Displaying posts labeled "Sponsored"

Many things have changed since the pandemic, and so has our work ethic. Because we’re spending more time working from home, it’s become essential to adjust our methods according to our needs. Creating a home office accent wall will bring that idea to life.
An accent wall is the main attraction in any premises. These walls provide you with an opportunity to add a special touch to an ordinary room. We’ve seen many different home office accent walls designs, yet the best one matches the whole theme of the house.
Give your accent wall a special touch by adorning it with printed wall art. Modern media such as custom aluminum signs will make your images look as good in print as they are in real life.
We have compiled the best home office accent wall ideas to freshen up your interior decor and set a lovely atmosphere.

Popular Home Office Feature Wall Design Concepts

The concept of a home office may be relatively new in home design. But there is no lack of inspiration thanks to innovative designers. Some of us may prefer a small neat corner in the living room while others may want a separate large dedicated workspace which makes it more comfortable to work from home.
No matter what your vision is, every home office design can have a pleasant accent wall. We’ve covered a few inspiring ideas for home office feature walls to help you establish a professional atmosphere.

1. Wallpapers

Wallpapers set the tone in any space. A floral print on an accent wall might help you relax while a neon print will energize your brain. This is why there’s no need to cover an entire space with wallpaper. Instead, redesign just one wall in the style you like to keep the decor in harmony. Use this medium to set the desired mood in any room. If you’re good with your hands, this DIY guide will help you apply wallpapers to an accent wall all on your own.

2. Decorative Elements

Another inventive technique to maximize the potential of the accent wall in your home office is adding decorative elements. Hang framed pictures or works of art on the wall for the best results. Adding some color will make it look jazzier and be suitable for people who are more creative. Themed decor elements also make beautiful options you can use to embellish your home for holidays.

3. Geometric Shapes

Geometric shapes are a chic approach to distinguish your home office. Triangles are frequently used in interior design, but there are many other forms to experiment with. Think of using squares, hexagons, or other shapes to decorate your main wall. We can list numerous examples of bold shapes and colors that breathe new life into the walls. There are no restrictions when it comes to colors. Make sets using different shapes and colors to produce a striking backdrop.

4. Art Walls

Showcase your character through impressive, bold art. Whether you decide to hang large abstract paintings or rustic wall art, it will reflect your sense of style. Incorporate your art preferences into the accent wall pattern to make a statement. There is no better method to calm your thoughts while working than by staring at artwork. Choose a grand work of art that covers a sizable portion of the accent wall. This idea requires very little work or preparation, but rest assured that when it is implemented, it’ll be a sight to behold.

5. Wood Designs

Wooden designs for accent walls can instantly add an air of sophistication, warmth and elegance to any space. This material can improve the overall feel of an indoor environment in a variety of ways. They can enhance acoustics and moisture absorption as well as inhibit some microbes. With a wooden accent wall, vintage, rustic or even modern and minimal designs will look great. They’ll also add a sense of calm, focus and serenity.

Useful Tips for Outstanding Home Office Accent Walls

Countless ways exist to create the perfect accent walls for a home office. The most important rule is to establish a space that’s both functional and beautiful. Still, be careful when making color and material choices for the wall. Explore some common guidelines to aid you in your quest:

1. DO: Think outside the box. Move beyond simple hues. Experiment with stripes or polka dots. Use metallic colors to define a bold style.
2. DON’T: Ignore texture. Try different ones instead. Create a wall covered in fabrics, a gallery of photos or anything else.
3. DO: Design a feature wall in an area with neutral tones. The thought of an accent wall initially evokes visions in vivid blue or red. In a neutral color scheme however, a dark brown wall will produce a striking effect.
4. DON’T: Refrain from using vivid colors. The color of an accent wall is not subject to any particular rules. You can choose any hue that makes you happy as long as it complements the other elements placed in the room.
5. DO: Take the color of the other walls into consideration. Usually, light to medium-shaded walls look best next to accent walls. An accent wall will appear nice but daunting in an all-white office as well. Its contrast can give off a modern vibe, yet it might come out as being too jarring.

