(Winter 2008) - As the temperatures drop and winter gives way to the new year, it’s time to make your home look and feel as warm and inviting as possible – both indoors and in the ever-growing popular outdoor living spaces – all the while reflecting your personal tastes and style.

More than ever, interior decorating and design ideas offer boundless choices and infinite possibilities. Expressing your personality and tastes through interior decorating is limited only by your imagination. These days, most anything goes – by mixing styles, colors, decor periods and inspirations, or combining the affordable with the luxurious, contemporary with antique, and classical with new.   

Even though trends change, diversify and become more complex from year-to-year – just like your individual preferences, interests and lifestyles – certain staples set themselves apart with staying power. How to make sense of it all? Always let your tastes and personality lead the way. The experts, both locally and nationwide, recognize and agree with the importance of this strategy.   

“Make it your own,” says Jonathan Adler, interior designer and TV personality as Bravo’s “Top Design” lead judge. “Personal style means having a space that’s comfy but filled with stuff that has meaning to you. It should hold things created and inspired by passionate people. Personal style should make you happy and happiness is chic.”   

By becoming familiar with trends, it’s easier to make well-informed choices you’ll be able to live with for several years or to simply update your decor by adding a few up-to-the-minute accessories. If the choices seem overwhelming, this is when your partnership with a professional interior designer will pay off handsomely.    

Admittedly, while the newest styles are all about variety and eclecticism, certain strong trends prevail that will guide decorating choices in 2009. Urban Home decided to go straight to the sources by recently tapping the decorating minds of local experts for their forecasts. Let’s take a look at their thoughts on the hottest trends currently influencing the world of decorating and design.

What to Expect?
Winter trends segueing in from fall’s popular styles are centered on personal tastes being incorporated with what the experts say. “We are seeing ultra-plush fabrics, stripes, retro florals, ethnic/eclectic flair, green (sustainable, not the color) furniture and fabrics, and wallpaper,” says Stephanie Villavicencio, ASID, Bella Villa Design Studio.   

Colleagues agree. “I have noticed more clients going back to classic patterns that add texture and interest, wallpaper, and art-deco designs have been seen more than in the past,” says Susanne Lee, owner of Susanne Lee Interiors, Inc. “Colors have made a great comeback – painting rooms in different colors but still blending has been requested more now than in the last five years. Plaster walls have made a comeback – not faux, but plaster – Olde World style with great colors in the mix.”

This Season’s Colors
The hot colors this season are warm, earthy and inviting. Think of burnt orange, red, bold coral, all greens, chocolate browns, and pale blue-green, merging with purple, plum and eggplant tones, as well as warm gray and taupe. For a crisp look, use any combination of these with a variety of white tones. This will create the lingering effect from the warmer seasons.   

The industry is mixing colors from outdoors – very vibrant, cultural and ethnic hues. Just look outside for inspiration or look through a travel magazine and you will have a better appreciation for all the color that really surrounds us that we may not have seen before.

To Match or Not to Match?
On the topic of whether to match all colors and elements in a room, the experts are resoundingly unanimous. Don’t do it! Adding diversity to a room is one of the best ways to showcase your personal style. You can do so by accessorizing with pieces and colors that are meaningful to you, or that appeal to your tastes. For example, if your favorite color is red, then by all means use it but do so by incorporating today’s popular hues in the red family.   

Zita Raymond, owner of Zita Designs, says, “It’s not necessary to match a home in color room-by-room, but you should definitely match in hue.” She recommends keeping the palette consistent as in cool colors vs. hot colors throughout and says it is tricky to combine the two although it is possible. This is definitely when a professional designer’s eye and knowledge comes in handy.

Suites Not So Sweet
After you and your designer determine the color choices, keep in mind it is important to keep balance and flow in a room, but elements do not have to be symmetrical or in pairs. This may sound like a fine line, but it’s really not. Continuity is key. To accomplish this you need to have some things that relate to each other, but not necessarily matching.   

The same goes when it comes to home furnishings such as a bedroom suite. Many decorators are not proponents of matching bedroom suites when there are plenty of pieces more expressive of your personality to mix and match for a stronger and more attractive visual appeal.   

It’s perfectly acceptable to choose furniture pieces that relate to each other and that you like, but are not a suite. This is a much better way to express your personal tastes. Also, remember when people used to match everything in their bedrooms, including bedspreads, curtains, pillows, trim, you name it? Not today. Now it’s more about complementing through color and accessories, avoiding a hodge-podge look while accomplishing continuity throughout the room.

