Home Tree Atlas: Home Decor Ideas and Mood Boards

Home Decor Ideas: Using Leather

It’s not easy to find ways of adding leather to a home’s decor without making it look tacky or overkill rustic. Here are some simple and modern DIY leather decor ideas:

Chic Storage Containers

A great home decor DIY project to make with leather is a storage container. You’ve got the large tool box design in picture (1) which combines a wooden crate with leather handles. Then you have small leather containers that can be used for holding stationary, letters, or clutter around the house. Follow along with the instructions on how to make the elegant black DIY leather bag in picture (2) by Design and Form. Or there are the folding leather baskets (3) by Between the Lines. Over on the Gildem’s Etsy store you can find the Japanese style leather bins seen in picture (4).

Hanging Up: Leather Wall Decor

Leather does make for great looking plant hangers. Design Sponge has instructions on how to make the ones in picture (5). Or how about taking a round mirror, and using an old belt or a leather strip hang it up for a makeshift sea Captain’s mirror (6).

Sitting in Comfort

Sitting in a plush leather chair is pretty freaking relaxing. On a smaller scale, Mandi from Vintage Revivals bought an old beat up leather couch on Craigslist just so she could ‘skin’ it to make leather pillows (7). Check out the ‘how to’ here. Another project for reusing an old couch’s leather would for creating a DIY leather headboard.

The charming camp stool in picture (8) was made by Wood & Faulk. These would make for great add on seating in the living room, or for a foyer stool to help put on or take off shoes.

Home Decor Leather Accents

I believe the best way to add leather into a home’s decor is with small touches. Just like the closet handles made by The Brick House (9). If you use longer strands of leather then you can make hanging magazine racks (10) just like the ones from Leibal.

Another small leather touch is to have leather coffee or dinner table coasters. The elegant ones seen in picture (11) were made by Wood & Faulk – they sure know how to use leather.

January 3, 2014 in Decor, DIY

Color Choice: Red Living Room Ideas

From your color choice and what to do with the walls, to the seating and the decor pieces, here are red living room ideas to style your space just like an interior designer.

Color Choice

Dark vs Light: When it comes to styling your living room in red you’ll have the choice of going either with a dark palette of reds or a light one. A dark red living room will feel romantic and intimate – but also smaller, and cozy. While a light red color scheme will feel brighter, and more spacious.

Adding Another Color: An all red color scheme is one way to go. But you can mix it up a bit by adding in another color to your design. A red and brown living room is a popular choice. Other good color combos include matching red with grey, with green, or with gold. A red and black living room combo strikes a bold statement.

Removal: To really build a strong color scheme in your living room you need to get rid of pieces that go against the color(s) you choose. Unless you are going for an orange and red color scheme, you need to take out that orange pillow/blanket/candle stand. If you are going for a green and red color scheme but have blue pieces around – that messes it up. Pieces that are not in line with your color choice will stand out, take away from your styling, and kill the color scheme you are using. So it is important to pay attention to what pieces you use.

What to do With the Walls

Three Options

You have three options when it comes to the walls in your living room.

1) Paint them all in red just like in picture (1) – you are really making a statement here.

2) Paint only one wall red and the rest in a neutral color like white, cream, brown, or grey. This one wall will be your accent wall, it will become a focal point in the room just like in pictures (2) and (3).

3) The last option is to have all the walls a neutral color. This creates a blank canvas – letting you colorise the room through using red decor pieces, and furniture.

The Curtains

If you go with neutral colored walls or with an accent wall of red, then a way of adding a splash of red to your walls is through using red curtains (4). When you draw your curtains at night, they fill up a lot of the wall space. So they really do add to the styling of the room. If you go with red walls and want to have red curtains, take some time to pick out the right shade of red. You want the curtains to stand out a bit from the red walls, so pick a red shade that is either darker or lighter than the wall color.

Art Pieces

One other way of adding some red to your walls is through hanging up art pieces. Red art ideas include flower prints, or frame a decorative piece of fabric. Or go with a neutral art piece (like a black and white, or vintage photograph/graphic – something without any color) and put it in a red frame to match it with your living room color scheme.

The Focal Point of the Room

The seating area, around the coffee table, is usually the focal point of a living room. Some ideas on styling in red here include:

The Couch – Go with a a red couch, or a neutral color couch but decorate it with red pillows and a red blanket (5).

The Coffee Table – If you have a red couch – not much needs to be done here as it can be overpowering. Maybe go with a neutral colored coffee table with red area rug underneath. Or if you have a neutral colored couch then a red coffee table works just like in picture (6).

Decor Pieces

Some red decor pieces that you can add to your living room style include:

Candle stands
Table lamps (8)
Storage containers
Check out the shelves in picture (13) in my post here. The back of it is painted in yellow which makes it a statement piece in the room. Because the walls are mint the yellow really pops. So if you didn’t paint the walls red then a cabinet with a red background could really stand out. 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

January 3, 2014 in Living Room

Color Choices: Grey Living Room Ideas and Designs

The question to ask when you want to decorate your living room in grey is, how much grey? You can go all out and have all the walls in grey, and the furniture in grey and have it look good, or go with much less grey – using one or two grey statement pieces.