This is the last of the pile of books, starting things off with what might possibly be my favourite book of 2022. Another book by Catherine Scotto (photos by Nicolas Mathéus), Morocco: Destination of Style, Elegance and Design is everything you envision Morocco being (for those of us not fortunate enough to have ever traveled there) – colourful, filled with vegetation, tons of textures, rustic, earthy, tiles and marble and all the wonderful things that makes this country so magical.
Discover the colors and textures of 21st-century Morocco in this enticing collection of lush and inviting photographs of homes, gardens, hotels, and historic sites. Brimming with inspiration, this guide introduces readers to the next generation of interior and landscape designers, architects, and stylists who are transforming and reinforcing the country’s reputation as a center of cultural and historic discovery. Combining modern technology with a deep respect for tradition, these locations and influencers incorporate natural materials such as earth, wood, and bamboo into buildings that are both simple and elegant, and into landscapes that honor a fragile ecosystem. Armchair travelers, environmental designers, and anyone looking for a colorful immersive experience will find much to discover in this celebration of a country at once rooted in tradition and eager to embrace innovation.

The next book is The Sustainable Home: Easy Ways to Live With Nature in Mind by Ida Magntorn. This is a great little inexpensive book featuring some really pretty spaces and had lots of ideas on how to live greener. Most books I come across are pretty coffee table books so this one was refreshingly educational and a handy reference.
A beautifully produced book on interiors with a focus on sustainability and wellbeing and creating a home with the environment in mind. Inspiration and tips for creating a sustainable home without compromising on style. In The Sustainable Home, interiors writer and photographer Ida Magntorn shows how to create a harmonious, beautiful and functional home that is sustainable in the long run. Taking inspiration from real homes, and following the motto reuse, reduce, recycle – Ida shares new ways to think when decorating – combining low environmental impact with individual style. Room by room, she offers practical and positive advice to create a greener home.

And last but certainly not least, we have Romancing the Home: Stylish Interiors for a Modern Lifestyle by Stewart Manger, with Jacqueline Terrebonne. This one didn’t really grab me as much as some of the others but if contemporary design tickles your fancy, I think you’ll like the spaces Stewart has created. There are some really bold, graphic and colourful elements that really pop and are quite unique.
Stewart Manger is regarded for his bespoke interiors in which exquisite craftsmanship and a classic-meets-modern flair. This rising star’s first monograph showcases his imaginative ways to create vibrant and stylish rooms. His surehanded approach that seamlessly melds the contemporary and the Old World is fresh and inviting, and his affinity for seeking the best artisans and workrooms for custom work results in impeccable homes. Whether a restored late nineteenth-century house that embraces the warmth and comfort of an English country house, or a white-washed hillside house overlooking the sea—Manger singles out a theme that is carried throughout the design. He illustrates the mixing of exotic and playful patterns and discusses how quality antique pieces can add character to a room.

If a well designed bathroom gives you heart palpitations and has you dreaming of soaking in the most luxurious tub surrounded by the prettiest marble and tile and mirrors and sconces then this book is absolutely for you.
The Ultimate Bath (by cofounder of Waterworks Barbara Sallick) devotes its elegantly illustrated chapters to the most luxuriously designed bathrooms from a wide-ranging list of contributors, including Gil Schafer, Nickey Kehoe, Brigette Romanek, and Miles Redd. These are baths that, while grounded in timeless elements, surprise and enchant. There are grand baths of high style with elegant mirrored and marble surfaces. There are bold rooms of rich maximalist pattern and color. There are strictly tailored spaces of great restraint and serenity. And finally, there are baths with restorative views to the garden or forest—or in the middle of nature themselves. Gathered together, these spaces seduce, delight, and serve as a visual blueprint for readers looking to create rest, refuge, and beauty at home. The end result is a book that celebrates the unexpected and inspires readers to bring a magical quality to their own baths, no matter how modest or grand.

