Category — Furnish

If you have a small, cramped and dark room or a room that lacks natural light there are ways you can lighten it up and make it more inviting.

The sofa you choose can have a big impact. By picking a streamlined, un-bulky design this will create the illusion of space. Steer clear of patterned upholstery as this can add clutter. Instead opt for a neutral colour. This can fit into a neutral colour scheme that will lighten the room as a whole. Go for modern, metal or glass dining room furniture rather than dark wood.

By painting or papering your wall in a light colour and choosing a light coloured carpet or light wooden floor, the room will open up. If you’re not keen to spend the money putting down a rooms-worth of wooden flooring or buying a light coloured carpet – remember these can stain! – opt for a light coloured rug. It will be much easier to clean.

If you’re worried it may look like a hospital, splash the odd bit of colour around the place. You could add colourful throws or cushions or brightly coloured lamps and picture frames. Metallic-style cushions, fabrics and accessories are also useful for reflecting light.

Also, if your sofa sits underneath a window, buy a low design that does not block the light. In the same way, low furniture will create the feeling of height in the room which in turn creates space. Instead of big sofas you might want to choose several single chairs or beanbags, as they will make the room seem less cluttered.

Sheer, glossy wallpapers can reflect light especially when placed on the wall opposite a window. While you can use sheer curtain fabrics or blinds and shutters to let more light in. By choosing sheer and lightweight styles. Similarly you can pick glossy or glass furniture such as mirrors, coffee tables, cabinet doors or sideboards.

Looking for a nice magazine rack but no luck with it? You might want to consider the Hockenheimer Chair by Njustudio. Essentially a birch wood base and a cushion top connected by two straps, the chair takes shape when you stack your stash of magazines between the base and cushion and fasten with the strap. It’s a very clever concept – one that shouts sustainability and saves you floor space by combining a chair and a mag rack into one!

Here’s another one to add to enhance your digital lifestyle – the CB2 El Shelve. A neat little shelf that sits above wall outlets an sits pretty as a charging station. Can be used as a normal shelf to store books and accessories too. I like the fact that it’s mount point sits above the surface and has a nice curved angle, much like the type you see in kitchen solid surface countertops

imagesource: cb2

Don’t you just hate it when your cables fall off the desk when you unplug them from your device? Happens all the time with phone charger cables, laptop adaptor cables. Bluelounge came up with the original cabledrop, a very intelligent yet simplistic item to hold your cables in place, preventing them from falling off the edge of your desk.

You can purchase them from Bluelounge for USD9.95 or alternatively, I found this really interesting Chinese site, buyincoins.com selling a knockoff version for USD1.44. I’ve ordered mine and am really curious to the difference in quality – my main concern being how the adhesive peels off different surfaces.

So there you have it – a clever approach to cable management and two purchasing options. If you don’t want using binderclips, go for the cabledrop.

To spruce up your digital lifestyle at home, here’s a marvelous accessory you’ll simply love. It’s one of those things which you may not immediately think completely useful, but once you use it, you’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t earlier.

The Driin Cell Phone Holder can be purchased via Amazon

Outdoor fountains are some of the most popular home and garden accessories on the market today. They make it easy to decorate any part of your outdoor space, from the patio to the garden to the front yard, and create a peaceful atmosphere that everyone can enjoy. But what are you to do if you don’t have a lot of space to work with? Are you stuck not being able to enjoy a water feature? No, you’re not. Today, we’re going to look at a few of the best space-savvy fountains for the home.

First up is the tabletop fountain. A tabletop fountain is exactly what it sounds like – a scaled down version of a regular fountain that can easily fit on a patio table. They’re the perfect solution if you have limited patio space but still want to enjoy a fountain. Most are pretty lightweight, usually around just 5 pounds, so they’re easy to move around and won’t put too much stress on wherever you place them. And just because they’re smaller than other fountains doesn’t mean you can’t find all sorts of great designs. From waterfalls to tiered designs to Zen-inspired pieces, there are all sorts of tabletop fountains. And for you environmentally conscious consumers, there are even solar powered models – great for saving on your electric bill and doing your part to help the environment!

