Anna Maria King Upholstered Bed Found on ballarddesigns.com Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi Sweden Early 20th Century A great […]
Tag: Nordic Style
The design of your kids rooms should be an extension of your overall home, and your style. You don’t have to have a room filled with cartoon characters plastered all over the walls to be a fun mom.
Here are a couple quick tips for decorating your kids room with youthfulness, while maintaining a beautiful design.
- Limit The Number Of Pieces In A Room- Free up space. Choose a couple of really nice pieces for your kids rooms, and allow there to be some moveable room for your kids to play. Many modern homes simply don’t have big second bedrooms, so think storage when choosing pieces for their room. Functional dressers, and beds with storage options.
- Add Storage Space For Toys – Teach your kids to put away their toys in a specific space. We made over all the closets in our home using a simple brackets bought from Home Depot. Line baskets in the closet where your kids can put away their own toys. Have one row for their clothes, and use the remaining shelves for their toys. When their rooms are cleaner, you don’t loose your mind over the mess.
- Pretty Up Their Space By Adding Wall Shelves- Their real toys can be housed in the closet, while the more decorative antique toys can be on the wall. If you love design, make their room functional, but use the wall space to your advantage. Use wood that can be painted and then distressed. Rarely do you see people using the full extent of the walls. Create book shelves that go to the ceiling, and use the higher shelves for the decorative toys. So many of the thrift stores today have porcelain dolls for next to nothing. I have picked up beautiful porcelain dolls for our daughter for as little as $5 dollars a doll that she can eventually play with.
- Invest In The Right Fabric- Printed fabric can make a huge statement in a room. If you don’t have time to sew, look for bed comforters that gives you the look you are after. Order curtains in the same fabric for throw pillows, or upholster an accent chair using that fabric to match things up.
- Go For A Really Nice Antique- An antique toy on a shelf, or a nice bed can really make a statement in a room. You don’t need a heck of a lot of furniture, or toys…just one really nice piece and few accent pieces to make a room. The Nordic style is based around simple interiors, so work that look by carefully choosing a few really functional, but nice pieces.
- Mix in New With Old- You can get the Swedish look by using new modern pieces. Decorate with pattern, but incorporate new furniture. Go for the classic check pattern with a new bed. Work with ribbon, and bring in color.
- Blow Up A Vintage Print– I bought several picture frames at local yard sales, but the prints were old and outdated. I took a print that my grandmother gave me from a calendar book, and blew it up at Staples. This is a very inexpensive way to fill up large frames with beautiful art work.
See these posts:
My Botanical Print Gallery Wall – Her Site
My Winter Projects- My Nursery And Framing Projects- Part 1
48 Books Of Antique Graphics For Mod Podge Fabric And Wood Transfers
Melissa and Doug Plush Dogs – Amazon
A History of Book Illustration -Amazon This collection of scholarly articles traces the history of book illustration from its first notion in cave art to the early 20th century. It is arranged chronologically with the first section covering the beginning of illustration; the second moves from the illuminated manuscript to the advent of printing; the third and fourth takes the reader from the earliest woodcut illustrations to the beginning of the 20th century; and the final part is concerned with children’s books
Living in Norway by Elisabeth Holte, is a book you need to look though. This book features 250 […]
New Orleans invid Mälaren- Skona Hem Country House Inspired After New Orleans -One hundred and fifty meters from […]
Living Museums in Scandinavia By Per Nagel- On Amazon From $89 An inspiring, interesting and useful insight into […]
Mary Mulcahy’s designs, first developed for her block-printed textiles, now grace the wall with the Les Indiennes collection by IVM Prints. The 12 hand-screened wallpapers include Rayure, left, and Veronique, both in indigo; additional colors are offered, Seen in Elle Decor April 2011
The company Les Indiennes is known for their beautiful hand-blocked textiles. Founder, Mary Mulcahy had a desire to find naturally dyed cotton, with large scale single colored motifs, but was unable to locate fabrics close to what she had in mind, so she created her own. Her concept started to take form after running into a craftsman in southern India, who knew exactly what she was after. In fact, the craftsman was one of the very few artists who still practiced the ancient art of kalamkari, which was an extremely complex and rare method of printing on fabric.
The Kalamkari Process:
1. Fabric Preparation- Cotton fabric is initially softened and bleached. This process needs to be done before any printing takes place. The process involves bales of organic cotton which are repeatedly rinsed and beaten against large rocks, then laid out on the grass to bleach in the sun. These steps ensure that the fabric will feel soft and luxurious, and so that the color application remains bright and vibrant.
