Ann Moore-Spencer

1: Thou shalt not use gar­ish plas­tic flow­ers and plants as ac­ces­sories. Good qual­i­ty silk, maybe. But not plas­tic please. The re­al thing is al­ways bet­ter.

2: For ac­ces­soris­ing your cof­fee ta­ble ob­jects should not be too small and too many tall ob­jects can ob­struct the view of those seat­ed. Use at least 3 items of dif­fer­ent sizes, shapes, heights, colour and tex­ture. If us­ing 1 item, make a bold state­ment. Pre­fer a wide item to a tall one. Books look nat­ur­al and com­fort­able. Please leave space for your cof­fee cup!

3: If you can't be both­ered with full dec­o­ra­tive bed cov­er­ings such as bed­spreads, cov­er­lets, du­vets and com­forters, in­tro­duce some style, tex­ture and colour with a bed scarf or throw. Bed scarves can be el­e­gant, ca­su­al, mas­cu­line, fem­i­nine, mod­ern, tra­di­tion­al ... It just de­pends on the style and fab­ric.

4: For am­ple cov­er­age with ready-mades, use a full-sized du­vet/com­forter on a sin­gle/twin bed, a queen-sized on a full bed and a king-sized on a queen bed.

5: Our trop­i­cal cli­mate makes our out­door spaces most suit­able for ex­tend­ing our gar­dens in­to our liv­ing rooms and our liv­ing rooms in­to the out­doors. Dec­o­rate your ex­te­ri­or spaces us­ing the same prin­ci­ples as for your in­doors. For com­fort­able, 24-hour year-round plea­sure, pro­vide shad­ing or a ceil­ing. Nat­ur­al veg­e­ta­tion can pro­vide a very ef­fec­tive canopy and awnings; um­brel­las and shade sails can al­so be used.

6: In a din­ing room the bot­tom of the chan­de­lier should be ap­prox. 30 – 34" above the ta­ble. The di­am­e­ter of the chan­de­lier should be be­tween 1/2 the size of the ta­ble or 12" small­er than the width of your ta­ble and should al­so be at least 4' from each wall. If your ta­ble is ex­tra-long and nar­row con­sid­er us­ing more than one chan­de­lier along the length of the ta­ble. As an­oth­er guide, add the length di­men­sion of the room to the width (in feet). The re­sult is the ap­prox­i­mate size in inch­es for your chan­de­lier. For ex­am­ple, in a 12' x 16' room, the rec­om­mend­ed di­am­e­ter of your chan­de­lier is 28".

7: For a din­ing room rug, as a start­ing point, add 4' to the width and length of the ta­ble. The ta­ble and chairs should fit on the rug with enough space for the chair to be moved back from the ta­ble and still be on the rug. It is a safe­ty haz­ard if the legs fall off the edge of the rug when pushed back. This could cause the chair to top­ple. An 8' wide rug will fit in most din­ing ar­eas. This ad­vice is rel­e­vant for for­mal din­ing ar­eas, kitchen din­ing or in­for­mal din­ing ar­eas.

8: If you want an el­e­gant, over­state and tra­di­tion­al look, pud­dle your drap­ery. To­day you will see pud­dling up to 6 – 8 inch­es. In­deed if you want one of those his­tor­i­cal 'ball gown' type of pud­dles you can go up to 20 inch­es. For more con­tem­po­rary el­e­gance a break of 1 – 2 inch­es is more com­mon. If you will be open­ing and clos­ing your drap­ery, the hem­line should be 1/2 inch off the ground. They will ap­pear to touch the floor but have ad­e­quate clear­ance for tra­vers­ing.

9: If hang­ing art over fur­ni­ture use nar­row with nar­row and wide with wide. For vi­su­al bal­ance match the shape of your art or art group­ing with the shape of the fur­ni­ture. Art over a so­fa should be more than 1/2 the width of the so­fa, for ex­am­ple. Prefer­ably larg­er.

10: Have fun dec­o­rat­ing. En­sure the space is you and speaks to you. Dec­o­rat­ing shows and mag­a­zines can in­spire. Do not repli­cate slav­ish­ly. Use what you love. Some will love it. Some may hate it. But most im­por­tant­ly, you adore it!

Ann Moore-Spencer, Be­yond Drap­ery Lim­it­ed

Phone: 868-678-3414

Email: be­yond­drap­ery@tstt.net.tt

Web­site: www.be­yond­drap­ery.com

Blog: www.be­yond­drap­ery.com/blog/

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