Bold and chic or minimal and modern? Defining your interior design style so you can design your room in your décor can prove to be a challenge. In order to create a space that reflects your true nature, articulating your design style is essential. Whether painting a design picture for yourself or your interior designer, here’s how to identify the look you crave.

Revisit what you have
You already have, consciously or unconsciously, built a repertoire of things you’re attracted too based on how they make you feel. The best way to identify your interior design style is to revisit the style of the stuff you already own.

Start by gathering items you cherish; this could be knick-knacks on top of your dresser, mantel, or bookshelves, special clothes from your closet, postcards from a memorable trip, anything really. Next, examine how certain looks make you feel and in particular, focus on the items that make you feel beautiful and joyful. Drawing inspiration from items you cherish moves you beyond the limitations of your lifestyle and into a new realm of creativity. In looking at a photo from a recent trip to Hong Kong for example, you may realize how much you love the spirit of Asia and the spiritual significance of feng shui. This passion and excitement then transfers to design. You may then decide to incorporate features in your space that capture the meaning of feng shui, like an area rug  by Dellarobbia.

Ultimately, finding your design style is easier than you think because like it or not, you already know what you like. If you’re unable to draw inspiration from your items our professional designers will be happy to help you transfer your ideas into an interior design that suits your style.

Wherever we go we respond to color. This is why choosing the right paint color for your space can be a meticulous task. While color does not necessarily result in a definitive equation between “color and our moods,” it shouldn’t be underestimated as it often accounts for our response to an object or a place and impacts our surroundings – this includes room design. While several factors warrant consideration when selecting the right paint color for a space, here are three our interior design team suggests:

Your Intention For The Space
Think about your intention for the space. The color you choose should accurately capture your motive. Do you want a dining room to feel sociable and stimulating or appear formal and quiet? Would you rather the space celebrate a new frontier of innovation or foster a robust connection with the natural world? The palette you choose should promote your purpose and objectives for the space.

Interior Design Tip: Write down your vision for the room or what you see yourself doing in the space. This will help you create a visual so you can clearly define your intention.

Pairing Words With Colors
Once you are clear on your intention, think about the colors that complement those ideas. This is when buzz words like “color psychology” or “color vocabulary” take effect. Let’s use a kid’s room as an example; if you wish to create an active, exciting energy then a warm hue like orange or yellow would be a relevant choice.

Interior Design Tip: Link keywords you listed in your vision to the color wheel. This will help you determine which colors promote your intention.

Test Your Color
Once you have your color or colors be sure to test them. Paint a poster board or large sections of the wall so you get a feel of the color in the space.

Interior Design Tip: Leave the color up for a few days, walk into another room and consider the flow from room to room in order to create the vision you want.

Pantone declared green the 2017 Color of the Year. With a variety of hues to choose from, having a better understanding of the color green and it’s meaning will inspire ideas so you can style your space with a renewed sense of imagination and this year’s trending color.

While green is not one of the primary colors, its pigment serves to be a popular shade in interior design. Green is associated with meanings of harmony, growth, freshness and nature. Whether you want to add energy to a dull room or calm to a hectic one, green has the power to be vibrant and bold or sophisticated and peaceful.

If you’re looking to infuse your space with confidence and accentuate height, consider the Kartell One More Please barstool. Versatile, practical and sturdy in build, a flash of color to your home bar or kitchen counter is a fun way to inspire change in a neutral space. It’s cutting-edge tall, high back offers comfort you’ve never experienced in a stool before.

Green corresponds with life’s natural riches. Encourage ideas of growth and vitality, while bringing context to your space with the Prismatic Rug. The stunning lime green hues are grounded with the charcoal tones, which balance the equilibrium of not only the rug but your space. Use it to rejuvenate your living room or office while promoting sentiments of physical and emotional well being.

The Lobacevskij Cocktail table is the perfect feature that depicts sophistication without being too serious. The tables are a series of three stand alone contemporary elements in different shapes that can be combined into one playful ensemble or spread out to serve as side tables. They have three legs that come in green tempered glass, but we’re currently obsessed with the green colored legs.

White kitchens are crisp, clean and always in style. But maybe you’re craving a change. If so, an injection of color may be just what you’re looking for, letting you brighten up the room without going to the extreme of remodelling.

