It’s the place where are daily first and last impressions made.

Bedrooms are meant for sleeping, reading, reflecting, romancing, recharging your batteries, escaping from the cares of the day. The quality of sleeping you receive every day in you bedroom is very important for your happiness, health and productivity. So, give your bedroom a sensual serenity, turn it to a private sanctuary adding details and treatments that are personal and chic.

To create your perfect bedroom, you must think about what you like to do in your bedroom and define a style appropriated. Consider your bedroom like a sacred retreat. It’s very important that your connection with every object in your bedroom elicits a positive, nurturing response. A cozy, sensual bedroom atmosphere invites complete rest and rejuvenation of your body, mind and spirit.
Top priorities to turn your bedroom into an intimate, relaxing place:

* Paint the walls a warm, inviting color.
* Choose linens in delicious colors and sensuous textures.
* Purchase night stands and lamps if you don’t have any, choose the color that energizes you and lift your spirit.
* Choose bedroom art that inspires you and make you dream.
* Light scented candles.
* Listen to soft music.

Cleanse your bedroom of item that keep negative memories and associations alive, and you find that your bedroom will embrace and revitalize. The comfort and safety you feel in the world is directly connected to how safe and comfortable you feel in your home, bedrooms should be especially so. Here is the place to plunge on fabrics that are sensual, including chenille, flannel, silk, cotton, satin, and velvet.

View from the bed is very important, put a frame, a piece of art, a vase of flowers that inspires you and makes you dream. The art in your bedroom makes a strong impact on your psyche, make it a positive one. Include sensual, serene or romantic images that calm and inspire you. If you want to honor the five senses, focus on creating truly sensual environments. Whether single or coupled, your bedroom should be a place where all yours senses are comforted and intimately celebrated. Light a scented candle, play bedroom music, and relax. This is your oasis in which to have treats that you enjoy.

The best bedroom colors are found in the skin tones of all races, pearly beiges and tans, creamy cocoas, blushing pinks and peaches, subtle yellows, pale violets, and earthy reds. There are a wide variety of warm pastel colors, as well as more pigmented rich tone such as coral, chocolate, butter cream, terra-cotta, cinnabar, raspberry, aubergine, burgundy, copper, gold and bronze. Pure white, gray, black, blues, and gray greens can create a gorgeous look, but when they dominate, they make the room too chilly to be sensual. If your bedroom is decorated in cool colors, bring in complementary warm tones. This can be done in many ways: a new coat of paint, sheets, lamp, pillows, throws, art, comforters, slipcover, rugs, tablecloths, flowers, candles, vases.

Avoid television in the bedroom. Most television programming consists of either action stories or bad news, neither of which is conductive to deep, restorative sleep. What we need before sleep is inspiration, and tranquility. Before retiring at night, consider writing in your journal, reading, or reflecting on your day, rather than watching television. If you have one, store it in an armoire or cabinet. Television can affect your relationship with your partner. The bedroom reflects the couple relationship.

Many couples don’t realize that an environment can strengthen and nourish, or dampen and weaken, their intimacy. Place importance on your bedroom environment and connect with one another. The bedroom makes an impression. The more active or “crazy” a couple life’s style is, the more crucial it is that they have a private and appealing bedroom sanctuary in which to, rejuvenate in intimacy.

Along with those previous suggestions, couples can nurture and enhance intimacy by thoughtfully sewing some very special threads into the fabric of their bedrooms.

Comfort is the prevailing language of all well designed bedrooms. How it is translated and interpreted depends upon the individual. To some, soothing, soft and serene is comforting. To others, clean lined clarity is the most relaxing; while still others find plush, sumptuous opulence the most blissful.

Contemplative exercise:

What are some of the most enjoyable ways to soothe your senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste?

Make a list of what engages and delights each sense, and add to it as you think of new ideas.

If you share a bedroom, ask your partner what he or she is sensually nurtured by, and incorporate those ideas as well. You should be struck with the sensual qualities of your bedroom every morning and night.

(from decoration.com)

Understanding the psychology of color will help you to choose a palette for your home that has a positive effect on you and your family.

