gold fixtures – Designing Goldilocks

I can spend hours online looking at home decor.

I can get lost in subway tile, glitzy chandeliers and area rugs with geometric patterns.

I love to watch other decor lovers create beautiful spaces in their homes. It’s a great place to gather ideas, inspiration and lessons learned.

I especially love when they take me on a virtual tour of Target or Home Goods and show me new arrivals.

A lot of it is beautiful. But if I had to choose three styles that make me drool, I would narrow it down to these:

Grid accent wall

I absolutely love the grid accent wall. It’s the perfect embellishment that goes way beyond just painting the wall a different color.

If I had my druthers, I would install this feature in the stairwell.

As much as I love my house, the stairwell leaves a lot to be desired. It’s tucked between the dining area and bathroom just off the living room.

There are two flights of stairs and the second flight is a virtual tunnel that leads up to the loft.

The grid accent wall (also known as a board and batten grid accent wall) is a series of intersecting boards that create a box or grid and adds visual interest to an otherwise boring space.

What I love most about this feature is how unexpected it is. You rarely see a whole room done up with the grid accent wall. It’s usually used on only one wall, nook or cranny.

The stairwell has its own dedicated space. It has an opening and an end point. It serves the bottom floor and the top floor without being a part of either story. The stairwell is suited for – and deserving of – a beautiful feature like the grid accent wall.

Gold fixtures

I’m loving all things gold these days. And not gaudy gold decor that looks cheap and trashy. But tasteful gold that adds just the right amount of elegance to a room.

For example, have you seen green or blue cabinetry with gold hardware? If you haven’t, you must search out these color combinations. You’re probably thinking, “Blue cabinets? Or better yet, green cabinets?” But trust me, it works.

Blue cabinets with gold pulls, marble countertops and white subway tile is my dream kitchen. I realize green and blue cabinetry will likely fall out of style as quickly as it came in. But if money were no object and if time stood still…

Gold also has made a comeback in light fixtures, sometimes as the dominant color and sometimes as the accent color. But it’s all breathtaking, adding pops of glitz and glam in your color palette.

And that’s what’s great about gold. A little goes a long way. You wouldn’t want to overdue the space in gold – that’s where the gaudy comes in – but a gold chandelier here and gold cabinet pulls there add the sparkle you didn’t know your space was missing.

Faux plants

I joke that I’m fast becoming the crazy plant lady, but there’s also some truth to it. It seems I cannot place a Target order without throwing in a faux eucalyptus plant or succulent.

No worries. I’ve been keeping it in the ten- to fifteen-dollar range.

But the time will come when I finally splurge on that two-hundred-dollar faux fiddle-leaf fig tree I’ve been eyeing at World Market. And not just one tree, but three trees – one for the dining area, one for the bar room and one for the loft. Now you know why I’ve been holding off.

I’ve never been a fan of fake anything, but fake plants have come a long way since the 1990s. And the small plants I’ve been ordering from Target are easy to place here and there without cluttering my home.

They help bring the outside in, which is important in the summertime when it’s too hot to venture outside. They add spashes of green in a sea of neutral earth tones. And they add life – even fake life – in a world of inanimate objects.

Plus they’re absolutely adorable. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the photo below of my mini faux fiddle-leaf fig plant.

It’s no wonder I’m in love with faux plants. This fiddle-leaf fig is adorable. Photo by Cindy Hernandez.

The 90s are back. And the 80s. And maybe even the 70s.

Just like with clothes, the styles of home decor come and go. And 2020 is no exception to styles of years past.

And while these styles are throwbacks to various timeframes, the styles work well together or on their own.

Here are 5 home-decor styles that have made a comeback:

Rubber plants

Big-leaf trees whether real or fake are all the rage. And no matter your interior design, the rubber tree is the perfect decor piece to pump life into a room of inanimate objects.

And because they are vertical and dwell in the corners of the room, they take up hardly any space at all. And it’s hard to stop at just one tree. In fact, it’s hard to stop at just trees.

Faux plants are perfect for tabletops and shelves. They’re a great way to bring the outside in, and work well in apartments or homes with little to no outdoor space.

If you’re into hanging plants, the fern is the way to go, giving its spider-like stems a place to grow. They do well in just a pot. But if you really want a blast from the past, hang the fern from a macrame potsling.

Macrame

The popular textile made from linen, yarn and various other materials is a surprising comeback, and surprisingly works well in any decor.

The two most popular uses are wall art and pot hangers, and typically complement the simpler crafty do-it-yourself decor. But macrame also complements shabby chic and farmhouse styles.

Because the most common colors of the material are white and beige, the macrame blends into the space, instead showcasing the pattern of the wall art or, if a potsling, the plant it holds.

Southwest flavor

Area rugs are a home-decor staple these days. You can have tile, hardwood or carpet flooring, but the room will appear incomplete without an area rug.

And the rugs run the gamut in colors, patterns, textures and styles. It’s rather overwhelming to try to pick one. Stripes or solid colors are safe choices. But what blew me away when shopping for a rug recently was how many rugs have a Southwestern pattern.

You don’t have to live in Santa Fe or have an adobe home in the Southwest to grace your floors with one of these rugs. The Aztec pattern works especially well in the modern farmhouse, the minimalist industrial loft, and the high-end masculine penthouse.

Gold and brass

Just when everyone changed their fixtures and finishes to silver, here comes brass and gold again. That’s the thing about home decor. You can’t keep up.

Most of us cannot afford to decorate our entire house in one fell swoop. We take on one or two rooms at a time. And once we’re done with the last room in the house, if we even get that far, the first room is practically outdated.

The same goes for metals. From candle holders to light fixtures to pulls and knobs, gold and brass are adding sparkle where silver and nickel had removed it.

But there’s some good news: It’s okay to mix metals. This means you can have gold cabinet pulls and stainless steel appliances in the same kitchen. (See my blog post “Putting metals to the mettle,” March 23.)

If you’re in a position to have a cohesive metal, more power to you. But if you like the mix of gold and silver, it’s perfectly acceptable. In fact, the mix of metals in one room comes across as intentional.

Egg chair

Yes, you read that correctly. The egg chair is back.

If you want to make a statement with your furniture, consider the egg chair. Even though it has a very Copenhagen style and often found hanging on the front porch, they also work in a girl’s bedroom or in a feminine living room.

They are versatile in that they hang or come stationary. The chair frames vary from wood to black and complement any color palette with the throw pillows and blankets you choose to embellish them with.

I had resisted this comeback. During a trip to Sedona in 2018, the hotel had a hanging egg chair on the patio. While it seemed fun for a hotel, it wasn’t something I wanted to replicate at home.

But would you believe that the style has grown on me? Now I have my eye on a stationary $500 egg chair – yes I said $500 – that I haven’t been able to justify. But in my decor dreams, I see the egg chair as the focal point of a reading nook in my work-from-home space.

Too bad the price tag from years past didn’t return with this home-decor comeback.

Tag: gold fixtures

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