The Carpeteria Blog

If you’re drawn to this exotic antique shop in Yangon, Myanmar, you can create a comparable mood in your own home by making the right design choices.

To start, notice that the colors in the space stay in the cream and honey brown range. These softer tones allow the rich colors of these antiques to really shine. Pure white walls actually don’t let the color of wood and other finishes show at their best.

This floor is old hand-planked parquet. While recreating this floor would be challenging and impractical, today’s choices of wood flooring can provide the same sense of age through distressing, dark lines between the planks, and variety in plank widths. This warm brown tone can be matched almost exactly thanks to the rich selection of finishes available.

The large Oriental rug in the center of the store sets both tone and color for the space, with red reflected in corners to carry that rich color beyond the rug itself. Antique Oriental rugs are available, but you can also find carpets that recreate this feeling and style from today’s manufacturers in less expensive price points and easy-care materials.

A number of retail operations and online companies specialize in Asian antiques, and the broad choice ensures that you can select some furniture; accessories and artwork that will make your home décor reflect this style and mood. Once again, many interesting elements may be found in contemporary reproductions at a more reasonable price.

Do you love the feeling when you walk into a certain store? Like this choice, you can make design decisions that will allow you to recreate a similar mood in your own home.

The Four Seasons of Decorating: Fall

Everyone has a favorite season. If autumn is yours, consider making one or more rooms in your home a reflection of fall. You will find it easy to integrate all of your design elements if you use the season as your guide, and you will end up with a room you love.

Flooring is a good place to start when planning your room. Thinking autumn with its emphasis on the warmth of trees and woods, how about a rich dark wood floor? Consider a cherry for its deep brown tones or pecan for the combination of browns and blacks that echo a forest floor. Any wood floor will help bring fall to mind.

Color is easy – fall has its own palette. Are you drawn to the aspens and birches with their rich golds? How about the amazing reds and oranges of maples, or the soft browns and maroons of oak trees at their fall peak? Pick any or all of them. They work together in nature, and they will work in your home. Even an olive or sage green can serve as a natural element in your fall space.

For accessories, you decide how far you want to go with the fall theme. Maybe you just want to echo your floor with some turned wood bowls. How about a few bronze candlesticks? Or if you want to take the fall theme further, just pick up some gourds, pumpkins and Indian corn to create a centerpiece or two. Acorns and pine cones in a bowl give you an inexpensive way to show off the season.

Bring fall into your life every day with a room that haunts you with a sense of the season.

For the other seasons, click here.

The Four Seasons of Decorating: Winter

Winter images range from hot chocolate and warm fires to that cold-wet feeling when you’ve had to dig your car out of its parking space again. Winter rooms need to bring warmth inside, along with a nice dose of coziness.

Carpet is the flooring for winter. Find a ‘”dig your toes in” kind that makes your feet happy when the boots come off. Or maybe you’ve fallen in love with sculptured carpeting. Whatever the type, the softness perfectly complements the harsh weather outside.

If you long for a dark accent wall, or even a dark-walled space, your winter room gives you that opportunity. Pull in a rich brown or wine red, or how about a dark sage green? Introduce ivories and creams to lighten the space through furniture and pillows. For windows, velvet curtains that go to the floor keep the warmth in and the chill out – visually and in terms of temperature.

Lighting is particularly important when the sun sets so early. Table lamps in the corners and candles for special occasions create a sense of invitation and comfort in your winter room. Accessories should include a couple of throws to wrap around your legs on chilly evenings.

When it’s cold outside, curl up in your winter room and enjoy the best of the season.

For the other seasons, click here.

The Four Seasons of Decorating: Spring

One fun approach to decorating is to think of a room as reflecting one of the four seasons. Design materials, colors and even furniture styles can represent a season. Let’s take a look at what spring is all about.

When you think of spring, look for light bright colors and textures. For flooring, how about a light bamboo or maple floor, with wood shutters painted a bright white. Crown molding and baseboards in white echo the window coverings, and bring a sense of light into the room.

Many colors echo the feeling of spring, but a light green and yellow can really make the space feel like April or May. For fabrics, florals are an easy choice, but think outside the box with a lattice-style pattern or a crisp check in spring tones.

Finish the space with the fresh flowers available only during the spring months – daffodil, tulip and hyacinth plants in pots scattered through the room or – even better – sitting on windowsills, adding the finishing touch. Ready for spring? Your room certainly is!

For the other seasons, click here.