On bright sunny days, we become happy and recharged. While sitting by the ocean, we feel relaxed and at peace. The colors associated with those feelings (yellow equals happy and blue equals relaxed) get stored in our memory and are drawn upon when selecting colors for our home.

According to color consultant Leatrice Eiseman, author of The Color Answer Book (Capital Books, 2003) and Colors for Your Every Mood (Capital Books, 2000), many of our color associations are attached to childhood. “If you used to bake cookies with your grandmother and her kitchen had red and white gingham curtains, that would forever be embedded in you as a pleasant memory and you would gravitate towards it.”

But, Leatrice explains, the opposite is also true. Understanding the psychology of color helps us to choose color that will positively impact our mood and energy.

Warm vs. cool
The color wheel is divided into warm and cool colors. Reds, yellows and oranges are warm colors because they remind us of fire and heat and tend to excite and energize us. Blues, greens and purples are cool colors, playing on nature and the outdoors, which calm and relax us.

Within the two categories, each color is said to further elicit different emotions.

* Red The color of excitement, raising our blood pressure and increasing feelings of passion.
* Yellow Livens up a grey day, making us feel happy, recharged and uplifted.
* Orange As a combination of yellow and red, it has the power to elicit good cheer and happiness, as well as energy and excitement. It’s also said to stimulate appetite.
* Blue “Blue is associated with dependability, constancy,” says Leatrice. “People feel serene and tranquil because that’s what we associate with the sky.” It also suppresses our appetite, likely because there aren’t too many blue foods.
* Green Reminiscent of the outdoors or nature; offers freshness and balance.
* Purple The color of creativity, combining the excitement of red on one hand and the tranquility of blue on the other.

It’s important to keep in mind that these color-mood associations are general, and that there are always exceptions. Leatrice points to electric blues, which will excite more than calm, and yellow-greens such as chartreuse, which are strong and overwhelming.

A color for every room
Once we understand how color works, we can apply it to various rooms to elicit and reflect the mood we desire. “They paint prisons pink to calm people down,” jokes Peter Fallico, host of HGTV Canada’s Home To Go, before getting down to which rooms in the home merit which colors.

* Bathroom: “People want to see crispness in a bathroom,” says Peter, “to get that spa feel.” For coolness in the bathroom, aquas, blues and greens work well, but anything in the peachy/rose range flatters the skin, adds Leatrice.
* Bedroom: Leatrice used periwinkle blue in her own bedroom, a color that offers a little bit of excitement but remains for the most part tranquil. Peter suggests a soft yellow, something that is at once safe and warming, and vibrant enough to get a person out of bed in the morning.
* Dining room: If you want to get people salivating, Leatrice suggests trying colours from apricot, rosy orange and peach to terra cotta, wine and cranberry. Even the colors sound appetizing!
* Home office: Since this is a room where concentration is required, Leatrice suggests something restful to the eyes such as teal, a color that combines green’s outdoor inspiration with blue’s dependability. Peter moves a little further into the green family with celadon –“It’s alive, it’s perky,” he says – or pear, which is motivating.
* Living room: “You need something calming, a color that you can be around a long time with,” says Peter, suggesting tan or sable, either of which looks beautiful against wood tones. If the room is used for television, Leatrice prefers a green.
* Kitchen: “A bright sunny yellow will keep the kitchen alive and fresh,” says Peter. Leatrice agrees: “Yellow is just cheerful and fun, even if you spend little time cooking.”

Whatever color you choose, make sure you like it. “Orange may be a trend colour, but if it doesn’t say pleasant things to you you’re not going to be comfortable,” says Leatrice. “Choose a color based on your emotional response to it.”

by Heather Camlot
(article from styleathome.com)

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One of the most important rules of thumb when you’re preparing your home for sale is to look at it from a buyer’s point of view, not just from your own. Nowhere is that truer than in the wall colors you choose. You may love strong colors and have very stylish interior decor that goes with them, but color can present several drawbacks when it comes to resale.

As Toronto designer Shelley Kirsch points out, “Color adds a lot of personality to an environment — which is good and bad. If a buyer is very visual, they can see beyond a certain color; but if they aren’t, the color can distract, making it hard for them to visualize themselves in the room.”