Another book that ended up in my mailbox was Soul: Interiors by Orlando DIaz-Azcuy (written by Jorge S. Arango and Orlando Diaz-Azcuy). Contemporists/modernists this one is definitively for you. This one didn’t really tug at my heart-strings as my style leans more vintage and eclectic but there are some really unique spaces featured here I had not seen before. A great coffee table book.
San Francisco–based Orlando Diaz-Azcuy’s mastery of the home interior has made him one of America’s most renowned designers. Regarded by professionals as a “dean of interior design” and a pioneer of minimalist design since the early 1980s, Diaz-Azcuy has been a major influence in the worlds of interior architecture and design. Bringing soul to modernism is Diaz-Azcuy’s greatest legacy, as well as the subject of this book. Each residence featured in these pages is essentially simple, functional and beautiful, achieved with exactitude, attention to detail and craftsmanship. Diaz-Azcuy’s elegantly composed rooms speak volumes for his spare, intelligent, and disciplined touch. His interiors—located in Miami and New York as well as San Francisco—combine architecturally clean lines and an urbane sensibility with smart flashes of bold color or a pedigreed period statement piece to balance a curated look. By orchestrating textural richness, honest materiality, and judiciously deployed global artifacts and art in perfectly calibrated measure, Diaz-Azcuy transforms modernism into something eminently livable, pioneering a new style that has become ubiquitous today.

Several new books have popped up in my mailbox lately and they really make me want to have a proper library to store them all. I am a book-aholic of epic proportions and I have happy to share my latest treasures with you all.

First up is French Chateau Style by Catherine Scotto with photos by Marie-Pierre Morel. A MUST HAVE. 150%. I loved this so much I read it twice in a row. As you all know j’adore les châteaux and this book is about “ordinary” people having the absolute privilege of living and restoring some of the most beautiful châteaux I have ever seen. (This book was tough to photograph because the pages had a matte finish but that made the photos that much more beautiful in person).
The doors of centuries-old French chateaux are thrown wide open in this sumptuous photographic cross-country tour. Readers will gain entry to a stunning array of stylish private homes within beautiful restored buildings, each one representing very different approaches to décor and preservation. From Normandy to Provence and everywhere in between the owners of these chateaux—including decorators, antique dealers, artists, and collectors—represent the epitome of French culture and taste. There’s something for everyone here—whether it’s homes where simplicity and minimalism reign, rooms as exuberantly busy as a 17th-century tapestry, or interiors transformed by surprising, era-bending feats. 

Next is a book as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Currently Classic: Jonathan Rachman Design by Jonathan Rachman and Dean Rhys-Morgan with photographs by Douglas Friedman and Suzanna Scott, and illustrated by Marc-Antoine Coulon. The homes in this book are luxurious and decadent, but there is so much inspiration in each of the projects on how to use colour, how to be adventurous and displaying collections seemingly effortlessly.
Jonathan Rachman’s instantly classic designs come to life in vibrant and sumptuous color in this first monograph on the Sumatran-born, San Francisco–based interior decorator. He opens the doors to his universe in this volume illustrating his eclectic, vividly colorful, and markedly refined style, through various projects undertaken for prestigious clients. Rachman injects his projects with his own wide-reaching, worldly experience, his explorations into provincial flea markets, and his taste for textiles, leather goods, handicrafts, and art objects. In each of his designs, he combines the best materials from the East and the West, devising personalized plans for his clients and creating a timeless approach to interior design.

When it comes to your health, there are definitely a lot of things that can affect it. For instance, your diet and your lifestyle can have a major impact on how you feel, and neglecting either (or both!) of them can wind up hurting you in the process. Conversely, making your health a priority can have numerous benefits for you, allowing you to live a better, more robust life.

However, did you know that your environment can actually be a significant contributor to your wellbeing? This isn’t just about avoiding pesticides in the air around you or veering away from garish upholstery, either. In fact, research has shown that your immediate environment can impart direct and far-reaching benefits to your health, and choosing specific elements can have notable positive effects.

Even better, you don’t even have to break the bank to test out certain design ideas, either. Many can be quite affordable, meaning that you have no excuse to not try them. If you’re looking to find ways to help boost both your physical and mental health, why not take a look at the room around you? By choosing one – or more! – of these specific design options, you can start making your health a priority once more.