Color Psychology 101

There are no ‘wrong’ colors for kitchens. With a little creativity and nerve, anything from black walls to neon countertops can be made to work. However, color psychology offers us a few cues that can make color selection easy. Warm colors have positive emotional connotations that suit kitchens especially well (they’re also favored by designers of food packaging). Red is believed to stimulate the appetite, making it a good color for dining rooms or for open-plan kitchens where meals are served as well as prepared. Spending a little time with sunny, energetic yellow can kickstart your morning, helping you shake the cobwebs and face the day. Orange is optimistic, joyful, and stimulating, all of which make it a great choice for spaces dedicated to food and sociability. It doesn’t take a lot of orange to make a kitchen pop, so consider it as an accent color, paired with either a neutral to calm it down or with blue for maximum impact.

Kitchen Color Schemes

As far as color schemes go, you have a lot of options. You might stick with a single featured color, with or without a neutral to offset it; you can use your trusty color wheel to identify its contrasting or complementary opposite to build a high-contrast scheme; or you could apply two hues of the same color. Mid-blue cabinets against a lighter blue wall, for example, can produce a sense of depth and richness, as can a black island against a grey backdrop.

Colorful Kitchen Furnishings

Introducing colorful furnishings into your kitchen gives you an instant brightness boost and is relatively reversible if your tastes change in the future. Consider using a group of colorful hanging lights, like Kartell’s Fly Ceiling Pendants, over your counter or island to brighten the room in more ways than one. Refresh your kitchen and dining area with new chairs or stools in rich, bold colors; our picks include the Diva Dining Chair, the Blossom Stool and the Nuvola Chair.

Whether colored or clear, acrylic and polycarbonate furnishings are enjoying a major fashion moment. On their own these pieces are fun and contemporary, but they also work beautifully in transitional style homes; pieces like the Louis Ghost Chair explicitly combine classic shapes with this most modern of materials with refreshing results.

Cleaning Acrylic
Acrylic and polycarbonate may be durable, but maintaining that glossy surface in top condition still requires a little knowledge. Begin cleaning by sweeping off any loose dust or debris. Use warm, soapy water and a soft sponge or microfiber cleaning cloth to gently wash the surface, then rinse with clean water and allow your furniture to air dry in a well-ventilated area.

What Not To Do
Never use Windex or any other glass cleaner that contains ammonia on acrylic or polycarbonate. Ammonia will eat into the surface and create a permanent cloudy effect. Paper towels should also be avoided, as some brands may create scratches.

Get The Look
We love acrylic and polycarbonate furniture here at Sklar Furnishings. Some current favourites include the Avalon Stool, with a padded seat upholstered in natural fur or hide; and the Ava Round Bar Cart, which pairs clear acrylic with a strong retro vibe.

Contrast in interior design creates all-important visual interest, but the line between contrast and clash can be pretty fine. When it comes to colors, how different is too different to work together in your home? These tips will help you navigate the potential minefield of contrast.

Types of Color Contrast
For a lot of people, classic black and white will be the first color scheme to come to mind when they think about contrast. But there are actually seven different types of color contrast, first laid out by Johannes Itten in his book The Elements of Color. These include contrast of hue, light-dark contrast, and cold-warm contrast. If a dramatic look like black and white isn’t right for you, you have more subtle contrast options in abundance.

The Color Wheel
We’re all familiar with the classic color wheel, but a quick refresher is always helpful when discussing contrast. The greater the distance between hues on a color wheel, the stronger the contrast. Hues that sit directly opposite one another, like purple and yellow, are known as complementary colors, and tend to make one another ‘pop’ by dialling up their luminosity. Colors that sit adjacent to one another, like blue and teal, offer a subtler effect.

Color Saturation
The terms hue, tint and shade are often used interchangeably, but they actually have very specific meanings. Hue is the purest form of any color — bright red, for example. A tint is that color with white added — pink, for example. And a shade is that color with black added — dark red, for example. Achieving a successful light-dark contrast will involve combining a variety of hues, tints and/or shades.

Mid Tones
The higher the contrast, the sharper and more dramatic the effect. Avoid jarring the viewer and bring a little more subtlety to high contrast color schemes by introducing accents in mid tones — these might be simple combinations of the two main colors, or a third color that offsets them both. For example, a black and white scheme could be softened by grey, or punched up with blue.

The 60-30-10 Rule
If you’re feeling uncertain about the best way to work with three different colors, play it safe by observing the 60-30-10 rule, where 60% of the room features your dominant color, 30% your secondary color, and 10% your accent color. For a lot of rooms, this works out as follows:

60%     wall color (dominant)
30%     furniture color (secondary)
10%     2-3 room accessories (accent)

Color Temperature
Cold-warm contrast is all about the interplay between colors that create an impression of warmth (like red, orange and yellow) and colors that create a sense of coolness (blue, green and indigo). Too much of either color ‘temperature’ can make a room seem off kilter, with extreme cases looking either stuffy or chilly. Introduce elements of its temperature opposite to restore balance.

