap), wood (medium) and granite (expensive) as an example, you might be able to make an instant decision according to budget. Laminate comes in at around £20 per metre, wood at around £70 per metre and granite anywhere in excess of £220 per metre. These are rough guide prices and there is plenty of variation on the market. For the purpose of this article laminate shall be treated as a budget choice and is recommended only if the other options are prohibitively expensive.

Wood
Wooden surfaces look the business and are a far cheaper option than quartz or granite, so what’s the catch? Well, given several coats of Danish Oil, months apart and care when it comes to leaving water marks then wooden surfaces can maintain their appearance, by and large, for many years. There is no getting away from the fact that more care is required than with quartz or granite, however.

Mineral/Acrylic blend Solid Surface Material
A synthetic material made up of a blend of minerals and acrylic of this ilk lends itself to kitchen worktops as it is seamless, stain resistant and can be moulded into the most awkward of shapes and spaces and there are over 100 colour choices. However, such surfaces are not as heat resistant as granite or quartz and more susceptible to scratching although marks can be simply sanded out. It is also a more expensive option.

Quartz
Quartz worktops are as strong as granite but also benefit from increased flexibility, which makes them easier to install, although they are even heavier than granite, so professional installation is mandatory. Quartz is not indestructible, but it is stain resistant and because of the colour choices available seams can be hidden well.

Granite
Quarried from the earth in large chunks, granite worktops are increasingly popular and will not discolour over time. They do need to be sealed year after year as they are naturally porous. The appearance of granite worktops is not uniform, as it is natural although they are immensely durable and should last several lifetimes! In terms of price granite is comparable to quartz although because it is not made to measure you will usually end up paying more and installation must be done by professionals such as kitchen refurbishment Leicester.

In summary, while granite remains the worktop du jour, quartz is gaining ground and the mineral/acrylic blend surface has its place when flexibility is a must. In reality either quartz or granite will, given that they are installed satisfactorily be winners – adding to the value of your house to boot – but should you not mind taking a little extra care, the aesthetics of a good wooden worktop could win you over, especially considering the potential savings.

Traditional Bathrooms: A Renaissance?

Trends and styles are cyclical. I remember in the ‘90s up until around 2008, the 1980s were considered something of a joke in musical terms, but try finding an up and coming indie band in 2015 that are not influenced by the ‘80s in some way!

Alongside the many people who crave the massaging touch of a whirlpool bath or Jacuzzi, which is likely to be a transient fashion, to there are a growing number who are deciding that they want to go down a more traditional path when configuring their dream bathroom.

What is a Traditional Bathroom?
The beauty of opting for a more traditional bathroom is that you can take the enduring features of bathroom design from past and present, avoiding the pitfalls of going for the latest trend only to see it fall away in coming years, rendering your dream bathroom something of a cliche.

When talking about traditional design, we often reference the period, whether it is Victorian, Georgian, Edwardian or Elizabethan. While it would be perfectly doable to design and fit an Edwardian bathroom in a modern apartment, it is often best to match the period of your house to the period of the design and fixtures that you wish to install.

The fittings
When it comes to fixtures and fittings, there is a tough choice as to whether to go the whole hog and scour the auction houses in search of that genuine Victorian tap of your dreams or with the help of bathroom refurbishment Leicestershire, select well-made modern replicas. Of course, you can do a little of both, mixing genuine period fittings with modern replicas for those fixtures that are, perhaps less prominent and harder to find.

An Example
Let’s assume that you’ve just bought a Victorian house, with a bathroom that is tired and needs a complete overhaul. You can start by removing that water-stained beige carpet and hopefully finding some lovely wooden flooring, just begging for restoration. With the old suite removed, you can opt for a beautiful stand-alone cast iron bathtub, a gorgeous cast iron radiator, painted to contrast stunningly with the colour of your bath. You can visit the local auctions for some period signs to adorn the walls and a nice Victorian chair to sit on, while dressing. However – and here’s the fun part – you can also integrate a beautiful, glass shower cubicle, one of the features of modern bathrooms that’s here to stay, achieving a stunning contrast between period and modern design.

Suffice it to say there is great merit in opting for the integration of traditional design elements in your contemporary bathroom, not least because you are looking back, with hindsight and still finding beauty and ingenuity in the design.

Thinking of Opting for a Wet Room?

So, you’ve got a clean slate, but are unsure just what constitutes your dream bathroom – well one attractive option is to plump for a Wet Room. This article aims to highlight the main benefits of this type of bathroom to help you decide whether it suits your needs.

Wet Rooms in a nutshell
Wet Rooms differ from traditional bathrooms in that they must be fully waterproofed as the room itself is one giant shower cubicle, albeit one that contains everything you need for a complete bathroom. There is no need for a shower screen, although if you prefer a closed off shower area then a glass screen is a stylish solution. Even so, waterproofing or ‘tanking’ the whole room is advisable.

