#designerhints

[roomhints]

4 Design Hints for Your Home With Carly Alhman of Carly Ahlman Design

We’ve rounded up 4 hints from Carly Ahlman that will help you decorate your home!

Hint #1: Your absolute favorite product of all time? Paint - it's a relatively easy and inexpensive way to completely change the look and feel of a space or even a piece of furniture. Hint #2: What is your designer pet peeve? You just hate when people do this... Over-doing it - too many accessories, too much furniture, etc. Less is always more.

Hint #3: Advice on how to decorate a kitchen? I always love a crisp, white kitchen. I suggest adding color through dishware, dish towels, or even cabinet pulls. When you get sick of the accent color, it's easy to switch out without having to re-do and entire kitchen. Hint #4: What is your best design hint? Measure twice, order once; especially when placing a custom order.

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3 Hints to Selecting the Perfect Color Scheme With Rachel Blindauer

Home Decor Hints with Rachel Blindauer

San Francisco interior designer Rachel Blindauer is known for crafting funky, contemporary spaces that appeal to anyone looking for a bit of color and pattern to spice up their life.

We’ve rounded up 3 roomhints that will help you decide on the right color combinations to transform your home!

Lesson #1: Pick A Season, Any Season. Decide whether you are a winter, fall, summer, or spring person, and then design following that color palette. For instance bright, sunny shades of watermelon, turquoise or salmon speak to a warm, spring-like look; while a gray color can give off an impression of a cool "winter" tone.  

Lesson #2: For The Kitchen, Go Bold. 

Photo Credit: BHG.com

It's hard to pick one because it depends on the house/lighting/etc., but I love a rich Hollandlac color on traditional cabinets with mirror backslashes. I also like navy walls in a brown tortoise shell kitchen, and white modern kitchens with painted graphics.

Lesson #3: Seek Comfort Always

The image above is of a classic home that was designed for comfortable, casual living in a multicolor palate with a focus on navy and grey. To best accentuate the color scheme, we incorporated fiber cement objects, and used natural wood bookcases to create further texture. The blank canvas in the kitchen became the perfect backdrop for family activities and social events with visitors.

Bonus Comfort Hint: When it comes to selecting anything from a desk chair to a sofa, ideally they should not only look good, they should be comfortable too.

When possible, I have people sit in the seating for an hour so they can determine if it's comfortable enough for them. When you sit there that long you can tell how the seating will make you feel after a dinner party, movie, or part of the 8-hour work day.

[roomhints]

#GirlBoss Arianne Bellizaire Shares Easy Tips To A Livable Home

Designer Hints with Arianne Bellizaire

1. How to add color to a design?  

I love adding color to my design projects through the use of fabrics and textiles. It is a great way to build upon neutral foundational pieces, while bringing in color and pattern in ways that are relatively easy and inexpensive to change out when the mood arises.

2. Best colors for a kitchen?

I love light, bright kitchens, so I lean toward cream or ivory colored walls. "Grays" are a hot trend, and with the right shade paired with white cabinets and granite you've got a knock-out space!

3. Your absolute favorite product of all time?    

It's tough to say what my favorite product of all time is, but because I'm a mother of young children and many of my clients are in the same life stage. I am a HUGE fan of highly durable, high quality upholstery pieces, made with easy-to-maintain fabrics in the event of red wine spills or sticky fingers!. Companies like Sunbrella and JF Fabrics with Crypton have great, family-friendly lines that all my clients to enjoy. 4. Designer pet peeve?

I really hate to judge other designer's work because each designer brings his or her heart and soul to each space. I also know that designers ride a fine line between their aesthetics, their clients lifestyle needs, various preferences, as well as budgetary and time constraints. That being said, I guess one pet peeve would be spaces that are absolutely gorgeous to look at, but in no way "livable."

5. Without fail design hint that you have learned over your career?    

This one is simple but often overlooked by my clients: Choose your color palette first by selecting your fabrics, materials and other design elements. Choose your paint color LAST after all of the other elements have been decided on.

Bonus: Lighting is everything! Make sure your space has enough light AND that the lighting elements don't project a color cast that affects or changes the colors of the other elements in your room.

**** Arianne Bellizaire is an interior and product designer at Inspired To Style Interior Design. For more information, visit www.inspiredtostyle.com

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Designer Hints with Peggy Berk of Area Aesthetics

1. What is the best accessory to complete a room?    

Plants or flowers. 2. How do you decide on the color scheme for the room? The mood and tone that the client hopes to realize in the setting guide the basic elements of my color selection. [At the same time,] the source and color of natural lighting, as well as where and how artificial lighting can be accommodated, refine the ultimate choice of a color scheme. 3. The secret to styling a mantel?     Balance and proportion are key. If the fireplace is a focal point, avoid objects that are too small to be appreciated from the entrance to the room. A mantle is the perfect spot to integrate things that are personally meaningful to the homeowner and showcase the personality of the room.  4. Designer pet peeve? Mixing yellow and pink-based beiges. I find the effect very jarring.  5. Without fail design hint that you have learned over your career?     Let the architectural structure of the walls guide the furniture layout. Imagine "virtual walls" extending out from corners, and where hallways intersect a room and furnish each area of the room within those virtual boundaries. The room will always feel balanced with the appropriate amount of furniture in each area.

For more information on Peggy Berk, Interior Decorator of Area Aesthetics check out www.AreaAesthetics.com