The darker you go the more intimate and cozy your living room will feel, and smaller. While going lighter will make the space feel brighter and and more spacious. Here are some grey living room ideas and design tips to help you decide how you want to style your space.

Going All Out

Going all out means having all grey living room walls. This will make the space feel a little smaller. If you want to go down this route, or use really dark grey (which feels masculine, just check out the living room in picture (1)), you can still keep the room feeling a little bright and spacious by breaking up the dark walls using white curtains (2), and window frames (3). Or how about breaking up the color of the wall by using a white beadboard just like in picture (4).

Keeping it Simple

When you walk into your living, what are the first few things you notice? Is it a wall, the seating area, the coffee table, a shelf, or the media cabinet? Take note of what the focal points are in your living room.

Now if you keep your living room somewhat neutral, then you’ll only need one or two main pieces to be grey to create a grey color palette. For example, if a wall is one of the things you notice first when walking into your living room, why not paint it grey. You can leave all the other walls neutral (aka white), but this one wall will become a feature piece.

If the seating area is a main focal point, why not get some grey couches to create the grey color scheme – and decorate it with a mixture of different shades of grey and white pillows just like in pictures (5) (6) and (7). Or if you have a neutral colored couch like white/cream or black, a few grey cushions will do.

It doesn’t take much to create that grey color palette in the living room. Just check out the modern space in picture (8). A light grey couch, along with a light grey area rug is all that is used there.

Taking Things Away

A lot of times we think about all the things we can add to a room to style and decorate it the way we want. But to really style a room, more times it is about taking things out. If you want to have a grey palette scheme in a living room, then you might need to make the hard decision of taking away bold colorful pieces that dominate the space. Keep it neutral.

Or, it might not be a bad idea to add in another color. This one color will really stand out amongst the cool neutral white and greys of the room. Just check out the grey and yellow living room in picture (9). See how the yellow pops out. Other good combinations include grey and brown, grey and blue, green, purple, and orange.The key to making that one other color pop, is to remove other colors from the room. 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9

Here are some other living room posts to get more ideas from:

January 3, 2014 in Living Room

The Color Palette: Purple Living Room Ideas and Design Tips

One thing to remember when you decorate your living room in purple is that the shade of purple you choose will really set the tone and feel of your space. Dark purple will make the living room feel secluded, cozy and romantic – but will also make it feel smaller just like in pictures (1) and (2). While light purple will make the space feel airy, bright and spacious (3).

Here are some more purple living room ideas and design notes to help you stylise your space:

Purple Walls

There are 3 options when it comes to the walls in your living room.

1. Option 1 is to paint all of the walls purple. White curtains, or window frames can help break up the solid purple walls. Or a white breadboard is another option – just like the living room in picture (4).

2. Option 2 is to have just one wall painted in purple – this will be your feature wall just like in pictures (5) and (6). Leave all the other walls neutral (white, off white, cream, or grey) and this one purple wall will really stand out and define the look of the living room.

3. Option 3 is to keep all of your walls neutral. This way you create a blank canvas of a living room, ready for splashes of purple, talked about below in Tiny Pieces. For example, if you have all white walls then having purple curtains will really pop – and set the color tone for the room, like the living room in picture (7). If you want to create the blank canvas you’ll need to take out other colors from the room – if you have a red photo frame for example, or orange pillows. This way when you decorate with purple accessorises you really build a strong color statement.

Another alternative to painting your walls purple would be to have a feature shelf. Check out the yellow shelves in my mood board here (Creative DIY Ideas for Living Room Shelves). The back of the shelves are yellow and really pop out. If you have shelves that take up a lot of space in your living room, why not paint the backdrop purple to add a colorful feature in the living room.

Tiny Pieces

You don’t really need to do much to create a purple color scheme in a living room, if you have the blank canvas I talked about earlier.

You could go with a bold purple couch like in pictures (8) and (9) – which is always a focal piece in a living room. Or something simpler would be having neutral coloured furniture like white, cream, or grey and decorating it with different shades of purple pillows and throws.

The coffee table is another piece that can be a focal point in a lot of living rooms. If you get a neutral colored coffee table, purple living room decor pieces placed on it will really stand out in the room. Like a purple candle holder, paper weight, drinking tray, or coasters.

Other decor pieces that add the right amount of purple to a living room include: an area rug, and a wall mirror like the one in picture (10).

Other Colors?

If you really want to create a solid color palette in your living room, you’ll need to focus on that color. If you want a purple styled room, then look for other colored pieces in the living room that kill the style (like a red pillow). Gotta take these out.

It is still possible to add in another color and make the whole purple look work. Once again you want to keep everything focused. So if you like the gray and purple living room style, that’s one color combination that works. Or how about adding in splashes of yellow, brown, green or black. Keep it to one other color, otherwise it will be hard to tell what is the color scheme of the room. 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10