TOUCHES OF JOY

Tricial Guild, Creative Director and Founder of international furnishings house Designers Guild, helps you get the perfect look at home with easy pointers and decorating tips.

The fabrics, colours and accessories you use, can either make or break the look of your room. they can create sensations or enhance moods. Whether it’s Summer you want to reminisce about or Spring you want to remember, your rugs and curtains will hold those thoughts for you. If you're in the mood for refurbishing and re-upholstering, you'll definitely find something of interest here. Creative Director and Founder of international furnishings house Designers Guild, Tricia Guild gives you easy pointers and decorating tips.

Before you start working on a room – any room – and buy your furniture, the absolute key is to find your own sense of colour and discover your colours. Ones that you must have and the others that you can do without. This done, you will have your own vocabulary of colour and pattern to work with. When it comes to where to start, work up from painting or wallpapering one wall in a colour you like and then move around it with a few accents and accessories.

In most city homes, space is always an issue. And when you’re working with small, limited spaces, large scale patterns could become rather overwhelming. Choose a small scale design instead and try introducing a large print with a cushion or blanket, perhaps. Don’t shy away from colour or pattern, however, because of the size. Instead use colour and pattern with lots of white to maintain balance.

Patterns can be free and contained, spontaneous and harmonious, fluid and rigid, classical and innovative, inspirational and balanced, coloured and neutral, subtle and vivacious. Like colour, pattern has the power to change the look and feel of a room. So a couple of cushions and throws strewn on your favourite sofa, can actually enhance its air of casual chic.

In fact, the easiest and fastest way to completely alter the look of a room is to simply bring in a couple of glorious cushions and throws, adding texture, colour and pattern. A vase of gorgeous flowers or a scented votive or two will act on the mood. There are no definite guidelines for particular rooms...it depends on your personal taste. However, when you think living room, think fresh vibrant colours like a brilliant turquoise or ruby pink for accents. And if it's the bedroom, go with warmer tones of ochre and gold.

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Photographs courtesy: Designers Guild

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