Home Improvements - The

Fun Stuff

 by:

Raynor James

Planning home improvements necessarily involves addressing numerous

practical matters. That doesn't mean you should ignore the fun stuff!

The Fun Stuff

The first thing to plan for in home improvements is the practical

stuff. The second thing you need to talk to family members about is the

fun stuff.

Most people have colors they like and colors they don't like. They have

things that interest them and things that don't. Get your family to talk

to you about those things. Each person's bedroom, or bedroom area, should

reflect his or her taste and interests.

A boy who likes green, football, and backpacking can easily have a sage

green (it "reads" as more neutral than many shades of green if re-sale of

your home is a concern) room with cream woodwork, cream interior shutters,

and cream ceiling. Framed football posters and wilderness scenes might be

pleasant. Bedding with a rustic motif (rows of stylized pine trees?) from

L.L. Bean or Plow and Hearth would work right in. Add a touch or two of a

bright color like red or yellow.

Does he need a desk in his room? A chest of drawers? A bookcase? Would

he enjoy having a bulletin board? Even if they're small, most rooms need

at least three lamps so that illumination is general and even. The shades

are usually best in warm, neutral colors. (Light coming through green

shades tends to make people look sick.) Lamp shades should be level and

the seams should be toward the wall so they're not visible. When the

bottom edge of most lamp shades in a room are the same height from the

floor, the room tends to look serene and cohesive.

Hanging pictures usually look best if the bottom edges of the frames

are the same height from the floor and level with each other, too. There

are exceptions to this and every generalization of course. A grouping of

pictures can have the bottom tier follow the "rule" while all of the other

pictures are higher. A picture over a fireplace often looks good higher

than the other pictures in the room.

Pictures usually look best when they have a relationship to furniture

or an architectural feature. Pictures centered over a chest, bed,

bookcase, or fireplace are good examples. Pictures don't tend to look good

if they're scattered willy-nilly around a room, or if they're up near the

ceiling (unless they're part of a grouping), or if the height at which

they're hung varies wildly with no rhyme nor reason.

A girl who loves pink, the ballet, and swimming can have woodwork the

same cream as her brother's while her walls are a soft pink (a pink with a

hint of yellow in it tends to go well with cream), and her art work

reflects her interests. If she loves to read, make sure she has a good

reading lamp near her bed, or near a comfortable chair, or both.

A cream colored dust ruffle with widely spaced pink stripes and a

quilted plaid coverlet in pink, green, yellow, and blue on a cream

background might look nice. Add cream fabric window shades with large pink

polka dots and I'll bet she'll smile.

The bigger point is to simply have fun with some of your home

improvements. There is no need to look exclusively at practical matters.