Embrace Your Green Thumb

Sure, admiring your garden after you’ve carefully pruned away rogue thorns or wilted petals can make you feel a tinge of pride and even admiration, but did you know that plants can also give you quite a few health benefits, too? Studies have shown that having potted plants and flowers scattered throughout your home can help reduce both your stress and your cortisol levels.

Why does this matter, though? Cortisol is your body’s stress hormone, and if it is left elevated, it can start leading to a myriad of harmful health conditions. These can range from everything to insomnia (in the short-term) to even cardiovascular disease (in the long-term). Finding ways to reduce these levels, therefore, can help improve both your quality of life and your longevity.

Some of the other benefits of having plants in your home include better air quality and sharper focus. Because plants can help draw environmental toxins out of the air, which means that the air that you breathe in can be that much better for you. Plants can help you recover from any existing illnesses, too, allowing you to get back on the mend that much faster.

Sweat Out the Toxins

There’s nothing quite like sitting in a steamy sauna after exercising to help you recover your muscles and bring them back up to par after you use them. However, the benefits of enjoying a session in a sauna are more than just that. Yes, they can help you feel invigorated after you have a good workout, but they can also help bolster your general health, too.

Research has shown that enjoying time in a sauna can also help you relax (reducing those dangerous cortisol levels), improve your circulation (allowing you to enjoy better cardiovascular health), and it can also help encourage your thyroid to work at optimal efficiency by raising your core temperature and reducing the amount of effort that your thyroid expends.

The signs of an impaired thyroid include feeling cold all the time, thinning hair, and constant fatigue. While it’s important to not self-diagnose your thyroid health, being aware of these symptoms can get you back on track to optimal wellness. Scheduling an appointment with your healthcare provider, or undergoing at-home thyroid testing, can give you the answers you need.

Let In Natural Light

Natural light is another one of those not-to-secret ingredients for a healthy life, but it’s not one that we all realize is so important. That said, designing your home to let ample natural light filter in through the windows can help create significant improvements in how you’re feeling. The first benefit is the most obvious: natural light is beautiful, and it can help make your home look more beautiful, too.

That’s not the only advantage of letting in natural light, though. Another key benefit of enjoying those lovely rays of sunshine is that it can help your body produce more vitamin D. This vitamin is essential and works to help make sure you don’t get sick as easily. Being deficient in it, though, can affect your mood and your health and lead to feelings of depression and malaise.

While dazzling natural light can seem counterintuitive toward getting a good night’s rest, it can also actually help manage your circadian rhythms. This means that when the sun does slip beneath the western horizon, your brain can more easily make the transition to alertness to prepare for a good night’s rest. All in all, the importance of natural light simply cannot be overstated.

Make Sleep a Priority

Finally, if you’re looking to design your home with your health in mind, then you should absolutely take a closer look at your bedroom and how it’s currently designed. Many people focus on style over function when decorating their bedrooms, but what you should really be doing is merging these two concepts to turn your quarters into an inviting sleep oasis.

The dangers of poor sleep are well-documented and unambiguous. Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep can affect your mood and your mental health, leading to depression. It can also raise your cortisol levels, making you more susceptible to long-term health issues in the months and years ahead of you. Chronic insomnia has also been implicated in cognitive decline in advanced age.

Ways to help improve the ambiance in your bedroom include focusing on the layout, swapping out your bedding, and using blackout curtains. For instance, feng shui has historically been used to create a better mood. Using breathable bedding with natural fibers can help you sleep better without overheating you, and blackout curtains mean fewer sleep interruptions and longer rest.

Designed For Good Health

Trying to stay healthy can be challenging in today’s modern, hustle-and-bustle world. Between your career and your personal life, it can easily get overwhelming and your health can fall by the wayside. But by taking charge of the things that you can moderate, you can help ward off many of these issues. Not only will you have a more beautiful and inviting home in the process, but you’ll also enjoy better wellbeing, too!