Design choices
These days, in terms of suites there is great variety, with the popular and often smartest addition of tiles from floor to wall with a specially painted ceiling, which makes the waterproofing task much easier and gives you the opportunity to make exciting design choices with a range of tiling options. Despite being a relatively contemporary idea, Wet Rooms can be given either a traditional or modern look, principally via tiling decisions. Massage Brighton

Why Choose a Wet Room?
Freedom: On top of the stylish look that a Wet Room can bring to your home, it is also rather liberating to open the door to your bathroom and have everything there, open and free and ready for you to relax into.

Space Saving: If you have a relatively small space for your bathroom, why shrink it with unnecessary partitioning and a bath tub? The relative absence of fixtures and fittings is tailor-made for smaller spaces.

Easy to Clean: Shower cubicles, with all their little nooks and crannies are a grime and dirt magnet, so imagine the relief at waving goodbye to all that scrubbing!

Safe and Sound: With a non-slip tiled floor all over the room, you can relax in the knowledge that your dream bathroom is a slip-free zone. This makes Wet Rooms a great option for anyone living with a disability or those who require easy access facilities.

Long-lasting: With less fixtures and fittings and things to go wrong, Wet Rooms are a sound long-term investment. Quality water-proofing products are not cheap, but being long-lasting, they are well worth the initial outlay.

Considerations
Good ventilation is essential in a Wet Room to prevent the build-up of mould and mildew, while tiles used should be non-slip. In addition it is well-worth considering under-floor heating as it is not a great deal of extra work and as well as providing comfort, it will help dry the room quicker, limiting the potential for mould.

With the design and project management skills of those involved in bathroom refurbishment Leicester, acquiring your perfect Wet Room has never been easier.

Solving the Problems of a Small Bedroom

Having limited space in a bedroom can make for a tricky task to accommodate enough storage space without the room appearing cramped. As well as some innovative ways of integrating clever storage options there are also ways of achieving the illusion of space while you’re at it. For instance, staggered floating shelves are great for serving as a rotating display without adding extra holes in the wall. The staggered aspect also acts as a visual trick, to create a spacious feel. The most obvious trick of the trade is the clever integration of mirrors, but clever lighting and utilising the same colour paint for walls and ceilings – so the parameters as to where the room begins and ends become vague – can also help.

Of course the real trick in bedroom design, and where Home refurbishment Leicester can really help to ensure your bedroom remains clutter-free, is the creation of clever storage. The addition of shelving inset into the wall are a great idea should it be possible. The installation of wall sconces, with integrated lighting can be a real space saver, avoiding the use of precious bedside table space and reducing cluttering.

It may be worth exploring the idea of daybeds, if your room is particularly lacking in the space department as this can help you achieve the living room bedroom look and daybeds often have storage underneath, which is, of course, a must in a smaller bedroom.

If you are in the ‘blank canvass’ position and have a smaller bedroom and are wondering just where the wardrobes are going to go, it may be worth looking into the possibility of using a wall to create sliding door wardrobes. It may seem insane to think about shrinking one whole wall of a room, but this type of integrated wardrobe not only looks minimalist and ultra-modern (although they’ve been used for many years in Japan) but it will actually save space over a bulky standalone wardrobe. The choices are wide-ranging and you can tailor the interior space for your clothing needs.

If you can manage without a wardrobe at all then under bed storage, a chest of drawers and a well placed clothes rail may suffice, but bear in mind that the sliding door wardrobes will only serve to increase the value of your house in the long run. For the adventurous minded adult a loft bed is an ingenious way of saving space – although the stronger ones (for two people) can be rather costly. There is also the option of going even further down the Japanese approach and creating a room with tatami furnishings, including perhaps a space-saving tatami futon.

The idea of the Mood Board

Never has this expression been more apt than when applied to the idea of the Mood Board. For many, especially those involved in home renovation Leicester, the Mood Board is an essential tool that enables the would be designer present their ideas visually, giving an impressionistic idea as to their vision for your room. It is more about presenting the atmosphere of the design ideas rather than a snapshot and is an incredibly clever way to ensure that a designer is on your wavelength before making a decision. Mood boards are generally concocted over a period of time after several meetings and conversations and provide that essential proof-positive that a designer is taking your requests seriously and listening to your ideas.

If you look at the Mood Board and think, “Wow, that is me down to a T!” then it can be extremely liberating, not to mention stress-saving to hand over the reins, trusting that the designer knows what you want.

What does a Mood Board look like?
A Mood board will probably look like a collage, with scraps of fabric and swatches of paint and perhaps a sample of oak wood flooring – all coming together to show the intended colour scheme. Of course it could well be a digital Mood Board (also known as a ‘Digital Mash-up’), which eliminates the designer’s need to find physical manifestations of his vision and can lead to a more accurate and expansive portrayal of his desired atmosphere. An effective Mood Board will be roughly to scale in that each swatch and sample will take up the same sort of space on the board as it will in the relevant room in proportion to the other samples. This makes it much easier to visualise just how well the fabrics, tones, textures and shades will work together.

