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Fall decor gets personal: `Your house becomes your story’

By Kim Cook Associated Press As fall nesting season returns, home décor retailers are presenting collections that reflect the idea that home is where our hearts and heads are. Our long housebound stretch may have made us restless for the outside world, but it has helped us appreciate our homes more. Even if you didn’t redo a basement playroom, rehab a bathroom or create a workspace in an apartment closet, you probably rediscovered what you like about your home. “Our living spaces moved from sanctuary to command central,” says Elaine Griffin, a designer in Sea Island, ...

Right at home: Ceilings with something to say

By Kim Cook Associated Press The ceiling — sometimes referred to as a room’s fifth wall — often gets short shrift in decorating schemes. Walls and furnishings take center stage while the acreage overhead receives a coat of neutral white paint, with perhaps a snazzy ceiling fixture. That wasn’t the case historically. Plaster ornamentation and murals were used centuries ago, and the Victorians really went to town on the ceiling, with elaborate moldings and stamped tin sheeting. Ceiling medallions graced more formal spaces like dining rooms and parlors, while timber beams and ...

Salvage shops offer sustainable decor with a story

By Katherine Roth Associated Press Two of the hottest trends in home decor are sustainability and authenticity. No wonder architectural salvage shops are busy. Homeowners love features that come with a story, says Rich Ellis, publisher of Architectural Salvage and Antique Lumber News. “When you can point to your floor and say it came from an old shoe factory in Connecticut, for example, that’s a big attraction,” he says. There are between 500 and 700 architectural salvage businesses across the country, and business has been good, he says. “It’s about both history and ...

Small home living: not `downsizing’ but `right-sizing’

By Katherine Roth Associated Press With the current trend toward de-cluttering and downsizing, there are plenty of books about how to winnow down possessions to the few that are truly necessary and loved. This book shows how you can live well once that’s done. In “Downsize: Living Large in a Small House” (2019, The Taunton Press), author Sheri Koones focuses on practical ways to live well at home once you’ve streamlined your belongings and are living more compactly. “It scares people to think of moving into a smaller space, but every single person I interviewed who has ...

Choosing the perfect sofa for your space

By Kim Cook Associated Press Ask interior designers what the most important element in a room is and many will say that — after wall color — it’s the sofa. So how do you choose this crucial piece of furniture? Should you go for one big sofa or two love seats? What about materials, arm styles and the all-important question of how to position the sofa in the space? Start by thinking about the shape of the room, says Elaine Griffin , who helms design offices in Manhattan and St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. “In a long, narrow room, place the sofa along the shorter wall ...

Past present perfect: Mixing traditional, contemporary decor

By Kim Cook Associated Press The freshest style in decor these days is ... mixing styles. Traditional and contemporary often work well together. Think abstract art with an overstuffed chaise, or an 18th century-style toile wallpaper with an ‘80s-era lamp. The appeal is in the pleasing tension between the styles; sophisticated, artsy, yet livable. The latest throwback trend comes, as usual, from pop culture. Binge-worthy TV series like “Outlander” and “Bridgerton” have inspired Pinterest boards filled with tartan pillows, William Morris patterns, stag antler lighting, ...