How to Select Art for Your Home
Selecting art for your home can be an exciting adventure and a source of enjoyment for years to come. Keys to success are figuring out what kind of art you like, how it will fit in with the rest of your interior design plans, and how to exhibit the art to the best effect in your home.What kind of art do you like?There are many opportunities to browse art within your community at local exhibitions, art fairs and galleries. Even small towns usually have a not-for-profit gallery space, or cafés and restaurant that exhibit local artists. In larger cities, galleries often get together for monthly or periodic “gallery nights” where all the galleries hold open house receptions on the same evening. It’s a great way to see a lot of art in a short time.Today the internet provides the largest variety and depth of fine art available worldwide. You can visit museum websites and see master works from ages past, check out online galleries for group shows, and visit hundreds of individual artists’ websites. One advantage of using the internet is that you can search for the specific kind of art you are interested in, whether it’s photography, impressionism, bronze sculpture, or abstract painting. And when you find one art site, you’ll usually find links to many, many more.Should the art fit the room or the room fit the art?If you feel strongly about a particular work of art, you should buy the art you love and then find a place to put it. But you may find that when you get the art home and place it on a wall or pedestal, it doesn’t work with its surroundings. By not “working,” I mean the art looks out of place in the room. Placing art in the wrong surroundings takes away from its beauty and impact.What should you do if you bring a painting home and it clashes with its environment? First, hang the painting in various places in your home, trying it out on different walls. It may look great in a place you hadn’t planned on hanging it. If you can’t find a place where the art looks its best, you may need to make some changes in the room, such as moving furniture or taking down patterned wallpaper and repainting in a neutral color. The changes will be worth making in order to enjoy the art you love.Sometimes the right lighting is the key to showing art at its best. You may find that placing a picture light above a painting or directing track lighting on it is all the art needs to exhibit its brilliance. If you place a work of art in direct sunlight, however, be sure it won’t be affected by the ultraviolet light. Pigments such as watercolor, pencil and pastel are especially prone to fading. Be sure to frame delicate art under UV protected glass or acrylic.How to pick art to fit the room.Size and color are the two major criteria for selecting art to fit its surroundings. For any particular space, art that is too large will overwhelm, and art that is too small will be lost and look out of proportion. The bolder the art, the more room it needs to breathe.As a rule, paintings should be hung so that the center of the painting is at eye level. Sculpture may sit on the floor, a table, or pedestal, depending on the design. Rules should be considered guidelines only, however, so feel free to experiment.When selecting a painting to match color, select one or two of the boldest colors in your room and look for art that has those colors in it. You’re not looking for an exact match here. Picking up one or two of the same colors will send a message that the painting belongs in this environment.Another possibility for dealing with color is to choose art with muted colors, black-and-white art, or art that is framed in a way that mutes its color impact in the room. A wide light-colored mat and neutral frame create a protected environment for the art within.Style is another consideration when selecting art to fit a room. If your house is filled with antiques, for example, you’ll want to use antique-style frames on the paintings you hang there. If you have contemporary furniture in large rooms with high ceilings, you’ll want to hang large contemporary paintings.How to create an art-friendly room.Think about it. When you walk into a gallery or museum, what do they all have in common? White walls and lots of light. If a wall is wall-papered or painted a color other than white, it limits the choices for hanging art that will look good on it. If a room is dark, the art will not show to its best advantage.If you want to make art the center of attraction, play down the other elements of the room like window coverings, carpeting, wall coverings, and even furniture. A room crowded with other colors, textures and objects will take the spotlight away from the art. Follow the principle that less is more. Keep it spare and let the art star. Then relax and enjoy it.Selecting and displaying art is an art in itself. Experiment to learn what pleases you and what doesn’t. You’ll be well-rewarded for the time you invest by finding more satisfaction both in the art and in your home.Copyright 2006 Lynne Taetzsch
Ashley Furniture Direct For Quality Branded Furniture
If you are looking for quality, excellence and innovation in branded furniture designs, then Ashley Furniture Direct is your best bet. Offering creative solutions to improve your quality of living, they have an unbeatable and extensive range of furniture and home furnishing items for you to choose from.You want your home to be furnished in your individual style with classy brand name furniture which will be durable and enhance the beauty of your home. Furnishing your home has now become convenient, enjoyable as well as affordable. You can choose from among all ranges, designs or prices for any room in your house at any Ashley Furniture outlet in your area. Current, classic, traditional and contemporary designs are available for discerning customers’ selection, nationwide.Variety Of ChoiceAshley Furniture has a luxurious and elegant range of home furniture for different purposes. High standards and quality within planned budgets are the reasons you will love to shop at branded furniture outlets.The variety includes and is not limited to;* Living Room Furniture: This is a very important part of your home décor and should be carefully selected. There are sofas, loveseats, occasional tables, recliners and entertainment centers among the variety available. Leather, superior furnishing fabric, wood and metal are used in the various designs of sofas, tables and other furnishings for your interior space. You will find everything you require in beautiful colors and design.