Rugs as Room’s Inspiration
Often by finding a centerpiece for a room, you are a step ahead when decorating the area. But what do you choose first to get started? Many of the experts agree a good foundation is a rug – whether you are decorating an indoor or outdoor room. Rugs are a wonderful catalyst for dressing the rest of the room because they can pull everything together. With the continuing popularity of hardwood floors, area rugs are more prevalent than ever.   

Think of rugs as a piece of art allowing you to mix contemporary and traditional, or whatever suits your style. They can serve as a starting point for colors you might use and even accents for the rest of the room. Villavicencio says these days patterns are trending toward more simple, over-scaled designs; and stylized large floral patterns and shapes.   

Flooring and carpeting – being more permanent – also are key in a room’s décor, so make sure these elements are something you can live with longer. Think of it as the floor being the staple, and then you can fill the room with all the other color. Also view your floor as instrumental because it stays, while you can change the fabrics in the room for a different look all day long.

Bonus Indoor Tips
While gold and brass are making a comeback, crystal remains a constant. How do you make it sparkle more? Accent lighting.   

Mood lighting is the cheapest way to accentuate your home, allowing you to spotlight anything you choose such as artwork, crystal, or other collections. Lamps situated throughout your interior and outdoor living spaces are also ideal for setting a warmer atmosphere.   

When it comes to artwork, guess what? Again, choose what you like and don’t worry about mixing styles. Find unique pieces you love that create electricity for your wall décor. In your prominent rooms, make the artwork mean something by keeping it sentimental.

Moving Outdoors
Outdoor living spaces continue to grow in popularity with statistics showing this trend is definitely not going away anytime soon. With outdoor fireplaces and heated floors available, year-round time spent outside is increasing across the country. What’s nice is casual-living stores are starting to offer furnishings for the indoors or outdoors all under one roof since so many of the frames and fabrics can work for either area.

Here are some of the newest trends for outdoor furnishings:
• Geometric designs are showing up on frames.
• Teak is the outdoors wood of choice; for indoor casual it is acacia wood.
• Seating consists of sofas, loveseats, and swing rockers, for outdoors.
• Homeowners with children are choosing outdoor fabrics for indoor casual furnishings.   

“In Austin, people like to feel comfortable in their homes,” Villavicencio says. “They also want their guests to feel at home, like they can come in and put up their feet. We use outdoor or commercial-grade fabrics for residential to withstand everyday life such as kids and/or pets.”

Get Comfortable With Your Style – and Designer
With all the decorating advice and options offered here, what is key to remember is your home’s style really is all about you. With the tight dollars in today’s economy, it is important to buy what you love. Good designers are going to work with you to build your confidence in the choices made. How is this done? Most likely, they come to your home, take a look, see what you have, and start a concept based on the core pieces, which are your furniture, knick-knacks and flooring. Then, voila, it all starts to evolve in terms of your decorating plan.   

Experts may recommend you don’t go for the quick fix, but instead if it’s not affordable right now then perhaps hold on and do it for the long run, making the changes you can now by switching out accessories. If you don’t see exactly what you want, ask if it can be custom-made; it often can. Other homeowners still seek instant gratification, and are able to accomplish their goals today within their budget. The choice remains clearly yours!  


Decorating Focus Areas

The following advice potpourri is courtesy of the experts featured here when asked to compile a list of areas on which homeowners should focus when decorating or redecorating a home.

Multifunctional pieces, such as a storage ottoman.

Start with one special something and design around it.
 
Paint – least expensive and most impact to change a room. Remember to use low or no VOC paint.

Use furnishings that will last 10 years, then
re-cover or re-finish them. Or plan on replacing those pieces, keeping budgets in mind for the short and long term.

Stay within your budget; research ahead of time and map out the areas to be painted and those where you want a special treatment.

Pay attention to your wall texture. If doing a faux finish usually less is best for contemporary finishes and more texture for rustic looks. In both cases, latex eggshell is the desired base coat as opposed to flat.

Hire a designer. If you find a good one you will save time, energy and money in the long run
by avoiding costly mistakes.

Cut out photos from magazines or take pictures of things you like. This will help in creating the overall concept or finish you are after. It is hard to verbalize this in many cases without visual aids.