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Designing Your Home Around the Seasons
Have you ever gone to a retail establishment and thought to yourself how nice it would be to bring the sprit of the holiday home? By reading this article you will gain insightful tips on decorating your home around the seasons.
The first step to decorating your home around the seasons is to have a color palate to do so. When choosing colors that are permanent in your home, consider what will be the accent colors of each season and choose a permanent palete that will coordinate with these seasonal colors. Lets consider the seasonal colors below. Remember that seasonal colors are inspired by nature, and thus generally refer to colors found naturally in nature during the appropriate times of the year. Regional colors do vary by season, so be considerate of your region.
Winter: White (snow, flowers), green (trees), red (berries), blue (sky)
Spring: Green (foilage on plants), white (snow), pink (flowers), yellow (flowers), blue (sky, flowers), purple (flowers)
Summer: yellow (dry fields, flowers), orange (sun, flowers), blue (water), red (american holidays such as fourth of july, labor day, memorial day, fireworks)
Fall: Orange (leaves, flowers) and brown (leaves, bark of trees), green (foilage)
When designing around the seasons, you want to be sure the neutral colors of your home are able to mix with each season. For instance, instead of painting a wall pink which is an accent color affiliated with spring, paint the wall green so that pink can be used as an acccent color in the spring, red or blue can be used in the winter, yellow can be used in the summer, and orange and brown can be used in the fall. Butter yellow is a good neutral color for walls as most colors compliments of it. Beige is also a good neutral for homes with earthtones as their palette.
When buying upholstery, consider large pieces in neutral fabrics (neutral meaning colors that are not accent colors in your home) so that by changing the pillow on the piece of furniture, you can have a entirely different look and feel for each season. For instance you can make a brown sofa fall by adding orange pillows, make it spring by adding cream and pink pillows, or make it Christmas by adding red and green pillows to it. Even more neutral than brown is using cream fabrics if your family can respect and not damage the light color. The beauty of using cream on upholstery is that it can change like the wind. It can be accented with bright greens for spring, red, white and blue for summer, brown and orange for fall, even pink, blue and purple for easter.
After choosing your base layers, or all of your items that stay in your home every time it has been taken back to bare (see our article Spring Cleaning for Every Seasons) you can decorate with your accent colors to bring in the season. First start with your curtains. Curtains are a great way to change the look and feel of your home for the season. If you design your curtains with enough simplicity and know how to sew, changing your curtains is a great way to make huge changes to the look and feel of your home. (See our article on Designing Curtains for Your Home). The curtains hanging on your windows can provide great structure and color in designing your room.
After you choose your curtain fabric, choose pillows to accent your colors and your room. As mentioned earlier, a pillow can completely change the look and feel of a room and even tie it together. Choose colors of your pillow you would like to accent with or use your pillow to tie all the colors in a room together. An accent pillow is a great way to make a very strong color and design statement in a room.
Use the colors of the season to decorate with flowers. I love to use pairs of flowers in colored pots purchased at hardware stores such as OSH to bring color into a room. Pairs of flowers on mantels, buffets, or even a kitchen window framing the sink add great color to a room. Pairs of flowers next to pairs of lamps look even better when applicable.
If you are not good at keeping flowers alive, try silk flowers found at Michaels Crafts or Joannes Fabrics found during the season you are decorating around. They are often inexpensive and can be used year after year for decoration if stored properly. Next year instead of having to buy flowers to tie your room together, imagine unpacking your POD and the flowers being ready for your season change. All you have to do is place them and voila, color!
Stem flowers can create a dramatic centerpiece on a cocktail table or dining table. Use several stems of flowers to fill up a tall glass vase and let the flowers cascade vertically to create color on a higher elevation in a room. For large rectangular dining tables, use two or three matching flower arrangements of stem flowers to create drama and repetition in your room. Mix in candleabras with colored candles to create more drama with color. The height on the table will bring your eye up and make the volume in the room feel full. Add accent curtains to your room as well as some nice wall decor, and voila, a beautiful room for your season!
Lamp shades referencing your color theme are great to change out seasonally, as are pillows on accent chairs and sofas in living areas. Add hanging wreathes to doors to add color when entering a room. Hang these wreathes of flowers using 3M sticky hangers to hang the wreathes on your door without damaging your door. Great floral accents such as these can be found inexpensively at Joanne Fabrics or Michaels Crafts (make sure you use their 40% off or 50% off coupons when available).
Rugs are another great way to change the look and feel of a room. Don't feel you have to buy a rug that has alot of pattern or color in it, as this type of rug does not adapt well to changing your style with the season. Opt for a more neutral rug, maybe that made in a natural fiber like sissel, that can mix easier with accent colors such as red, pink, or orange (your accents of the season).
Candles can not only provide for a romantic backdrop when necessary, but also can be found in great colors and smells that will add to your overall theme. Try putting large candles found at Pier One Imports in clear glass dishes surrounded by scented potpurri on coffee tables to create color and texture in your room. This plus a beautiful floral arrangement and a cocktail table book is really all cocktail table ever needed to look complete.
Don't overlook your bed linens when decorating for the seasons. Consider the time of year when dressing your bed. There is nothing better that a crisp white bed in the spring laced with accents pillows of pink, lilac, yellow and blue. You can add just about any accent to a white bed, so let your imagaination go wild. For the fall, consider cream bedding that can be accented with brown and orange, or stick with white bedding and accent your bed with bright green and orange. During the Holidays, red and green pillows for Christmas go along way, as does blue pillows on a white bed for Hannukah.
To tie your coordination of your bedding into your bathroom, purchase towels that are the same colors as those you are using in your current season. A great place to buy inexpensive bath mats is Cost Plus World Market and Ralph Lauren Outlet for colored towels.
If your really want to get in tune with the seasons, try changing out your table linens, napkins, placemats, and table cloths with current seasonal colors. This will really tie your home together. Class your home up a bit by using fabric napkins with the colors of your current season instead of paper towels. Buy some accent bowls in the accent colors you are using to mix in with simple white dishes to tell the story of the season when you eat dinner. Accent dinner and salad plates make a nice addition to your home during breakfast, lunch or dinner. Throw rugs in your kitchen as well as kitchen curtains can change the theme of your home quickly. After layering your kitchen with flowers, placemats, and napkins consider yourself a fascionista of your home. Congratulate yourself on your progress because after all of the layering in the appropriate colors mentioned above, I bet your home looks great!
If you really want to become an expert on seasonal decorating, buy a slipcovered piece of furniture. Either have it made in a neutral fabric that can tie in with all season, or design it in a great fabric made for just one season and trade it out with a neutral fabric. We sell amazing slipcovers for most upholstered pieces of furnitiure for your home, including dining room chairs, bedroom chairs, chaises to sofas for your family room or living room. Check out our new selection of fabrics from Waverly on our Pinterest page to see how beautiful the Waverly fabrics are. Maybe you will want a sofa designed in slipcovered seashell fabric for summer from the Waverly fabric collection. I know I do!
After the season is over and you want to pack this season up and start over again on the next season, see our article Spring Cleaning For Every Season. Here you'll learn of the best way to pack everything up not releveant to the next season and start all over again. After a few years of this decorating you will be able to open your POD and if you plan your purchases right the first time, you won't to have to buy another thing and your house will look FABULOUS! Good luck and happy decorating!
If you have questions on how to change your home for the seasons or just want some decorating advice, please feel free to contact us. We would love to share our ideas to help make your home more beautiful!
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