calvdavid asked:


Tired of looking at the same bedroom, same dining room and same living room again and again? Then it’s time for a change. This time to not just change the furniture or the color of your home, rather go for a completely different look. Decorating your home in Moroccan style is the latest trend these days. Morocco is like a melting pot of different cultures and styles and so the Moroccan style décor will have some of the features of every culture and style. One can even see hints of Arabic style in it.

Moroccan home décor can be classified into two types – urban Moroccan decor and rural Moroccan decor. The urban décor involves the use of ceramics, metal, wood and leather. On the other hand, the rural décor has more of the Middle Eastern influence, with an emphasis on the use of rugs, fabrics and embroideries. The best feature of having a Moroccan style decoration is that the objects used in it are usually those that have use in practical life too. Given below are some tips that will help you in decorating your home in the Moroccan style.

Moroccan Style Decorating Ideas

Use of Bright Colors

When decorating your home Moroccan style, make sure to use bright natural colors. The colors like green and blue, found in the sea of the area, and the ones like gold and yellow, found in the surrounding desert, should be used as much as possible. You can combine other colors like vibrant red, orange or purple with blue or gold to create an effervescent ambience. Feel free to use of vibrant colors such as pink fuchsia, lavender, and orange while keeping the aesthetics in mind.

Bring Nature Home

For creating the tropical atmosphere seen in Morocco, you can make extensive use of plants. The more exotic the plants, the better look they will bring to your house. At the same time, they will also provide you with some greenery in the ‘concrete-jungle’ world of today. If it is feasible, you can also get textured walls.

Lighting

Lighting plays a very important role in adding that perfect Moroccan flavor look to your home décor. Moroccan light fixtures are totally different from those used in the other parts of the world. Moroccan light fixtures include Moroccan sconces, Moroccan chandeliers, Moroccan lanterns, Moroccan hanging pendants, and Moroccan lamps. A great source for quality handmade Moroccan light fixtures as well as Moorish lighting is a California company called Saint Tropez Boutique that design and handcrafts Moroccan light fixtures in Casablanca, Morocco and exclusively distributes them in the U.S.A. The reason why I like Saint Tropez Boutique because they are unique Moroccan light fixtures designs, plus they handcrafted from top quality Moroccan solid brass that has been carved into refined and intricate patterns. Addition to that Saint Tropez Boutique is the exclusive dealer in the U.S.A that has Moroccan light fixtures pre-wired for the UL-Standard (pre-wired for the U.S Standard wiring). To learn more about Moroccan lighting by Saint Tropez Boutique, please visit them online at:
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Lee Dobbins asked:

Spanish style home decorating is a great way to get a rustic but colorful look in your home. This style, popular in the south, is really suitable for any area and can add a unique touch to any home.

When you want to decorate your home in a Spanish style, you will have a lot of fun. The Spanish style is very interesting with vibrant colors and textures used within it. You can bet that no matter how the home is decorated, you will need to incorporate the sense of family and community into the design. Take a look at how you can easily incorporate the Spanish style into your home. It can be really easy and fun!

Photos

One easy way to incorporate Spanish style into your home is with the use of family photos. You can use photos that you have taken yourself to get the task done. Simply choose various types of photo frames and put out your favorite pictures of family and friends. You should add them to each room to give the home a really comforting feeling.

Colors

When it comes to Spanish colors, you should think about using bright colors like red, yellow, orange, and blue. You will be able to bring out the Spanish décor elements with these bold colors. Be sure to add a beige or white to the mix as well to give the colors a nice background.

Furniture

Although it really doesn’t matter what type of furniture you use when you are using Spanish style home decorating, it should be comfortable and casual. Unless you are decorating a formal dining or living room, Spanish styled furniture is not overly formal. So be sure it is comfortable and big enough for everyone in the family to lounge on. Spanish style uses a lot of dark woods – worm wood in particular is nice.

Accessories

Use Spanish accessories to add an authentic touch to your décor. Grill grates and other accessories that use wrought iron can add a great touch, especially if they are vintage. Spanish pottery is another item that can be displayed in any room – on shelves or hang plates on scrolly plate hangers to give a unique homey feel.

Flooring

A Spanish style looks great with rustic tile flooring. Not the shiny porcelain stuff but the big reddish tiles with dark grout. Also, hardwood floors can go wonderful with this style. To soften up the room accent it with Spanish style rugs.

When you choose to decorate your home with Spanish style home decorating you can bring the elements in without spending a lot of money. You can simply add photos of your family, bright colors and comfortable furniture to get the look you want.

Jim Allen asked:

Setting out to decorate a new home or redecorating your current abode without a plan can be like driving around an unfamiliar city without a map—you may end up somewhere, but it’s probably not where you wanted go and you may have no idea how you got there. And you may just end up somewhere pretty ugly. Formulating a plan, however, can be a difficult task. Thumbing through home and furniture magazines often just leads to little more than an increased risk of paper cuts, and watching the countless home decorating “reality” shows, while sometimes entertaining, rarely results in an epiphanous (no, its not a word) moment. Actually, according to dictionary.com, it is a word, so take your red squiggly underline and shove it, Microsoft. Anyways…oh yeah, having a plan. This plan I speak of, doesn’t have to be a 10-page manifesto or even a loose outline, in fact, it doesn’t really have to be put in writing. I say, let your personality be your guide.

