Soft furnishings can add a touch of luxury to your interiors at very little cost. Find out how to update your home for less, says Jane Drew
1. Essential factor
Interior design and decorating wouldn’t exist without soft furnishings. The term covers just about any fabric item used within a scheme, be that curtains, cushions, throws, rugs or upholstery. It also encompasses passementerie: the trims and braids that decorate the fabric used on drapes, blinds, curtains, cushions and throws. The beauty of soft furnishings is they are only an accent, so you can be adventurous with them without over-decorating a space. Importantly too, you can change a sofa cover or even a rug at very little cost, but the effect on the surrounding decor will be profound.
2. Versatility of use
Soft furnishings were once played down in minimalist homes but today you can introduce them more freely. The new minimalism is about blurring the edges and creating a more lived-in feel. Combining luxurious fabrics with light ones, in carefully coordinated hues, is a great way of embracing soft furnishings without going over the top. Consider draping a single throw over a chair back, laying a square or rectangular rug under a coffee table or hanging fuss-free but elegant drapes instead of blinds.
3. Colour schemes
When choosing new soft furnishings for a room, stick to three tones – one main colour, a secondary colour and an accent colour. While the colour that you want to predominate provides a base for the soft furnishings, you can tie the scheme together with the secondary and accent colours. If your drapes are aqua, and the majority of the soft furnishings beige, consider a plaid throw with aqua and beige squares and a mix of beige and blue cushions in various different fabrics. As a general rule, restrict patterns to small surfaces, for instance floral scatter cushions on a solid- coloured sofa. In a neutral-based scheme you can mix stripes, checks and florals but in a colourful room, avoid using too many different patterns.
4. Hot hues
Brown might not seem the obvious colour for summer but, for 2009, it’s bang on trend. The latest browns are warm and seductive (think dairy milk chocolate) and are at their best mixed with brights, such as crimson, lime and teal. Charcoal paired with metallic silver or dove grey is another hot combo as is chartreuse combined with blues and neutrals. New soft furnishings in blue or lilac will immediately modernise any tired-looking interior scheme.
5. Nature in the home
Watch too for earthy greens, such as warm olive and forest, reflecting fashion’s ever-growing ecoawareness. Muted browns, greens and mustard yellows all contribute to an earthy feel, too. A white background will provide a modern lift. Introducing prints of leaves, flowers and trees in your soft furnishings is also fashion forward. This season’s florals are super stylised and large in scale: forget classic chintzes and overblown rose patterns.
6. Key trend
Stripes are back in favour this season, and they have been reinvented into energetic, stylised forms. While pinstripes (and anything esembling mattress ticking) are out, wavy or blurred stripes are definitely in. Cubism rules too, especially geometric patterns incorporating graphic circles, squares and herringbone motifs. Geometric designs can be very striking but overuse can equally overkill. Combining stripes with another pattern (or a plain fabric) is a great way of controlling the impact.
7. Chic on the cheap
Splurging on a few scatter cushions in trendy hues is a great way to revamp an interior on the cheap. Cushions can be changed to jazz up a sofa or chair before your room is ready for a major makeover. Group them together for impact, or team them with your existing cushions to boost the whole room. Refreshing the passementerie, meanwhile, can do much to transform an interior. Oversized tie-backs and lavish tassels with braiding and diamantes are the ultimate home accessories for summer 2009.
8. Indulging in texture
Don’t underestimate the power of texture to style up a room. If you have one of those sleek, modern interiors, try to include some fun textural accent pieces, like a woven leather chair or fringe-trimmed cushions. You can impart cosiness with throws (chenille or linen, for example), rugs (such as shag and Berber) and upholstery (think chenille, velvet and brushed cotton). Soft furnishings not only have to look good, they should feel good, too: to refashion a bed or sofa, team plain knitted cushions with ones featuring interesting designs.
9. New technologies
Sophisticated new manufacturing processes mean that you can now update or luxe up your home for less. The good news for those who have a taste for silk on a polyester budget, as well as those whose light-filled rooms require beautiful fabrics with resilience to UV, is that polyesters can now trick the eye and the fingertips. At the other end of the spectrum, natural fibres are also enjoying a renaissance. Watch out for a 100 percent bamboo fabric that looks like velvet, and a new range of hemp furnishing fabrics that are durable and UVresistant as well as environmentally friendly.
10. Maintain originality
As the move to ornamentation in home decor continues, high-end home fabrics are increasingly featuring complex weaves, metallic yarns, mbroidered patterns, relief detailing and a high degree of texture. But such lavishness is not merely a matter of aesthetics. Layering soft furnishing upon soft furnishing, with pieces picked up from disparate stores, allows you to create an individual home style, and one that will be impossible for your friends to reproduce.
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