Every home has its awkward spaces. Whether it’s an office, a guest bedroom or a half-bath, tiny rooms present challenges in terms of both decor and intelligent use of space. Our design experts have assembled a few tips and tricks to help you make the most of what you’ve got.

Clear the floor

One essential trick for making small rooms feel larger is to free up the floor. When the eye is able to roam freely across the whole floor, without running up against lots of solid objects, it creates an impression of extra space. Tables and chairs with pedestal bases take up less floor space than those with the standard four legs, clearing the area underneath. For examples of classic pedestal furnishings, consider Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Chair and coordinating SA69/6 Pedestal Table. The same trick can be applied to a small bathroom, by opting for a pedestal sink rather than a full vanity.

Wall-mounted   offer a storage and display solution that takes up no floor space. In a small bedroom or guest room, forgo conventional nightstands in favor of small wall-mounted shelves at the bedside, with hanging pendant lights in place of lamps. Small-space shelving options we love include the virtually invisible Press Bookshelves.

Furnishings

Choose a tall, slender étagère or vitrine for a freestanding storage solution that looks great on a small footprint. Our space-maximizing picks include the Italian-made Cubic Shelves Vitrine, the steel Joker Bookcase, and the 59-inch Dappertutto Exhibitor Bookcase, which stands on casters for easy movement.

Whether glass or acrylic, transparent is a great solution for small rooms, because it looks far less bulky than it is. Light travels right through it, and sightlines are virtually uninterrupted. Large mirrors, whether mounted or leaning against the wall, are another time-tested way to create the illusion of extra space, by reflecting a large part of the room and bouncing light around it.

On the subject of light, never underestimate its power to expand a room. Chase away the shadows with good lighting design – ideally, you’ll want a mix of ambient, task and accent light sources to keep your tiny space bright and versatile enough for multiple uses. Sconces and pendant lights are essential, and, unlike lamps, occupy no floor area.

Color

We’ve all heard that light colors are best for small spaces, and it’s true that white walls and ceilings can help create visual space. However, if you’re feeling bold, consider taking the exact opposite tack. After all, making the room seem larger isn’t the only option at your disposal! Embrace your tiny room and make it exciting with boldly painted walls or heavily patterned, super-dramatic wallpaper. Take advantage of the fact that a small room is less risky to experiment in than your main living spaces, and easier to re-decorate if things don’t work out.

If you have decided to install a new chandelier or a set of sconces in your home, it’s likely that you’ve spent some time agonizing over their placement. Getting it right can seem like more of an art form than an exact science, but there are a few easy-to-follow rules that can help enormously.

Chandeliers
It’s important to get both the height and the size of your new chandelier just right. A chandelier that’s too small will get lost in the room, while one that’s too big will overwhelm it. Generally, a chandelier will be positioned either dead center in the room, or directly above the most central furnishing.

Height: A chandelier of 20-24 inches in height is most appropriate for a room with 8-foot ceilings. For any other ceiling height, try applying the following guideline; for every foot of ceiling height, multiply by 2.5 to 3 inches. The resulting figure is your ideal chandelier height.

Hang your chandelier at least 30 inches above the table, adding another three inches per foot of ceiling height for ceilings over 8 feet. For any space where people will be walking under it (living room, bathroom, walk-in closet), ensure it is at least 7 feet off the ground.

Size: The diameter of a chandelier can also be calculated with a little simple math. Add the length of your room to its width, then switch the resulting footage into inches. So, a 14 x 20 foot room would equate to a 34-inch diameter chandelier.

When hanging a chandelier above the dining table, ensure that the diameter of the fixture is one foot smaller than the width of table. So, a three-foot wide table should be paired with a two-foot wide chandelier.

Sconces
Part of the charm of sconces is their versatility; they can be put into service as ambient, task or accent lighting. The right positioning lets you choose from all three.

Height: Any sconce should be positioned higher than eye level to ensure the light bulb within is not visible. 60 inches is a good height for sconces, although if you’re blessed with extra-high ceilings you may wish to take advantage by moving them up further. In the bedroom, position reading sconces at least 30 inches over the bed, to prevent bumping your head upon sitting up.

Brightness: Some sconce shades block the light from radiating directly outward, forcing it out of the top, bottom or any other part of the sconce that isn’t covered. This creates lighting effects with high drama, but it’s worth considering that it may cut down on the amount of ambient light produced. Use higher wattage bulbs in dark areas, lower wattage in areas that are already well lit, and consider switching to LED bulbs to save electricity while boosting the overall brightness of a room.

