The bedroom....definitely juicy!! ;)

The bedroom is our sanctuary. Its the place we relax, revitalise and....well...*cough cough* other recreational activities ;)

There are plenty of ways we can give our bedrooms a lovely lift without having to spend a fortune buying all new furniture etc.

1. Think about changing the colour. Maybe you have a neutral room, how about throwing a nice accent colour in the mix? Choose a nice calming colour that all occupants feel good being in. Get a new doona cover, accent pillows or throw rugs. Maybe a nice print for the wall to reflect the colours. Beautiful wooden frame repainted to match scheme with treasured family photos? Colour has a strong psychological effect, it can help you to create the ambience you are after in the room.

2. Get into organisation. Utilising handy organising systems can create a more relaxed calming atmosphere. The more you can have in closed storage in a bedroom the better. Who can relax in a cluttered room? Space bag the opposite seasons clothing. Utilise under bed storage. You can also get underbed shoe storage if wardrobe space is a problem.

Reevaluate your wardrobe & storage. There are a few things you should consider when doing this. a) Clothing storage: Consider tiered hangers, vacuum pack bags for off season clothing
b) Shoe storage: Theres a huge range of different shoe storage systems available (yes, just for shoes!!) I wanted to put up a pic of some of the types....its mind blowing!! For me and my shoes I am going to have to consider fitting out a spare room to accomodate my Amelda Marcos sized collection ;)

c) Accessories storage: Jewellery organisers, tie & belt racks, bag organisers d) Seasonal/longer term storage: Under bed storage, vacuum pack bags & Various sized tubs for rarely used items

3. Think about your other senses. Ok, so we have our visual decoration looking good. What about scent? touch? Spoil yourself and get some good quality high thread count sheets, or maybe a lovely soft plush rug. Its nice to have a bedroom that smells fresh and lovely. In the mornings its best to pull back your covers, open your windows and let the fresh air get to the sheets before you make it. Without spoiling the "romantic bedroom" vibe, when you sleep and sweat apparently thats the precursor for a bed bugs haven!! Ew! Other than that its nice to have good smelling things in your room to help with the nice atmosphere. I love those ceramic globe huggers, maybe with a rich vanilla or sandalwood scent? Scented candles or even fresh flowers!

All these things are considerations that do not cost the earth but can make your main bedroom into something lovely and beautiful place to be.

Colour colour colour

Probably one of the biggest areas I have found people are stuck on with design is choosing colour. It can be overwhelming to select a colour scheme, whether you are starting from scratch or just repainting the walls! There are certain things you should consider when selecting colours

Considerations

1. The existing decor - this is a no brainer if you are repainting walls your existing colours of the items you will retain will dictate in part what direction you take

2. Yours/your families personality - Its nice to have your home reflect who you are and one of the very dominant features will be colour.

3. Psychology of colour - If you want your 2 year old to calm down at night time (need I remind you of a certain popular book of late :)...) dont paint their room red! Colour has a psychological effect...not everyone believes in this but hospitals, retail, hospitality all use colour in a psychological context. Heres a great article on colours and their effect on the psyche - http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm Its good to keep in mind when you consider the function of a room...is it a calming room? Somewhere that you would like inspiration & stimulation?

4. Warm vs cool colour - This almost falls in point 3 but worth a seperate mention. Warm advances, cool recedes. Warm colours are welcoming and comforting, cool colours are calming and relaxing. Warm can make a room seem smaller, cool can make a room seem larger. All things worth thinking about when choosing a scheme.

Colour theories

To create a scheme you need to understand the basics of a colour wheel

Achromatic - Literally meaning without colour. Usually black, white & possibly shades of grey. This is a very bold statement and a very contemporary scheme.

Monochromatic scheme - is one taken from one colour with various tints/shades. These tend to be very calm.



Analogous scheme - Is a colour set taken from adjacent colours on the colour wheel. these are slightly more vibrant, still very harmonious though.



Complementary scheme - There are 3 different types of complementary: Direct, split & triad. These schemes are best to up the vibrancy of a room.
















Dulux has an easy to navigate site with great tools like the mycolour visualiser http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/mycolour.aspx you can upload a pic and recolour the walls yourself. Dulux also allows you to order A4 sheet samples of the colours you like....particularly handy as those puny sample chips dont really give you a good idea of how the colour looks. Saves you money on 10 different sample pots while you are trying to select the perfect colour!!

If you have a bigger project than that and you would like to see how it will look in your room, contact me and I will give you a cost for me to rendering.

Have fun!!

In the meantime....

Pantry organisation on its way! Its proving to require quite a bit of research, good news is there is so much cool gear and ideas to improve your cupboard space!!

Out of interest corian has some GORGEOUS new colours, "greige" (grey beige, lol) is the new black!! Im in love with Senora!

Corian Rocky Colours

by: Surface Solutions

Photos: 41

Its time to tackle those kitchen drawers!!!!!

Dont you love that great feeling you get when things are organised and neat? Although I am an almost 8 year veteran of my interior design career, I am a right brained creative, so organisation does not come naturally to me. I am doing this reorganisation with my own kitchen. In the design field I know all the gadgets and storage methods but do I maintain them in my own kitchen? Nope!

