Flickr Photo Credit: Jurek D.
If most of your pieces come from generous relatives, yard sales, thrift stores or the good ol’ garbage dump, the easiest way to pull together a cohesive look is with color.
You can certainly use whatever shade of paint you want, but for my money, the least expensive and most versatile option is good old black. Even the spray paint routinely goes on sale at the hardware store for around 99 cents a can. It’s neutral, dramatic and grounding. Need some ideas to get you started?
- Spray all of your mis-matched picture frames with generic black spray paint and use white borders for all of your selections. Whether you use black and white or color prints, this will give you a dramatic gallery effect when placing them all on an accent wall. Any wall color but white will help you pull this off.
- Freshen up metal objects around your house such as dingy metal trash cans, iron work, and metal framed accent mirrors. Do the same with a few furniture items such as a less than classic coffee table and some hallway storage bureaus. Pair this with tan or taupe walls for a great neutral pallet suitable for a bachelor pad or apartment for a new couple. Some framed photos from a stock image collection, a throw rug and some accent pillows and your first home is basically done.
- Like the French country style of decorating? You’ll notice they use a lot of black accent pieces to ground the look. Throw in some aged yellow wall treatments and some traditional fabric. Voila!
- Pair black objects with basically anything other than pastel wall paint and you have an instant designer look. I used to think of black as cold, because in college and just starting out you usually see it paired with white walls. Probably because most people just choose to go with whatever color the landlord picked, which is of course usually white. But with a dramatic red wall, tan, clay, sage or other earthy type of color, it goes great.
I really like this tip because it provides an affordable instant spruce up option for a variety of decorating styles. It’s also easily achieved without having to track down a bunch of specialty items or using a bunch of carpentry skills many of us don’t have. Happy decorating!