Of course, that needn’t mean you should always paint all the rooms boring beige before you put a house on the market. In fact, that could conceivably have the opposite effect, making a house seem plain-Jane (especially if it’s limited in architectural detail or is underfurnished).

The ideal, in Kirsch’s view, is to choose colors with just the right touch of life to them: neutral enough to present a blank canvas, but interesting enough to add some character. We asked her to give us some of her favorite all-round paint colors, both for resale and for very livable interiors in general.

Quincy Tan HC-25, Benjamin Moore

“I find this putty-grey-beigey-taupe to be a very neutral, non-competitive color, but it also adds a certain depth and character that brings out the beauty of the home, rather than merely acting as a backdrop. Also, it allows you to use accents in stronger colors and still maintain a classic look.”

40YY-51/084, ICI Paints.

“Grey is very trendy right now, especially warm greys like this one. It’s especially beautiful in townhouses, with architectural detail picked out in white trim, like cornice and crown mouldings, or marble. It’s a very sophisticated color, and classic settings like this seem to suit it better than modern or too-bright settings, which might make it look cold.”

Stone White 11, Farrow & Ball.

“This has a vintage, mission feeling to it that I like. They call it a white, but it’s really a chalky grey-green. It’s beautiful with gumwood trim, wood floors, in fact any natural wood.”

Sesame, Sico Paints.

“If you want the warmth of yellow but are unsure — and I consider yellows to be the hardest color in the palette to work with — you might want to try going for an amber or cloudy yellow instead. This is a beautiful, soft greyed yellow that looks marvellous with Cloud White [Benjamin Moore OC-40] trim.”

Silver Blonde 2141, Pratt & Lambert.

“A mushroomy tone like this one is very versatile. It looks equally lovely with red, or with cream upholstery. This is what you’d call the most ‘circular’ of colors, in that it looks lovely with both light and dark woods and accents. It’s a clean, modern, almost Scandinavian look.”

by  Martha Uniacke Breen
(from styleathome.com)

In my house, the color palette is neutral: The walls are pale linen, the sofa is light brown, the rugs are natural sisal, the dishes are white. I find neutrals calming, tasteful and restful. And they’re the perfect backdrop for anything and everything, all seasons of the year, whether the shade is taupe, tan, ecru, almond, cream or ivory. Or lavender.

Once considered too cloying, too old-fashioned, perhaps best left for the baby’s room, lavender has become a go-to color for walls, ceilings, fabrics and furniture, showing up in magazines, catalogs, show houses and designers’ portfolios.

“It’s gone beyond the sweet-old-lady thing,” Washington designer Whitney Stewart says. “It’s something new and fresh that we can use in the same way as the beiges.”

This season, Crate and Barrel is selling lavender stemware. Pottery Barn’s summer paint palette includes a shade of lavender. Restoration Hardware, known for its strictly edited color selection, sells lavender paint, shower curtains and towels. And, last fall on the fashion runway, where interior design often takes its cues, a pale lavender wedding gown appeared among the sea of white and ivory.

The color stars at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York this month, where emerging design trends often begin their journey into the mainstream. A lush bedroom decorated by Manhattan designer Jamie Drake included wall-to-wall lavender carpeting, a lavender velvet slipper chair and high-gloss lavender lacquer wall panels.

“Lavender can be a soft and embracing neutral when used in lavish amounts,” Drake says in an e-mail.

Many people have a misconception about neutrals, designers say. Neutral does not have to mean shades
of beige. It’s a grounding background color that does not call attention to itself, but allows everything around it to stand out.

“There is an entire world out there of neutral colors that are not beige,” says Stephanie Hoppen, author of “Perfect Neutrals: Color You Can Live With.” She describes lavender as sophisticated and chic, a color that “works like an absolute dream.”

The wide spectrum of lavenders — tending toward pink, blue, gray or white — can adapt to almost any color or design style. Paired with warm, dark wood finishes, lavender can seem cool and refined. Near a cool pale green, lavender comes across as warm and lively. “It can pick up the qualities of any color,” Chicago designer Anne Coyle says. “There’s no color that it can’t mix with. Lavender is the new neutral.”

