Don't Worry Baby, It's All White

They say it's a woman's perogerative to change her mind. Well and good, but what happens when you buy furniture and splash out with a decorating scheme that becomes, well, a little stale? A few years ago, I spent a lot of time trying to do the dark wood furniture look, subsequently going a little bit overboard. Dark wood is a beautiful look, but it can also be a heavy look if you don't style it cleverly, or if you have too much of it. If you have gone overboard with one colour, it's actually very easy and relatively inexpensive to tone down and neutralise.

Think of your home, walls and floors, as a blank slate. In terms of interior design, it's actually wise to keep your slate neutral. As fashion comes and goes, it becomes easy and inexpensive to move with these ebbs and flows by accessorising.

Think of dark brown leather couches with a dark brown coffee table, in a small room. Now imagine you interchange the brown coffee table with a white coffee table. Put some old novels or colourful magazines on it. You can swap the books and magazines to a vase of red tulips. When you're tired of the red, you can substitute that with a big, ornate silver bowl. Put some white or neutral scatter cushions on the couches to break up the dark colours and it will feel a different room entirely.  If you have a plain chair somewhere at home, change up the cushions you put on it to change the mood.

White timber blinds or plantation shutters in a window will lift and light the room up beyond recognition.  We put plantation shutters in and the results are amazing.  A splash of white paint can also work wonders. We bought a home that had unsightly wooden panels around the living room. One coat of paint later and I could have cried from happiness - it was like the sins of the seventies never happened.

Happy painting!
Joanna