TULIPS
When I think about tulips, two holidays come to mind, Easter and Mother’s Day. Many people get a pot of tulips as an Easter plant. In my neck of the woods, tulips are synonymous with Mother’s Day. Albany, NY, being a Dutch settlement yearly celebrates the flower with a Tulip Festival. Thousands of tulips are planted in Washington Park, and up and down many streets by the State’s Capital. For about a two-week period, tulips are everywhere, heralding Spring. Continue reading
Working color from one space to another.
Last week I went to a cocktail party at the home of my cousin and her husband. For the last three years they have done a lot of work to an already beautiful house which has large rooms, tall ceilings and a nice floor plan for entertaining. Some of the projects they did were paint their kids rooms, decorated a formal living room and made the cellar into a wonderful man/woman cave for the two of them to enjoy, and a place for their two kids to have fun and bring friends.
Even after all of that, I’ve noticed they have one problem, a kind of problem they share with millions of people who purchased a pre lived in new house… Continue reading
Daffodils blooming at Whimsey Hill House.
It is almost time for the daffodils to bloom here at Whimsey Hill House. I always expect them to be blooming around the middle-end of April, when a late Easter is celebrated.
Over a two-year period, in 1995 and 1996, I planted a thousand daffodils in the beds and boarders that surround my house. Since then some died off, while others made enormous clumps. The ones that died off were planted toward the back of the great border, behind the house, which is 14 to 16 feet deep, and 125 feet long. Large perennials grew up in front of the daffodils and blocked their light collecting ability (photosynthesis), which weakened them. Continue reading
How to ADD color to a Beige Room.
Did you read my March 16, 2011 post titled When decorating a Beige Room, think Tones, Textures and Sculptural Interest? If after reading that, you still want to add some extra color, to your beige space, I have a few suggestions.
First of all, I want you to keep ALL of your beige furniture. It will be your room’s foundation. What I am suggesting is to color it up with some new accessories. Continue reading
Paint a room a dark color, then add light accents.
Easter Egg Bushes
Now that St. Patrick’s Day is over, and hopefully Winter is waning??, there is nothing more visually exciting than seeing an Easter Egg tree or bush, set against the still taupe tones of deciduous trees, bare of their leaves. I think seeing a bush or tree, covered with Bright-Happy colored plastic eggs is something everyone finds to be a welcoming site. I yearly decorate two bushes, down by the road, with hundreds of assorted sized eggs, that people can see as they drive by. It’s easy to decorate a tree with eggs. If you are interested in doing it, you will only need a few supplies to get started. Continue reading
Decorating a room in many tones of Beige.
“Beige Tones and Textures”
Too often, an attempt to decorate a room in Beige falls flat, something is missing. The space is as inviting as a doctor’s office sitting room. I think what happens is everything is one color, void of texture, and there is really nothing exciting to look at.
When decorating a beige room, think Tone, Texture, and Sculptural Interest. Continue reading
Picking four colors from an inspiration piece.
“Four colors and the flow.”
When decorating a room, using four colors is an ideal. There should be one Predominant color: color that you see first, and is used most in the room. One Subordinate color: second most used color in a room. AND one, but no more than two Accent colors. Accent colors are used sparingly as they work around a space. Continue reading
Equal Balance is an Ideal.
Interior decorating is a lot like a two-sided scale. When you have a two-sided scale, your objective is to have equal balance on both sides. Look at the first drawing in the illustration for this post.
On one side of the scale you have a ONE POUND block of chocolate. On the other side, to counterbalance it, you must come up with another one pound measurement. You could counterbalance the one pound block of chocolate with another one pound block of chocolate. You could also counterbalance the one pound block with a One Half Pound block of chocolate and one half pound of chocolate chips. Another counterbalancing option could be one pound of chocolate chips. It does not matter how you do it, as long as you have equal balance on both sides. If you can understand this concept, a lot of what interior decorating is all about will come easy to you.
Now let’s take the concept of equal balance using chocolate, and relate it to interior decorating. Continue reading
When planting a garden, stagger plant heights.
In the world of magazines, where a “stager” can bring in extra plants to heighten a look, and with computer experts on hand to make magic, an over abundant stair step look can easily be had. But in the real world, it is a different story. Continue reading
Fred Gonsowski Garden Home 