Brentwood Interior Designer, Amanda Burdge It's all in the Details

Decorative accessories provide the finishing touches in a room. Even the best basics, like the little black dress, will fall flat without the garnishment of beautiful pearls, a little gold, and the perfect shoes. Sure, the little black dress is lovely, but it has the potential to be so much better.

Shane Reilly

Putting the finishing touches on your little black dress are no different from accessorizing your home. Adding a few carefully selected pieces will transform the ordinary humdrum into something extraordinary. Remember my post on lifestyles? Accessories are THE single best way to underline, with an exclamation point, who you are. 

Accessories need not be of the same cloth, either. In fact, just like all my other posts have stated, it is all in the mix. It is much more appealing to combine new and old, fine art with flea market finds, and hand-me-downs with the newly purchased finds. Every season, or every so often, change your perspective, rearrange and move things around. Too often clients will assign an item to a location and see it as fixed, unable to move it from the sublime ether of existence. My recommendation? Take two or three rooms and tear everything out of it. Put every item in the center of a room and start rearranging. This is a terrific way to get a fresh look, and it moves everything around, creating an exciting new look. You'll be surprised at all the incredible arrangements you come up with that blend beautifully. Who knew?!

Evelyn Benatar

As my captive audience I'm sure you are wondering, 'Ok now I have all my stuff in the center of the room, now what?' Such talented pupils you are! Ask yourself a few questions before you get started: 1) Is there a pattern with my accessories? For example, do I have a group of trinkets such as Snow globes, medicine bottles, or candy wrappers that can be classified as a collection? If so, these are items that can be grouped together on a bookshelf or side table to showcase your collectible. 2) Is there anything I do not need? Do I LOVE all of these items? Our goal is to create a lifestyle not a collage of life cycles. Get rid of the ones that no longer speak to you, and donate them. Remember students, one mans junk, is another mans treasure!

Raji RM and Associates

The most fundamental rule of any successful accessory ensemble is the number of items you use cannot overwhelm the space you are decorating. See photo below. Now this room is a store. They are trying to display a beautiful collection of home decor items to peak your interest and give you lots of eye candy ( and hopefully entice you to BUY something). However, this would never work in a home. Too many items, too little space, create invalid scale and proportion. Awwww...where do I focus?, too much stuff!

Orangehomeaccessories.com

Once you have decided the surface to enhance create interest with odd numbers, group items together, and create high's and lows. You do not want every single item to be the same height. Odd numbers push the eye to move around the surface, and this creates visual interest. No matter what accessory you are working with, an informal approach is always better. Start by placing your tallest object in the back and work your way down. Essentially creating a triangle in shape. See the green vases below? Each item is a different shape and height, and we have five total items with the art three vases, and a platter.  

                                                  

Olga Adler

Make sure you do not cram everything together. Your accessories demand breathing room. After you have fussed with your accessories and changed them around, you will end up with the perfect accessory combination. Make sure the balance is right, and that the surface feels right. Does it look balanced? Does it feel off? Does the arrangement intrigue the eye? If the space feels heavy a good rule of thumb to live by, if cleaning day rolls around and the surface requires a lot of labor to shift and move things around, you have probably put too many things on it.

Look at the mantle below. This is a perfect example of perfect accessorization. There are five items (odd number) each item is a different height and shape and each piece has breathing room. Beautiful to look at, and easy to clean. Bravo!

David M. Plant Interiors

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Interview with Colorpodz by Amanda Burdge

About a week ago, Kelly Berg from Arte Styling announced that Colorpodz would now be offered on iTunes. Like the bashful, samurai designer I am, I discreetly yelled in her ear how fabulous and exciting this all was and that "I WOULD LOVE TO SIT IN WITH Y'ALL ONE DAY!!!!" With such a quiet footnote of elation I doubted that anything would come of it, and brushed it off as if I was too busy anyway....after all I'm a VERY busy person.(insert dejected sigh here)

Well yesterday, Mrs Kelly herself emailed me and said she was not the one in controlling power, and I needed to talk to the Grand Poobah, Mrs Lori Sawaya from Color Budz. So I shot Lori a quick little note saying "I WOULD LOVE TO SIT IN WITH Y'ALL ONE DAY!!!!" Poor gal must of felt bad for me because she said YES!! Hooray!

Colorpodz is a 35-45 minute podcast of 3 professionals who talk shop about color. They cover various topics, generally related to color, from color psychology to color design, and our upcoming podcast  will be on lighting and how it effects color!