Next, we have the wall fountain. This is a style that’s been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. They’ve adorned castles, palace walls, and Old World city centers, giving a sophisticated look to the area. Since they take up no floor space, they’re ideal in areas where you want to get the most out of every square foot. Although some wall fountains sit flat on the floor, the classic style is for it to hang on a wall so it frees up floor space for other things. Designs with these models vary greatly. You can find everything from simple geometric designs with a water spigot in the center to ornately carved pieces with angels or lion faces with a gentle stream of water flowing from their mouths. And even if you don’t have your wall fountain plugged in and running, it’s still going to make a great decorative accent for your home!

As a bonus, here are a few tips for selecting the best style of fountain to match your home. With tabletop fountains, water flow and the noise it produce is a big thing to consider. If you want something that provides a nice sound of running water all day, a waterfall is a great choice. For something a bit more subdued, like something that just provides a little background noise, a solar powered model works well due to its low energy use and softer water output. As for wall fountains, how it looks with the home’s decor tends to be the biggest concern. When going for a classic European look, nothing beats a lion’s face fountain. For a more modern feel, something like a diamond or seashell shape with a spigot in the center may be more ideal.

Melissa Anne is a writer with OutdoorLiving.com/learning-center/. She loves all things outdoor related, from gardening to running to hosting backyard gatherings. For more on outdoor fountains, visit OutdoorFountains.com, your source for all sorts of garden, tabletop, tiered, and solar fountains.

Do you ever get annoyed when you unplug the cables off your devices like your mobile phone and laptop and the cables just fall right off the table because there’s no more weight attached to it? Tired of bending down to keep picking the cables up whenever you need to use them to charge your devices? Well, here’s a simple solution using binder clips

Simply ingenious, isn’t it? Just anchor a couple of binder clips by the edge of your table and hook all your cables through it. When you unplug the cables from your devices, it’ll be caught by the binder clip when it slides off the table! No need for expensive cable management products.

via osxdaily

Those of you who constantly scour Etsy will no doubt agree that it is a treasure trove of little gems you could use to do up your home. Johnny & Stacie is a little Etsy store that sells really cool and playful print art posters printed on French paper.

What I absolutely like about it is the clever use of bright colours on white to augment the object. Where would these look really good in in a home? Try:

• stairway walls
• study room
• wall behind couch/sofa in small living space
• corridors – you can keep the corridors dimly lit with focus spots on the posters

Here are two of my picks from Johnny & Stacie’s store

Johnny & Stacie also has a blog at www.johnnyandstacie.com

You can also follow them on twitter @johnnyandstacie

This is truly a magnificent looking side table. The wooden legs made from mango wood with chestnut finish paired with an aluminum saddle has the looks akin to a milking stool. This handsome piece would definitely gel well with most modern contemporary homes. In fact, I think it’d look really classy right beside a plush leather sofa.

Great for bedsides too

More details at the West Elm site

Bright yellow has always been one of my favourite colours. For me, this colour signifies happiness and cheerfulness and that’s exactly how I’d want to live my life. Having bright yellow accents in the home can really enhance the aesthetics and throw it into a blissful mood – really great when you come home from a tough day at work.

With whitewashing being the trend in homes these days, yellow furniture and accents stand out even more! Here are some things you can do with yellow furniture

Yellow Furniture!

Take a look at some of these yellow furniture and tell me they won’t look brilliant in your home assuming you’ve got very neutral colours in your living spaces

Opulent, Almost Quite Royal

For those with a bit more moolah to splash on opulent things, this Bretz chair will give you quite the royal yellow feeling. In a whitewashed space, I can imagine how brilliant this will look. It’ll definitely draw your guests attention

Refurbish the DIY way

Found this exciting piece at allthingsthrifty.com where they’ve taken an old wooden nightstand and given it a brilliant yellow coat and it does look pretty amazing and all of a sudden, quite contemporary