As hokey and simple as that may sound, it works. Too many people decorate their homes to please or impress others. Unless you’re a close friend or relative or Martha Stewart, this is just ridiculous (I‘ve heard she can be a little harsh). Remember, you live in your home, not them. Let your home be a reflection of yourself by choosing colors, furniture, and accessories that show your personality, as deranged and anti-social as that may be.

Many people with bright, vivacious personalities like bright, vivacious colors. Go figure. But these gregarious individuals often temper this when it comes to decorating their homes. You don’t have to make your home look like Rainbow Brite (for those not in the know, she’s a brightly colored 80’s cartoon character) threw up all over the place to inject your personality. Pick a few colors and stick to them. As with most decorating schemes, bright colors work well when set against light, muted ones, like shades of white or beige. Paint your walls these muted colors and then go crazy adorning them with brightly colored artwork and accessories. Same thing goes for furniture. Back away from the teal couch and the orange upholstered chair. Look for boring colors and then add your personality in the form of pillows and throw blankets. If these tips still don’t allow you to fully express how wild and crazy you are, experiment with your bedroom decor. You’ll offend less people that way.

On the other side of the coin we have the more straight-laced, conservative types. Bright colors give these people headaches, as do the aforementioned people who like bright colors. But what these plodding individuals lack in personality they more than make up for with grace and sophistication, and this should come through in their home decor. Whether your style preference is contemporary, traditional, or somewhere in the middle, you can create a look that personifies you and at the same time is decidedly un-boring. Furniture and lighting isn’t the difference-maker here, it’s the accessories and decorations you should focus on. Artwork and other embellishments such as plants, knick-knacks on shelves, and framed photos can breathe life into rooms with less color. And speaking of color, you can still make a statement without fuchsia walls or a red leather sofa. The trick is to mix in lights and darks to create contrasts wherever you can. Use black and charcoal against whites and light grays or experiment with the many shades of brown, from light tans to deep, dark chocolate brown.

Manny St Cyr asked:


Of all the styles of architecture and decorating around the world very few have taken the best of all the others and made it a little bit better in quite the way that the style often referred to as “French Creole” has managed to do. The truth is that while this style of architecture that New Orleans is famous for is really heavily borrowed from many other cultures and yet uniquely New Orleans at the same time.

Creole architecture for many brings to mind intricate wrought iron work, long shutters (to cover the windows during hurricanes originally), huge windows and doors (these were designed larger than typical homes in other parts of the country in order to create breezeways for the wind to come through in the sweltering hot summer months), and bright colors that you aren’t likely to find in most million dollar neighborhoods. This style of architecture and home décor is also famous for huge balconies-also with wrought iron railing.

The amazing thing about the Creole style of home decorating is that there is no one identifiable feature that labels a design style as decidedly Creole. Lagniappe is a term that people here quite often in and around New Orleans. For those who do not know, it means “a little something extra”. From an extra donut to a freebie bookmark and many things in between, that little something extra has a long history in New Orleans from the architecture to the music there always seems to be a little something extra that you couldn’t get anywhere else.

The interior design style of the Creole is also very similar. Some consider it gaudy but the locals consider it that little something extra and it is. You may find a little Gothic style, a little bit of Jazz, and a whole lot of Mardi Gras in one room and it s quite all right because you are getting all that and just a little bit of lagniappe too. Home decorating in Creole country is an art form that defies logic and yet makes perfect sense for the rich culture and heritage that it encompasses.

For those that need a little inspiration who would love to incorporate a little Cajun or Creole spice into their living spaces, perhaps the following suggestions will prove to be helpful.

1) Red peppers. Nothing says spice quite like a red pepper. There are all kinds of items you can find with red peppers in them these days from wallpaper borders to hand blown glass peppers, jar toppers, pot holders, kitchen towels, strings of lights for patios-even kitchen canisters decorated with red peppers. There are all kinds of options available to incorporate this theme into your home or one room of your home.

2) Music notes. Most people cannot think of Cajun country without thinking of the music that calls this great section of the country home. Music notes are a great way to symbolize the music that made New Orleans famous.

3) Mardi Gras Masks. Many people find that New Orleans symbolizes Mardi gras in their hearts and minds though New Orleans is not the birthplace of Mardi gras. The masks are a way that people from around the country can bring the ’spirit of New Orleans’ home with them and decorate their homes with that attitude that can only be referred to as Creole in many hearts and minds.

4) Food. Believe it or not the food is as much a part of the Creole home as any other design element. For this reason a French Creole style kitchen is often the way to go when it comes to home decorating in the Creole fashion. The kitchen is the heart of a Cajun home and food is what makes it that heart. Use jars of beans, rice, pastas, and other lagniappe as part of the overall design and you might just be amazed at just how Creole the room begins to look.