Lori Sawaya

Lori, AKA Grand Poobah, host/producer/master mind, is a color strategist and principal owner of Color Strategies. She has over 20 years of experience in color, and she offers multi disciplinary guidance in an array of architectural color, color psychology, color classes, and she is a writer, and speaker.

Kelly Berg

Kelly is a wonderful Color Expert out of San Francisco, California. She has achieved numerous things in the design world from recipe development for a lifestyle company, produced projects for HGTV, set decoration and many residential and commercial projects. You can see more about how ridiculously fabulous this gal is at her web page, Arte Styling.

Rachel Perls

Rachel Perls from HUE is also a bay area color consultant, fine artist and colorpodz host. She teaches color theory, and helps select colors for your home or business.

I am so EXCITED to be amongst such wonderful talent and look forward to our discussion on one of my FAVORITE categories, lighting! We are taping on the 9th, but Lori said it takes a few weeks to edit and get it live, so I will keep you posted as the story unfolds!

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Vacation Bliss-Expert Designer Amanda Burdge

  On a whim I decided to come and visit the parentals, in Camdenton, Missouri this week. They have a beautiful home on Lake of the Ozarks and I am very happy to report that we will be enjoying a day of boating, in a pleasant 90 degress today, yay!! We have had partial sunny, mostly cloudy days ( whatever the heck that means, are they not one in the same?) And today will be our first day of full, 100% SUN!!

GOOD MORNING CAMDENTON!!!!

Seriously, does it get any better than this? I do have to say myself that I could wake up to this every morning. No wonder the people back here are so happy! I would be too, now if I could just figure out how to become independently wealthy.....

Seven in the morning, large cup of coffee and blogging. This really is the life. Is this not the best way to blog? Perhaps I just sell AB HOME and move here. I could be property management. Make sure everything is as it should be....

Well the good news is I have managed to get a little work in. Mom took me to the local thrift store, where to my surprise, lay some of the worlds best treasures...who knew?!

As we approched Bear ( name of the converted Wal-mart, now a thrift store) I was dragging my feet. Nothing good could possibly come out of a dilapidated store, with crusty windows, dust bunnies, and the depot for redneck central. We walked inside to find broken fans and cell phones, disassembled bed frames and smelly clothes. Why on earth am I here, I thought. But then out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of this

My excitement suddenly turned giddy. What a gorgeous peice! This would look beautiful in a lacquered white paint, and carrera marble top. Oh the thought of it in my store with my acid green lamps, pure design magic! Then I saw this,

Can you stand it? I was drooling over this hardware. This would be gorgeous in black, and would also make an incredible bathroom vanity. At this point the employees were starting to give me the stink eye. They couldn't understand why I was getting desperately excited over junk. But the piece de' resistance, ( no joke I may have peed myself) were these beauties. At this point the angels were singing, and design magic was occuring right underneath our noses! I scooped these up, and dad put them in the truck to come home.

So I did what any GOOD designer would do. I immediatley contacted Dayka, over at meditations on life and style and rubbed it in. I emailed her all my fabulous finds, and like a coy fox, I asked her what she would do with them, knowing full well she was shorting out her computer with envious drool. I think she may have even cracked a rib when she fell out of her chair because she was having a hard time breathing. I was too, but luckily my mom is a nurse and could administer CPR if necessary!

(Ok no joke, she really did hurt herself doing something, so head over to her blog and give her some well wishes!) I hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend and I will be thinking of you while I'm out in the sun with booze and boating! Happy day to all!!!

Sofa envy by Nashville Interior Designer, Amanda Burdge

  

David Demattei and Patrick Wade

These days the proverbial beige sofa has really lost my interest. Now, I know that it is a tried and true favorite, and a "go-to"must have for any home, but after ten years of solid beige and brown sofas, I'm ready to move on. As I was doing research for a new client, (who LOVES color) I decided a bold sofa was just what we needed. Why on earth have I not been doing this? Here were a few of my favs!

                     

John Willey

Ken Fulk

                                      

Jeffrey Bihuber

                                        

Jonathan Adler

David Lawrence

Really are these not gorgeous? How great would it be to walk into your room and see a vibrant orange sofa? Or a bright acid green one? Just the thought of it brings a smile to my face. I think it's high time to buy a new sofa and add some flavor to the house, who's with me?!

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Amanda Burdge on Shopping Smart

So often when a consumer decides to take the plunge, and buy furniture, they do it in haste. On a whim, they decide it is time to redo the family room and they go out to the stores like a ticking time bomb in a Macgruber movie. The reasons for this decision, Sally next door just did her new room, HGTV told me to do it, or you finally received the tax return, and these excursions are never well thought out without a PLAN.

