Art and accessories are like the jewelry of a room. Furniture, rugs, and window treatments are the basic outfits. You need art and accessories, thoughtfully added to your interiors, to complete the design ensemble. The end result will be a great "finished" look. Bottom line: you aren't done decorating until you accessorize. This episode of Design2Share Q&A covers Nicola and Irwin's tips and advice on how to select special pieces, what to do with scale in any room, tips for buying art with your design scheme in mind, changing outdated picture frames and lampshades, the importance of David Hicks' concept of "tablescapes" for arranging accessories, where and how to buy artwork, and tips to keep in mind when purchasing art.
In this Fast Food and Restaurant Era, we often neglect the importance of sitting down to a meal at home or doing a little entertaining around a prepared or take-out meal. Bottom line: you need nights at home where you go all out for yourself, for your significant other, for your family, or for your friends. Our dynamic design duo's advice and tips in this episode cover how to set a great table, bringing scale and drama into your arrangements, adding surprise and humor and fantasy to your meals, ways to mix and match the same elements to switch from formal to informal table settings, how Marie Antoinette's breasts inspired glassware, and Irwin's chocolate ice cream dessert project (yum!).
Rooms in today's homes are not necessarily "your mother's rooms." Remember how living rooms used to be only for formal occasions and you weren't allowed to eat, drink, watch TV, or "live" there? Bottom line: before decorating, nail down your living room's functional purpose for you, your family, and your friends. Irwin and Nicola offer advice and tips in this episode on how to get the room right architecturally, deciding on the room's function as a guide to decorating, how to mix expensive with inexpensive pieces to get a great look, getting the living room to relate to the rest of your home, and the specific design elements that combine to make one great living room.