Art personalizes a home and expresses your unique character. There are however a few display pitfalls to avoid, including unflattering lighting, haphazard positioning, and environmental conditions that risk damage. We’ve assembled a few guidelines to help you display your framed art to its best advantage.

Lighting your art: Good lighting is essential to making your art look its best. Rather than settling for the existing light design in your home, add a few fixtures that exist solely to draw attention to your paintings. If you choose ceiling-mounted lights, the light should hit the center of the painting at an angle of 30 degrees, to prevent both long shadows (from too oblique an angle) and excessive glare (too direct). Other options include track lighting and wall washers that throw non-directed light across the entire surface where your art is hung. Finally, while white gallery walls are classic, with the right lighting a black background can really make your collection pop.

Displaying your art: Although well-coordinated frames are a good look, never feel that your art collection has to share a certain color palette; this is one area of the home where you can throw caution to the wind. You may opt for a salon wall with lots of art hanging at different heights, but if you’re only hanging a single frame or one straight row, remember to position it at eye height. According to a simple rule generally accepted by museums and galleries, the center of a painting should be 57 inches above the floor. Scale can be tricky, but if in doubt, go large. A small artwork hanging in the middle of a wall invariably looks off kilter; a really big piece is far more likely to look intentional.

Caring for your art: The major enemies of works on paper or canvas are heat, humidity and direct sunlight. Sunlight fades, while heat and humidity can both cause warping; all points to consider when choosing the perfect place to hang them. Avoid hanging art over heating vents, working fireplaces or radiators; steer clear of bathrooms or areas directly outside bathrooms where steam might escape; and never hang anything directly opposite a window. Asking your framer to use UV filtering Plexiglas will help further protect your art.

Selling a house can be a difficult experience for a host of reasons, from the emotional to the practical. Unfortunately, the longer your home remains on the market, the greater the likelihood that you’ll have to accept a lower price than you had hoped. Clever staging can help impress the qualities and possibilities of your home on potential buyers, leading to better offers in less time.

What is staging?
It’s rare for any of us to have a completely objective view of our homes; we’re too close to them, too used to them, and too attached to our own personal items to see them as other people do. What looks great to one person may look idiosyncratic to another; what seems like an efficient use of space to somebody with a lot of furniture may look cluttered to a minimalist.

Professional real estate stagers bring an outside perspective to the problem. Their role is effectively to make your home look as attractive as possible to the largest number of people possible. This can mean anything from rearranging your furniture and putting personal items into storage, to removing absolutely everything and replacing it with their own furnishings, art and decor. It’s a big job, but the results often speak for themselves when a hard-to-move property is suddenly whisked off the market.

Do-it-yourself staging tips
If you don’t have time to find and book a professional stager before your open house, or the idea of bringing a stranger into the equation just makes you uncomfortable, all is not lost. It’s absolutely possible to make a difference to your own home by borrowing a few staging tips.

• Great kitchens sell houses, but so-so ones can put buyers off in a big way. Replacing features may not seem like a smart use of money when you’re planning to move out, but investing a little can end up returning a lot. In the kitchen, replace old appliances with new (stainless steel finishes are a safe bet), repaint any cabinetry that’s past its best in a light, modern neutral and replace hardware including doorknobs and drawer pulls with shiny new ones.

• Bathrooms are another potential trouble spot — if small or dated, buyers immediately start adding up how much a renovation will cost them. Knock out a space-consuming vanity in favor of a basin that stands on a slender pedestal, revealing the real amount of floor space on offer. Old-fashioned or unusual tiling may benefit from being painted over in a neutral shade especially formulated for ceramics, or stripped out completely.

• As they walk through your home, buyers are trying to imagine themselves living there. Your personal style may not be similar to theirs; your personal items definitely aren’t. Make it easier for buyers to envision a future in your house or condo by removing distracting artworks, collectables and mementos. Similarly, remove any furniture that doesn’t strictly need to be there. Clutter is your enemy.

• Honestly assess whether your home has a specific smell. Baking cookies before an open house is a bit of a cliché, but buyers are going to have all five senses engaged and may not share your affection for your favorite foods, your perfume, or your pets. Washing your upholstery, soft furnishings and carpets will help; you may also need to board Fido for a few days.

• All walls should be neutral. Whether you opt to repaint in simple white or an elegant greige, creative color schemes and wallpapers have got to go. Think light. Think spacious. Think of it as practice for saying goodbye.

• Finally, deep clean every. single. room. This may sound painfully obvious, but many sellers feel that their usual level of cleanliness is just fine for an open house. It isn’t. Hire cleaners, have any carpets or area rugs thoroughly washed, and ensure every surface is spotless before opening your doors.