Create a Cozy, Inviting Home for You
to Live in, and Your Guests to Enjoy
home remodeling articles and tips
topic: water fountains
Creating a relaxing home for yourself, and an environment that is conducive to entertaining your guests is easily achieved at the same time by use of a few clever indoor decorating ideas. The central design of the house will dictate the approach you ultimately take, the two contrasting alternatives being the more modern approach of open-plan living, and the more traditional design of having multiple closed rooms.
With both examples of home planning, the key to a relaxing environment will depend on good use of the space you have available.To make your home interesting, cozy, and comfortable, central rooms should include one of several possible key features that can be used as the point around which the rest of the room hinges, such as a nice fireplace, a wall mounted fountain, or something as simple as a kitchen that opens out into the dining and lounge area.
In houses with an open-plan living area, the idea is for a room to both look and be spacious. Interior walls between the living room, kitchen, and dining room often just take up space unnecessarily, so by removing them, the limited area you have to work with is maximized, and the visual effect is a large, inviting living area, instead of a few small, pokey rooms where you need to squeeze past everything to get in and out. Utilizing this type of plan, you leave yourself more room to spread out, which is what you want when your primary intention is to do no more than relax.
In houses with a more traditional design - which can be superior if you have plenty of room to work with, or you live in a cold climate - you can't necessarily achieve the same feel as you would with open-plan living. Nevertheless, the key to creating a welcoming home is one that you feel welcome in yourself. That means making it easy to move in and out of rooms, relegating furnishings to the edges of rooms the better to use them for living. With a self-contained living room, you have the option of going for an especially cozy look and feel. Use chairs that you would happily fall asleep in with a good book, thick rugs, heavy drapes, and consider the addition of a fireplace.
Open plan houses work better in warmer climates, and an alternative to a fireplace is its obvious opposite: Indoor waterfalls can use the same general area of a room where you might otherwise position a fireplace, but achieve a different look and feel. As well as the relaxing sound that a water feature produces, a waterfall can create ideal ambient humidity, and the sight of running water helps to make the house feel cool.
Sometimes your indoor areas just don't work well for entertaining large numbers of guests, no matter how your fill your living space out. In these instances, the obvious solution is to make good use of outdoor living areas. A back yard or patio is excellent for entertaining, as room tends not to be a problem, nor is furnishing particularly difficult.
Keep the following ideas in mind:
- Try to reduce clutter. You don't need to go to town when it comes to buying decorations, as life tends to deliver things we need to find space for all by itself. Stick to the essentials.
- In open-plan houses, avoid creating unnecessary barriers with furnishings, and try to avoid blocking off access to central areas.
- More room in your living area makes it easier for the kids to play, and makes spontaneous activity such as some aerobics or other exercise less of a hassle.
- Gas fireplaces are the easiest to work with. Electric models are too costly to run, and while a genuine wood burning fireplace is the most classy and cozy by far, it's also the least efficient and takes the most work to maintain.
- If you are using a stone or concrete floor, a slow-combustion heater is a good compromise. It burns wood, but is much more efficient than a fireplace, and makes the house smell great.
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