How to Choose Finishing Touches

Accessories give you the most freedom when it comes to expressing yourself in your home design. Without them, a space feels like it’s missing something. A home without accessories is like cooking without spices. Accessories like lamps, pictures, vases, and candles can help enhance the color scheme, furnishings, flooring, and wall coverings in any room in your home.

Start by choosing a color scheme for a room. From there, you’ll be able to gather items to accessorize your space, whether you’re out and about shopping, traveling, or at an estate sale. Similarly, an interior designer can help you accessorize a space with things that appeal to you and your personal tastes. If you already have a collection of items to accessorize with, play around with the ways in which they’re displayed. Consider all of the places lacking décor, like tabletops, shelving, and mantles.

Lighting is a major accessory that shouldn’t be ignored in planning out a space. A well-lit room includes four major types of lighting – ambient, task, accent, and mood. They all work together to create a dramatic effect.

• Ambient or general lighting is indirect and provides comfortable background illumination.  It’s important that it be distributed evenly in your rooms so that no areas are overly bright or hidden in the shadows. Recessed and track lighting are considered two of the best general sources of light.
• Accent lighting is purely decorative. It includes everything from up-lights and torchieres to sconces and spotlights.
• Mood lighting comes from flexible light sources. The easiest way to incorporate this lighting into your design is to add a dimmer switch to any light source.
• Task lighting provides the necessary light for specific duties such as reading, writing, or cooking.  Two great examples are reading lamps and under-counter lighting.

Most rooms have multiple uses, so be sure to have the right mix of lighting! For more tips on finishing touches, contact us today.