Kit Davey, Interior Designer
18 Years in business - Over 2,600 homes transformed!
Tips From Kit
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Your Bedroom’s Focal Point
By Kit Davey
The focal point in most bedrooms is the area directly over the bed. A standard decorating technique is to hang one or two framed pieces of art. But here in earthquake country, this technique could be dangerous. What can you put over your bed that adds pizzazz to the room, but won't endanger your life? Try one of these suggestions for a creative, yet safe, bedroom focal point:
Dress the Walls
If you are wary of hanging anything at all over your bed, try a paint or wallpaper technique.
- Pick a predominant color in your color scheme and paint the section of wall behind your bed in that color, leaving the space to either side and the other walls off-white or another color.
- Sponge or rag the area behind the bed in a different color, filling in an arch of textured color directly over the bed.
- Choose an image in your bedspread, from a piece of artwork, or from an architectural detail in the room; for example a flowerpot, a section from an antique quilt, lightening bolts, maple leaves, teacups etc., and stencil your decorative motif in the area over your bed. Or, buy ready-made stencils, such as a pair of angels, a fleur de lis or a large floral swag, from your local craft store, or through the Internet
- If you're up for an even artier effect, you can create your own mural or trompe l'oueil. A few simple ideas: a shuttered window and landscape beyond, a painting of a painting, or clouds floating across an evening sky.
- Use wallpaper border to frame in a rectangular shape over the bed. Paint the area inside the "frame" in a harmonizing color.
- Cut out large-scale flowers from a roll of wall paper and glue them to the wall over your bed,
Think Soft
What can you hang over your bed that wouldn't hurt if it landed on your head during an earthquake?
- Wrap or drape an obi (a wide silk belt used by Japanese women to fasten their kimonos) or a long length of colorful fabric from a curtain rod.
- Hang a collection of antique lingerie, gloves, fans or hats in a pleasing arrangement.
- Buy a quilt hanger from L.L. Bean or Yield House, securely fasten it to the wall and display a rug, quilt or blanket.
- Create a clothing line using a length of twine stretched between two nails and use clothes pins to display antique doll clothes, baby clothes or handkerchiefs.
- Drape an antique piano shawl or tablecloth between two swag buttons.
- Hang a colorful silk flower wreath over your bed.
- Want to give your bedroom a romantic look? Suspend a mosquito net from the ceiling and let the sheer netting drape over the sides of your bed.
- Give your bed a canopied look. The directions seem complicated, but it's really quick, inexpensive and easy to create this dramatic look. Here's the overall look: drape a long length of wide fabric from behind your bed, over a dowel hanging from the ceiling, across the length of the bed, over a second dowel and down to the floor on the other end of the bed. The parallel dowels should be as wide as your bed and suspended with molly bolt secured ceiling hooks and a length of wire or a chain bout six inches from the ceiling.
- Install a curtain rod over your bed and hang tab curtains across the rod. A bed with a curvy metal headboard looks great against this backdrop.
- Install a row of drapery hooks or swag buttons (six or more) above your head and hang tie-top curtains from the hooks. Or, use the hooks to hang a row of hats.
- Use a long length of fabric, or a ready-made swag scarf and hang it from a single ornate swag bracket which you have centered and securely fastened four or five feet over your bed. Drape the fabric to either side of your bed. You can get a similar effect by using a single swing arm tab-curtain rod. Install the rod several feet over your bed with the arm sticking out twelve to eighteen inches over the bed. Hang a pair of tab curtains on the rod, draping them to either side of the bed.
- Install two or three swag buttons over the bed a foot or so from the ceiling. Drape a swag scarf across the buttons.
© Kit Davey 2008
Kit Davey, Allied Member, A.S.I.D., specializes in redesign, design consulting, staging and professional organizing. Call her at(650)367-7370.
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