2. Block Printing- After the fabric has been softened and lightened, printing begins. Craftsmen dip hand-carved wood blocks in dyes and presses them into the cotton. The dyes are derived from plants, roots, earth, and rock. One can only imagine the great care, and measurements taken to ensure the patterns are straight and line up with one another. Today we take for granted large printing machinery, when at one time, much of this work was done by hand. At Les Indiennes, the fabric is printed by hand, and hours go into each fabric panel. After the patterns are applied, the printed fabric is air dried for at least two days.
The “Kakelugnar” stove is a Swedish tiled stove whose design is still in use today. This classic stove dates back to […]
Lars Bolander: Interior Design & Inspiration offers a fresh take on Swedish decorating. Lars Bolander has been referred […]
Vintage Children’s Set On Ebay
With Neoclassical-style fluted details and a high-gloss finish, this chest is a cross between old and new, says Gambrel—“like a country cabinet dressed up for the city.” Given the playful juxtaposition of form and
finish, the 31.5″-tall piece would be at home in a girl’s bedroom. $2,000; chelseatextiles.com
Children dream in vivid color, and anything is possible to them, so why not create a room fit just for their personalities? When it comes to decorating your child’s room, you simply cannot go wrong, because almost anything is pleasing to them. Even if you try to create something special, they are overjoyed at your choices! Children love rooms where they can express themselves, and be creative. Imagination and playtime, – think of those two concepts while you are gathering ideas for their room, and you will do well with an overall theme…..
Most parents feel they can go a bit more daring in a child’s bedroom than what they would do for the rest of the house, which is why it is so darn fun to design kids rooms- you can be a bit crazy and get away with it.
Here are a couple tips to getting a great look for your kids room decor……
1. Invest In A Few Key Pieces- Don’t be afraid of buying an expensive piece of furniture for your kids room. A great chest, or genuine chair can stay in their room for years, and stay in the guest room when they move out and get married.
A great vintage reproduction play table would be a great focal point in a child’s room. Functional pieces that are also visually attractive should be the goal. This Louis XVI Child’s chair would match the Swedish styles quite well. Consider upholstering it with material that matches your child’s drapes and bedspread. This play-table would be great in a little boys room where red, and dark blue would say “I am a Boy“.
Get the general look of the Swedish style, by re-purposeing furniture. Change the hardware, paint furniture, and use a lot of distressing techniques to get the old appeal into the overall look. Buy transfer-ware tea sets for your little girl, and use a vintage french provincial end table, and re-purpose it with child’s chairs. Add wheels to the bottom of the end table to lift the table higher to give your children’s legs room to stretch out. French style play tables aren’t so common, so get the look using a vintage french end table.
Decorating doesn’t have to be expensive. Look out for vintage toys at your local flea markets, antique stores and thrift stores for great looking toys to decorate with. Wood has always been a signature style of the Swedish look. Melissa & Doug have great faux food which will make you want to join in for “tea time”
2. Decorate With Vintage Toys- Antique wood furniture can be painted, and roughed up unlike plastic. Greenleaf Doll Houses come in kits which you can set up, and paint. A vintage nightstand from ebay or craigslist might be a perfect match for a dollhouse. Customize the table to match the dollhouse.
Buy a wood rocking horse, and paint it yourself. You CAN get these horses for less than $1800! On ebay some of the vintage horses sell for $150 or so, which would allow you to customize it yourself. Kids are pretty rough on furniture, so putting genuine antiques in their room, isn’t the best of ideas. Buy something that looks great, but also something that if it gets damaged, you won’t be bent out of shape over. Invest in a few key pieces for their room, such as a bed, or a chest. The bigger pieces will set the theme, rather than the smaller items.
3. Invest In Storage Furniture– Kids have a heck of a lot of toys, and spending money on decorating a kids room does no good if there is no place to house their endless play toys. Ikea has a number of shelving which can be stacked and customized. The Expedit series has worked well for organizing kids toy collections. Organize your kids toy collections with shoe boxes. Buy matching bookshelves which you can devote an entire wall to. Back your child’s bed up to the bookshelves, which costs you only a couple of inches of space, but also save you from walking all over their toys.
For more ideas check out my pinterest page devoted to Children’s rooms……
Children Looking Into A Swedish Antique Shop- Credit
This boy is sitting by a lovely Gustavian childs table. The table has hand carved fleur medallions and a hand carved pearl bead border. The small Gustavian childs chair has the same hand carved pearl bead border. –blog.dnevnik.hr
Childrens Room With Swedish Bench
3D wallpaper from an installation by Swedish Deisgn Front Group
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Picture Credit DEG Furniture Designs On Ebay Picture Credit DEG Furniture Designs On Ebay As we discussed in […]
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Mora Clock in Salmon Paint Sweden, Circa 1820, Tall case clock signed “Matts Jonson/Mora”, Sweden circa 1820. Wonderful […]
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