* Dining Room Furniture: Good dining room fittings enhance the entire look of your dining area and give a feeling of comfort and warmth. Whether you want a traditional old fashioned cottage look or contemporary styles, you can find it at Ashley Furniture Direct. There are buffets, tables and chairs in rustic country styles made of wood, metal with tiles and many other ranges available.* Bedrooms: The bedroom is a private area where you spend a lot of time when you sleep and also when you are awake. You need furniture that is comfortable, pleasant and makes you feel welcome and cozy. Ashley Furniture has all your requirements from bed linen to beds, mattresses, chests, armoires, dressers and mirrors in a variety of materials and designs.* Home Accessories: You need various items to design and furnish your home interiors. These items include lamps, rugs, bars, curio cabinets, cushions, throws, curios, candle stands, display cabinets among others. You can select all this and much more from Ashley Furniture Direct which has an amazing variety in designs.To buy Ashley Furniture, you can find the nearest store by clicking on their website map. To know more about pricing, visit your nearest furniture store. You have a delightful selection which includes Cottage, Contemporary, Old World, Rustic, or Traditional Classics, Youth and Metro Modern designs in home furnishings.When you buy branded furniture designs from Ashley Furniture Direct, you will find assembly instructions included in the packing. Get quality home furnishings at incredibly low prices to suit your budget and interior design ideas for your home. You are assured of safety, value and quality when you decide on selecting designs for your home fittings from this top brand name in furnishings.
Investing Smart
Successful investing is smart investing. Investment is all about making the right choices, so that not only are you able to satisfy your immediate needs and requirements, but are also able to ensure the same for the medium and long term future. Just as no two individuals can be exactly the same, the financial needs and investment patterns vary from person to person. However one can follow certain definite markers to ensure that the path taken is the right one.Understand Your Needs: Investment goals come with different time frames and different objectives. One may invest for a short term goal like buying a car or even a holiday abroad. On the other hand, one could consider a long term investment plan to cater for the period when one has retired from work. How much one is able to commit to investment is dependent entirely upon one’s risk taking ability.When it comes to risk taking there is some truth in the adage that greater the risk, more the reward. That does not however mean that one should be reckless. Everyone possesses a risk threshold that they will not consider crossing. Factors like the level of a person’s income, one’s net worth, one’s ability to understand the investment scenario and the objectives behind investing drive how and how much a person invests.Early Bird Catches The Worm: The younger that one embarks on one’s investment journey, the better are the gains. The compound interest that you will make as a young man would fetch quite impressive gains by the time you started getting along in years. For instance if one started investing $93 every two weeks starting age 25 one would reach an amount of $500,000 when one hits sixty.This is a painless and easy way of building up a fine retirement fund. At age 25 if you are not married; you would hardly have any major expenses to worry about, and could afford to put away some money. As the years go by your responsibilities and expenses will increase, but so will your income, and you will not feel the pinch of the regular installment you committed to paying when you were so much younger.Invest Regularly: This definitely makes a lot of sense for most people considering that it is far easier to invest small sums regularly than investing a large sum at one go. Firstly one might not be able to afford the latter and secondly one does need money for things other than investment, which will get tied up in large investments. Also it gets you used to the idea of setting aside a certain sum of money regularly. Monthly and quarterly investment options, where a certain fixed sum gets debited from one’s account regularly is a fine approach to take.Spread your investment: That you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, applies to investment more than it applies anywhere else. Taking care to spread one’s investments over a diverse range of options will both reduce your exposure to risks and optimize your long term returns. You will be better inured against downturns in any specific sectors. So even if a part of your investments takes a temporary hit, there will be the other part still working well for you.Track your investments: Your investments come out of your hard earned money, and you should therefore track them with a hawk’s eye. An annual appraisal, either with the help of a finance industry professional or on one’s own is very much in order to see that one’s investment objectives remain on track. There is nothing that stops you from recasting your goals in light of the changes one goes through in life over a period of time. These may be on account of personal milestones like marriage, children’s education, impending retirements or even the prevailing market situation. The idea is to guard one’s money zealously and make every penny count.Make the right kind of investment: One needs to make different kinds of investments for the short term and the long term. Short term investments need to be less risk averse and easily encashable. The latter type of investment on the other hand need be of the late maturing growth oriented type.Sound investment may not be rocket science, but one would be amazed at how often people, who should know better make a hash of things. The above steps can be used as basic template for sound investment. As one goes along the path of planned and systematic investment one is better able to understand the finer nuances and nitty gritty of the process and obtain optimal results.