Coyle says lavender is always her first choice, and it’s the color of the walls in her home furnishings store in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. Despite a rotating stock of items in a mix of colors and styles, she says, nothing ever looks bad with the lavender walls. She likes the color with black-and-white, brown, gray, celadon (a pale green), mustard yellow, contemporary furniture and antiques. “It’s like gray but a little more racy, a little more fun. It’s like the crazy aunt of gray.”

Stewart recently used a taupey lavender as the principal color in the living room of a client’s Georgetown home. She frequently uses the color with cream, gray and taupe, or midnight blue and white. She says the color is a frequent request of young professionals.

Jeannie Tower, a Washington feng shui consultant, says the color not only looks beautiful but can make you feel good, too. “It’s a nesting color,” Tower says. “It makes you very content. You want an environment that’s calm, surrounded by things that inspire you and make you feel warm and comforted. Lavender will do that.”

Terri Sapienza, Washington Post source : www.sfgate.com

+ Color consultants shouldn’t impose their taste, but they may well suggest colors you wouldn’t have considered. Keep an open mind.

+ Trim, flooring, artwork, furniture and lighting dramatically affect wall color. Visualizing how a color will “read” in your home is where the pros earn their stripes.

+ Forget you ever heard that white walls make a room look bigger. Color makes a room warm, cozy and complete.

+ Even if you’re painting only one room, keep your entire home in mind. Avoid hopping from, say, a red room to a blue room to a yellow room with no unifying elements.

+ If you forgo professional help, learn to read a paint chip. Cut off all white borders and adjoining tones. Hold the chip vertically, so the light will hit it the same way it hits your wall. Take the chip home and tape it up. Move it around and test it in all kinds of light, including lamplight.

+ Colors often look different on the wall than on the paint chip. To test it, buy a quart or small sample, like the 2-ounce Devine Mini Paint Pouch or Benjamin Moore’s 2-ounce paint jar, coming to retailers this summer. Both brands retail for about $3.50. Test-paint the lightest wall (across from the window), the darkest wall (the window wall) and an area near the ceiling.

+ For mess-free testing, try C2’s “ultimate paint chips” ($4.99) These are 18-by-24-inch posterboards painted – not printed – with the actual colors of the C2 palette. You can tape them up and move them, risk-free.

+ White walls don’t necessarily make a house more saleable. Eve Leonard of Windermere/Bainbridge, a certified staging professional, hired color pro Mary Jane Rehm to redo a vanilla fixer-upper. With new interiors of green-gray and pale brick tones, the house sold in two weeks at a higher price than bland homes that have sat on the market six months.

+ Accent walls can add interest, but they’re sometimes overdone. Use them only where they make sense.

+ Some paint stores have color consultants on staff. They’ll give shoppers free pointers and can offer a second opinion on the palette your consultant has created. Keep in mind that a quick, in-store chat won’t match the in-depth guidance of a home visit.

+ Buy the best-quality paint you can afford. Expect to pay $25-$35 a gallon. And don’t stint on the rollers and brushes.

+ To get the truest color, prime before you paint. If switching from light walls to a dark tone such as burgundy, ask the store to create a gray-tinted primer. As an alternative, C2′s new Accent Color System includes a transparent-base primer that can be custom-mixed.

+ “Eggshell” is the most popular sheen because it’s washable, low-glare and works in all rooms. If you love the velvety look of flat paint, there’s a new, scrubbable option — Benjamin Moore’s new Matte Made in Heaven. Pratt & Lambert’s Accolade promises a “child-proof,” stain-resistant flat finish.

+ Expect an emotional roller-coaster when you do a major color makeover. The colors your consultant suggested will look different — perhaps awful — when you first start painting. Be brave. The effect should come together in the end.

+ Trends come and go, so if you can’t live without off-white walls, take heart. Some day those bland walls will look new and fresh.

by Cecilia Goodnow
(adapted from article entitled “Color consultants help reinvent bland walls” by Cecelia Goodnow)

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