Jazz Up Your Living Space With A By-Gone Era

Trying a new design style in your home is a great way of adding a new lease of life to a tired looking interior without having the expense and upheaval of moving home.

Try styles inspired by past eras which fit in with the style of your home and your lifestyle. With so many great ideas around at the moment there is no one style which is deemed better than another. Interior design is all part experimenting and trying new things, mixing and matching if you so wish, just as long as you remember to keep to the basic principles of design.

For Art Deco inspiration we have a very useful guide on how to get the look - but to inspire you further don't hesitate to spend a night in watching old Hollywood films from the late twenties and early thirties.

No interior designer can forget the influence of early Hollywood and jazz - shiny fabrics, low lighting, highly polished wood, cocktail cabinets and mirrors. Ultimately in a time of depression - Art Deco offered a little luxury and opulence to the regular family home; which seems pretty apt for the current economic situation!

Both wall lights, floor lamps and table lamps UK were popular - look for geometric shapes and sandblasted glass. Scour antique shops for female figurine table lamps that were a Hollywood influence.

Image: Decorology

Use Curtains In Your Bathroom!

Most homes, irrespective of size, opt to have blinds as their window treatment in their bathrooms. These are easy to install, easy to operate and are available in a vast array of different colours and patterns.

Make no mistake there is nothing wrong with using blinds, far from it! They are a cost effective and practical way to provide privacy as well as letting plenty of natural light flood into the room when they are rolled up. However, if you are looking for something a little more unusual and unique in your bathroom, break from tradition and use full length curtains if you windows is not situated with the sink, bath or loo above it!

Curtains add a touch of chic styling which oozes elegance when the right colour combinations are used! As most bathroom suites are white you have a whole world of gorgeous colours to choose from! For a funky look use vibrant fuchsia pink, lime green or deep purple. If you are after a monochromatic look of course you should opt for black and white. Floral patterns which trail up the length of the curtains will also give the illusion of more height in your room.

Retro looks can also look simply stunning in bathrooms. Look for mirrors with metal or mirrored frames to bring extra light in a stylish way.

The use of free standing baths in-trend enables these looks to be more easily achieved. The other trend of staying in rather than spending on nights out means you will have time to enjoy relaxing and soaking in a bath filled with fragrant bubbles! If you want to create a warm and romantic look scented candles are a good choice, just be careful where you place the candles if you use curtains to reduce the potential fire risk.

Image: Belle Maison

Maximising The Potential Of Small Spaces

If your living space is small and restrictive you will need to adopt the tricks of the interior design world to give the illusion of more space!

White is a classical example of maximising space by tricking the eye into thinking the space is larger than reality. Brushed steel and reflective surfaces are another trick used as the light is bounced around the room which again provides the illusion of more space.

Many people place a mirror on a chimney breast as older houses typically have the window directly opposite the fireplace! Maximising the light by placing a mirror to catch as much natural light as possible has been adopted for many years!

White is also an ideal choice for kitchens and bathrooms as bright white has a clean, crisp look, especially when new! Be careful though otherwise your home could become an uninviting steely icy place which makes you feel cold! The easiest route and key is to add subtle touches of a vibrant warm colour such as red or orange.

Just select a few carefully placed objects of interest and add the finishing touches such as either a white or coloured roller blind to the window which will allow the maximum amount of light to enter the room when pulled or rolled up to the top of the window. Roller blinds are also ideal for lowering to a height which prevent glare from sunlight when working in the sink area, because just like older styled houses have windows opposite the fireplaces, they also have kitchen windows above the sink!

Image: AtticMag

Funhouse Mirrors

Using mirrors as an integral part of an interior design provides far more than merely the opportunity of making a room appear much larger. By selecting a wall which enables natural light to reflect back into a room via a mirror creates a whole host of different lighting effects and illusions.

Probably the most traditional place for a wall mirror to be hung in a lounge is over the fireplace as this was generally opposite a window enabling a person’s reflection to be seen easily. However, since many modern homes no longer have a fire place experimentation when placing a wall mirror is far more widely acceptable and in my opinion should be actively encouraged!

Break with tradition and place a mirror at a practical height to allow the maximum amount of light to reflect and bounce back into the room. Hemlock Designs have created a Funhouse Mirrors Series to further break with traditions of using mirrors purely as an object to glance at one’s appearance. Their mirrors are used to enhance a room’s interior style in a contemporary way.

I adore this mirror, the different angles of the three dimensional glass-mirror tile pieces enables various parts of the room to be seen at the same time. No place for untidiness! The multifaceted mirror tiles appear to change depending on the amount of movement within the room.

The effects of light or rays of sunshine hitting different aspects of the strategically hand placed angled mirror tiles is almost mesmerising. A fantastic focal point in a room which rarely displays the same visual effect twice.

For further information of Funhouse Mirror Series visit www.hemlockdesign.com

Image source: www.mocoloco.com