Furniture Store 

Take your time when exploring all your options. There are a dizzying array of retailers, catalogs, discount stores, online stores, and boutiques. All have something fabulous to offer, however, without a plan, you might as well walk up to the salesman hand him your money and walk out. 

Look through books and magazines, and determine who you are and what your style is. Study the various brands and construction of pieces. And most importantly research price points. There are different price ranges for everything, but without a plan you will end up making huge sacrifices, costly mistakes, or worse end up having your eyes pop out when you realize its impossible to redo your entire room for a thousand dollars, despite HGTV telling you it could be done.

Credit

Always make sure you have an idea of what will fit, and not fit. Don't go into a furniture store and buy a sofa that is 96" long if the space will only allow 72".  Determine the layout that will work in your room, along with measurements, and take it with you into the store. This will eliminate half the available selection on the floor, and make decision making much simpler.

AB HOME Interiors

Learn the terminology. For example, do you know the difference between a nightstand and a bachelors chest? A hassock and a foot stool? Well students, these items are one in the same. How about a casegood or occasional chair? Many items on the floor will look similar but be entirely different in terminology. Learn the general vernacular so you can easily speak with your sales assistant and find what you need quickly. Also, knowing the language will give you an inside edge. Those of us in the industry never use certain words. We never say couch, we say sofa. Another example, we never say curtains, we say drapes.

AB HOME Interiors

Know your woods. When shopping for casegoods look for info that labels which woods or veneers are used. Woods have different properties, durability, and behave differently in certain climates. Look for strong construction. Where does the piece bear the most weight- the legs, shelves, braces, drawers? Look at the doors and drawers. Do they open and shut easily? Are there any visual imperfections? 

Credit

Bone up on the manufacturer that you are purchasing investment pieces from. For instance, I sell LEE Industries upholstery. I favor them over many of my manufacturers for several reasons. They are made in the USA, (very important) their pieces are kiln dried, eight-way hand tied, hardwood joined with dowels, tempered steel springs that are sagless, and their quality is unsurpassed for the money. Not to mention the fact that they have hundreds of styles to choose from, for any kind of interior. 

This is where hiring an interior designer can really help you. Developing a plan can be the hardest thing for a consumer to set in motion. They do not always know where to start. A designer can help you decipher what works and doesn't, and build your space plan that gives you direction. Once a design concept is mature, you can easily be let loose into a furniture store with confidence, and build the room of your dreams.

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Nashville designer Amanda Burdge- Decorating ingredients for the real you

If you had to list the most absolute essential ingredient for your home, what would it be? For me, no place would be home without comfy down pillows, fragrant candles, custom draperies and fresh cut flowers.

Evon Kirkland Interiors

More importantly, if you have a passion for an item, do you find places around the house to put that item?  Do not let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn't do, simply because this magazine or that magazine says not to. Gone are the days of the "living room" for special occasions. Today we LIVE in our homes. They are our havens, our sanctuaries and our retreats. A refuge to get away from all the headaches of the day, and find peace. So isn't it important to find places for those special items even if you think you don't have the room?

Alison Whittaker

For example, if you have a dining room that is nothing more than a storage unit for papers, mail, sports paraphernalia and miscellaneous other items, and you really need a study, then turn that sucker into a study.

Margaret Norcott

In the wake of the tragic flooding here in Nashville, now more than ever, people are seeking refuge in the few items that are left. With the overwhelming devastation of loosing just about everything, now is the time to take stock. And this is a good lesson for anyone who's life has been turned upside down, and forced into change. 

Katherine North

Reevaluate your passions. What are your must-haves that encourage you to be who you are, and still remind you of where you've come from? As a designer I cannot tell you what ingredients to put into your home to create the blueprint of the real you. These are the items that are collected over lifetimes. But I can offer help to create atmosphere, serenity and help you develop a lifestyle with these items. I can offer solid decorating ideas and information, filled with options, options, and more options, so that you have the tools and the know-how to build that blueprint, that showcases the real you.

 I've no doubt that change, whether good or bad, always promotes renewal and reflection on the catalog's of our lives. We archive in our memories what is important and gives us value, striving to reach our end goals as quickly as possible, while overlooking the journey. Things are just things unless you make them the building blocks to enrich the real you. The pilgrimage of daily life that takes us on our unexpected excursions, be it long or short, expected or unexpected, the journey is where you will find a snapshot of who you really are today. The travels in between the destinations create a homemade prescription to life. Thus, creating a home filled with the ingredients that make you, you! Each recipe special and unique only to those that inhabit that residence, and a lifestyle to call home.

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