You will need

1. Notepad & pen
2. Bag for rubbish
3. Small box for charity/give away items
4. Computer ready to order your organisational items
5. Cloth & cleaning spray
6. Timer

Steps

1. Time to be tough. Pull out a) junk drawer b) wrap drawer c) Gadget/utensil drawer
   
2. Set the timer for 5mins. You need to declutter each drawer in 5 minutes. This helps you to resist procrastinating and keeping things you don’t need.
   
3. Go through all three drawers and split into keeps, give away and rubbish
   
4. If you haven’t used it in 6 months its time to move it on
5. Get rid of double ups. Do you really need two potato mashers? No, you don’t need different colours for different moods….be tough, cull it!
   
6. Now start categorising the keeps pile into sizes or categories, this should give you an idea of the style of drawer organiser you need. Use my guide below to help give you an idea of some options to utilise.
7. Pop the rubbish in the bin, get the charity or give away stuff in the car
   ready to go to its new home. No cheating and dragging back that garlic peeler you have never used!! Give the drawers a good wipe out & clean.
8. Is there anything that would be best relocated to another area of the kitchen? This is important as a well functioning kitchen has necessities located close by the area it is used. A good example is the utensils drawer, why have your consistently used utensils tucked in a drawer? Consider relocating closer to the stove if you use it constantly.
   
9. Further to point 7, if you use things rarely perhaps it would be best to relocate to a more isolated position. How about cake making equipment? You use it maybe a couple times a year? Better to store in a little container, labelled and placed in a less accessed cupboard.
   
10. Order your drawer organisers then enjoy your beautifully organised set of drawers!!
    
11. Tune in next week for the all important pantry organisation!!!

Organisational tools

1. Drawer organisers for Junk drawers

        The final choice will be personal preference and storage requirements.

a) Single insert style: Pros: Good amount of varying sized spaces.  Cons: Limited in amount and also exactly what you can put in them

b) Layered style: Pros: Awesome for utilising maximum space, great amount of varying sized spaces. Cons: Not flexible for odd sized objects, not good for higher items in shallow drawers.

 

c) Large custom inserts: Pros – can alter configuration as suits your sized utensils, good for utensil drawers cons: can be hard to get things to fit as you require.

d) Varied size custom inserts: Pros – can alter configuration as suits your sized utensils, cons: not always secure, need to select a system that comes in equal sized/planned modules to fit to a generic sized drawer or they slip and slide *tip: If you pick a modular format use anti slip drawer lining underneath.

 

e) Horizontal & vertical dividers: Pros – customisable to whatever you have in your drawer Cons: Not quite as sturdy as a fully prefab drawer insert, hasn’t got really small inserts as junk drawers may require, however, you could always put a smaller divided container into the dividers.

f) Battery storage: Just wanted to show you these cool little battery storage containers. We always have batteries rolling around the junk drawer, I LOVE this idea! Also a good reminder of what batteries need replenishing and when.

2. Drawer organisers for Utensil/gadget drawers

  

  a) Simple drawer dividers: Pros – Accomodates maximum large      utensils Con: Does not account for effective division of smaller items

b)  Combination drawer dividers & Large modular inserts: Pros: Allows storage of long items plus smaller sized gadgets/accessories. I couldn’t find a prefab drawer insert that is actually like this. Utensils wont generally sit in the shallow drawer insert slots properly. As mentioned previously if you select this option make sure you use non slip drawer liner.

c)   Horizontal & vertical dividers: Pros – customisable to whatever you have in your drawer Cons: Not quite as sturdy as a fully prefab drawer insert

d)   Maybe integrate a knife block              e)   Or extra spice storage?       

                

     

3. Work area organisers for Utensils

To declutter the drawer and also have your tools at the ready while you are cooking consider moving the important ones to your cooking area if you haven’t already.

a)  Utensil hangers: Ikea style bar & hook Pros: Easily accessible, easy to see the utensil you need Cons: Can look a little cluttered if you are wanting a minimalist look to your kitchen however it is possible to hang inside a cabinet or pantry door

 b)  Utensil caddys: Pros: Neatly organised and portable so you can move position whenever required. Cons: Still a little hard to see everything sometimes, expensive in comparison to just using a container

 

4. Options for wrap organisation

a)  Combination drawer dividers & Large modular inserts: Pros: Allows for wrap to sit depth ways, and you then have space for extra goodies in the inserts: package clips/ties, freezer bags etc etc.

b)  A wrap caddy: Pros: Easily accessible, nice neat unit Cons: Cannot have more than 2 wraps so you still need to account for baking paper etc in the wrap drawer

Finally I just wanted to show you this double layer cutlery drawer. The top layer is a caddy…great idea to keep your table cutlery and just carry to the table to set! There is also some expandable cutlery drawers available if you have an odd sized or extra wide set of drawers.

Juicy bits

Some of the product sources that ship:

www.ikea.com.au

www.hsw.com.au

www.kitchewaredirect.com.au

Please don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions
design@juiceinteriors.com

Website http://www.juiceinteriors.com/

FB look up Juice Interiors

Download instruction sheet here

Hope you enjoyed this :)

If you did, please take 5 to give me some feedback!! 

The first ever Juicy post!

This post has taken a while for me to get to! I am going to launch into showing you something really cool for you in the kitchen. This is the handiest piece of kitchen couture! Flour all over your hands? Egg all over the bench? Afraid to touch your laptop to find a conversion tool? Or smoosh tomato sauce all over your favourite cookbook? This aprons guide includes numeric conversions, cooking times, roasting times, freezing instructions, defrosting times a cooking glossary and more! Cool huh?