Our 9 top colour tips to brighten up the house for Christmas

Are you thinking about sprucing the place up a bit for the festive season? Well before you break out the pasting table and overalls, have a look and our handy colour guide. We’ve created a list of the colours we feel can make the biggest impact and even change the feel of a room without costing a fortune.

Red - Given the time of year there is literally no colour more festive than red, and even though it is synonymous with Christmas it will remain in style throughout the year.

Yellow - What a colour; yellow to me just screams happiness and vibrancy its and excellent colour for a kitchen, especially since you can coordinate your new cookware with just about any colour these days . However I would also suggest toning it down a bit with white or wood furniture and fittings.

Blue - Is a fantastic colour and one I’ve actually opted to use on my front door, I feel it gives my house a sense of fun and helps it stand out from the others on my street.

Pink - A fantastic and often underused colour (well, it’s certainly underused in a stylish way), pink is great for creating a nice calming room and is especially relaxing when paired with an extra comfy living room sofa and is best used in muted shades to avoid looking garish..

Grey - Is going to be a big colour in 2012 thanks to its neutral properties and ability to go with just about anything. With the right furniture and accessories grey can provide a very classy and upmarket feel.

Purple - Warning: Not for the faint hearted. Purple is a great colour for spicing up your home but should definitely be tested first before you go painting a whole room that colour. However for those of you that have a bit of a wild side this is a really fun colour to jazz up any room in the house.

Chocolate - This colour can split opinion but I think it’s a great colour as in the right shade its neutral and cosy. However it does rely on the right accessories like cushions and lighting to tie it all together.

Terracotta - This is my favourite colour for bathrooms as it is a clean colour without feeling too clinical and it.

I hope this guide helps with festive decorating, please feel free to send us in your recommendations and photos if you tried any out.

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Simple design in the living room

After my last post on Copenhagen Design Week, I've been thinking about how to incorporate some great functional design into my living room.

Danish designers have got it so right, and I think the simplicity of such clean design is missing in a lot of living rooms - especially mine right now. Naturally, the living room is where a lot of time spent - so we usually need to incorporate several parts of life into the interior design of one room. But what most of us forget is that it doesn't have to be fussy to be functional and nice to look at. Just because you want to relax and watch TV there every night, doesn't mean you need a sofa with a hundred pillows on it. And impressing guests isn't neccesarily going to be done with a highly patterned carpet.

If anything, the living room should be kept more simple than ever, to accomodate the wide range of activities that may have to take place there - from socialising to relaxing, from eating a meal to playing with the children of the family.

It's a sofa I need right now, and it's hard to draw myself away from the big squishy designs that you could sink into and never get back up. But I know that what I really want is something well made, simple and classic. Luckily most sofa retailers have caught on to the trend for simple and clean design - which should make things easier. I've been looking at some simple black and white designs and plan to keep the rest of the living room just as simple. Just need to stay away from the pillow section now.

What do you think of simple design in the living room? Should it be kept clean and minamilist or cosy and cluttered?

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Copenhagen Design Week

At the start of this month the Copenhagen Design Week took place - a whole week of talks and presentation featuring mostly Scandinavian design.

As a big fan of Scandinavian furniture design, I was extremely dissapointed that I couldn't go - and geography kept us apart. But luckily some feedback from the events gave me the chance to learn about some great new designers - and I got some great ideas for my living room, which I am currently redorating (when am I not). Here are some of the things I wish I'd managed to get too.

Four Design - clean lines at their best, this event showcased the work of Christina Strand and Niels Hvass, personal favourites of mine.

Interstuhl - Are you passionate about chairs? I am - and so are the people behind interstuhl, which means a passion for chairs. The designers behind these chairs drew inspiration for the chairs from international trips, and that's exactly what I love about design: it's functional art in everyday life.

We:Do:Wood - Scandinavian design largely revolves around the use of high quality wood, so I think this event would have been at the top of my list, with the up and coming Danish furniture designers behind the event discussing to mix functionality with beauty and susainability.

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The Search for A New Couch

It may sound easy - but searching for a new sofa is a lot more difficult than it looks.

As the focal point of any contemporary living room, a couch needs to tie together comfort, style, usability and durability - as well as being the right size and shape for the room it is going to be placed in.

Yes, sofas have a number of standards to meet -and we haven't even discussed the price yet. Many sofa stores run promotions all year round, so great bargains are out there. However, you must avoid shopping without a target purchase. Most sale purchases are made on an impluse. And unlike shopping in a clothes sales, it is a little harder to hide an unused sofa at the back of the wardrobe and pretend you will use it one day.

The best way to avoid price problems is to browse online first - the computer gives you distance. Make a list of the sofas you like without taking the price into account. Then set yourself a strict budget and do not go over it. This means when you get to the sofa stores you can choose a style you really like without going over your budget or (and this is the part you should really be careful about) buying something unsuitable just because it saves you some money.


Sofas not only say alot about your personal style, they are an important part of what makes a home a home - so it is worth some serious thinking time.

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Shining a Light on the Effects of Wall Lamps

Shamefully, lighting used to be the last thing most people thought about when decorating their living room.

I have to admit I have done it myself - choosing colourschemes, couches and carpets used to seem far more interesting. Matching lampshades and a couple of table lamps could be found after the job was complete.

But my eyes are open now -lighting can set the tone for an entire room on its own. Take these wall lights for example. Not only can they give the room a pleasant glow somewhere between glaring light and the dull glow of a lamp - they add a modern focal point to the room and add a hint of interest to plain coloured walls.

They aren't too expensive either, so a brilliant way to update a room for cheap. This has kicked off something of a lighting project, as I'm now going to experiment with other ways wall lamps can enhance a room - you could say I've seen the light.

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Chairs and more - furniture you can relax in

When you think about chair design, there's actually a whole lot more to the discipline than simply the aesthetics of it. Think of the classic Eames designs - so much went into them that it's impossible to separate the love of design from the love the actual concept of the chair itself - and what you get is the confluence of the ergonomic, teh aesthetic, the physical, and beyond the physical - the construction of an object that almost disappears when it's being used.

Think of all the different types of seating and soon it becomes apparent that this is an area of design that's ubiquitous - from municipal parks to space stations. Although when in space the gravity's not a concern, and makes the design rules change more than a little...

Of course, an original Eames would be a collector item now. But there's still plenty of great design available these days that utilise the same level of design smarts to maximise the comfort of the user - relaxateeze recliners such as this one most definitely please the eye as well as give the kind of chair comfort this side of space.

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Living room themes

It's time to think about living room themes.

How about the following - this is just to help get ideas, you understand. It's not a command:

James Bond

Mexican

Gothic

Edwardian

Space age

Psychedelic

Shaker

Zen

Japan

1960s East London Nightclub

It would be fun (but a bit time consuming) to post links to items that would help build these themes. So I'll leave it to your imaginasheeyun.

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