Just the beginning
For designers and project managers like Craven & Hargreaves the Mood Board marks the moment at which mutual trust and understanding is achieved and represents the first step on a journey that will end with your dream room or in more expansive projects, your dream house. A Mood Board is a very intensive and highly intuitive tool and so it makes perfect sense to make the most of that connection and retain continuity throughout each step of the process to ensure that that everyone remains on the same page.

Clever Storage Solutions for Smaller Kitchens

A lack of space
Not all of us are blessed with the modern day favourite: the large open plan kitchen. Most of us face the eternal dilemma of where to put everything! In fact, I hazard that even those endowed with large open plan kitchen diners that have been ineffectively designed bemoan a lack of STORAGE! Even if a kitchen has been designed relatively effectively, with plenty of storage space the nature of life is that we accumulate things and sound kitchen design necessitates storage that has the capacity to evolve alongside our lives. This is where experts involved in kitchen refurbishment Leicestershire really earn their salt.

Evolving space
Advancements in design and technology have yielded some superb new products and arrangements that enable kitchen designers to get around issues of storage space. The trend towards blurred lines between kitchen and living space need not necessarily be achieved by knocking down partition walls. In fact those with small kitchens can expand into their dining and living space through subtle integration of kitchen storage with stylish tables featuring hidden draws underneath their surfaces, for instance. With minimalism also high on the agendas of an increasing number of people, much can be learned from the emergence of ‘micro homes’ or ‘tiny houses’ which by necessity have involved some truly ingenious space saving ideas, such as fold away tables and benches with storage under the seats.

Larders etc
The life-changing qualities imbued in the magic kitchen larder cannot be overstated. Simply put, when you get a larder there’s no turning back. So if you are in the process of deciding on an extension or have a spare downstairs cupboard or toilet next to your kitchen, or even a corner of your kitchen that could be given a wall-mounted pantry it is an addition that you will never regret.

The words ‘larder’ and ‘pantry’ are so antiquated that they conjure visions of a grim dusty cupboard with a hard concrete floor and a thriving population of spiders and yet it can be über stylish. Imagine a whitewashed room of flexible shelving accessed by pocket glass fronted doors that provides all of the flexible space needed for those awkward but essential bottles of sake, soy sauce and the pots and pans and accessories that just don’t fit in the cupboards! Having all your food storage in the same part of the kitchen can also revolutionise your cooking time as well as making putting away your groceries a snap. Given the choice, a walk-in larder is the ideal solution and can even, given that it is cool, enable you to store your hard cheeses, eggs, potatoes and some fruit there freeing up precious space in the fridge!

The Do’s and Don’ts of Choosing Curtains and Blinds

With such a wide variety of window treatments now available, making the right choice for your home can be confusing. Here are a few guidelines to help you make your decision when choosing curtains and blinds Leicestershire.

DO think about whether curtains or blinds would work best with your interior scheme. By using an interior designer you’ll get the best advice and be sure that your chosen treatment fits seamlessly with the rest of your room. This may mean using colours which complement your wall treatment or could mean using stand out contrast colours. If you have patterned walls, you could opt for a plain fabric in a colour which tones with shades elsewhere in the room, or continue the pattern ‘theme’ of the walls into your curtains or blinds.

DO think about the size of your room too. Choosing a large pattern, particularly in a room with patterned walls, will make the room appear smaller.

DO let your curtains reach the floor. If you have a radiator beneath the window, think about using a roman blind but still framing the window with floor length curtains for an elegant finish.

DO think about the practicalities of curtains versus blinds when redecorating a child’s room. Safety rods are now standard on blinds but repeated ‘enthusiastic’ pulling may mean blinds have a shorter life than curtains. Look for washable fabrics and consider blackout lining if your child finds getting to sleep difficult.

DO make sure, when calculating your costings that you allow for extras such as wall fixings, curtain rods etc. If your new window treatment is part of a refurbishment project, a professional interior design company, such as Craven & Hargreaves, will make sure that everything has been thought about and included, as part of their project management service.

DON’T be afraid to combine two window treatments. For example, hanging curtains over a roller blind gives a luxury ‘layered’ look. In a room with a sunny aspect, consider having sheer voile curtains for the summer and replacing them with a heavier fabric for winter. Don’t forget to include both choices in your budget.

DON’T go for the cheapest option when choosing curtain or blind fabric. Remember that your curtains will be pulled at least twice daily – more often if the room faces south or west and attracts strong sunlight – so you need a strong fabric. Consider using cords to operate the curtains, to reduce wear.

DON’T forget to check the care instructions for your new curtains or blinds. Most curtains will need to be dry cleaned, while blinds will need regular dusting or hoovering with an upholstery attachment and may need sponging to remove stains.

Selecting the right curtains and blinds will complete any interior scheme, offering good looks as well as sound insulation and privacy and will last for many years, so enjoy choosing the most beautiful and practical window treatment solution for your home.

← 1 … 11 12 13 14 →