At the ICFF in New York City

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 22nd annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and view the incredible global display of what’s new in design. This event draws the world’s best in-the-know design professionals, and explores cutting edge designs in furniture. The over-riding theme for this year’s event, not surprisingly, was Reclaim, Reuse, Recycle! Fantastic array of the world’s finest and most creative reclaimed woodwork, recycled paper masterpieces, and generally, reused materials of all kinds (including old, plastic, newspaper vending boxes turned dishwasher and wine cooler). From interior designers, architects, retailers, and developers, to manufacturers, distributors and vendors of everything from seating, carpets, flooring, kitchen and bath designs, outdoor and indoor furniture, accessories and textiles, the creative genius of the show blew us away! With representatives from all corners of the earth, including, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Vietnam, it was sheer pleasure to speak with some of the most creative design minds of our time. This may just become an annual event for me : )

Staging Your Greatest Asset

Recently I had an opportunity to attend several workshops on Home Staging offered by local, Oakville real estate agents and staging professionals. Home Staging and Redesign is an interior decorating technique used to show off your home's best features, making it more attractive for a potential buyer when selling your home. It can boost your home’s selling price, as well as shorten the amount of time the home stays on the market. Home staging is a crucial and strategic marketing step every homeowner needs to consider before listing their home. On average, a staged home may sell for approximately 7-10% more, and sells in half the time of a comparable home that is not staged.

The Home Stagers provided some real valuable information about important steps to take in preparing a home for sale. They offered basic strategies that not only applied to staging or styling a home for resale, but also for generally maintaining your home’s value through simple updating and de-cluttering, on a regular basis. Your home is your greatest asset and most significant financial investment. It’s therefore crucial to preserve your equity with regular maintenance and updating.

What tends to happen is the longer we live in a space, the more we get used to and overlook the flaws or dysfunctional areas in the home. Daily routines take over. We become complacent to our surroundings. This leads to clutter, disorganization, dated, mismatched belongings, and generally, stressful environment. However, just as we take time to care for our personal appearance by buying a new outfit, getting a new haircut or trying a new shade of lipstick every once and a while, we need to update our homes, as well. Staging a home allows it to almost sell itself by making a great first impression, showcasing the house in the best possible light to a potential buyer, and allows them to visualize themselves living in that home.

Home improvement projects can have a major impact on the value of your resale home. But if you’re not prepared to invest dollars on a renovation just yet, here are some tips to consider in your annual maintenance checklist - whether you’re deciding to sell your home, or just tidy up a few things.

1. Spruce up your curb appeal and landscaping:
Healthy, neat, and trimmed yards and flower beds is the first step in getting potential buyers to want to walk up to the front door. The last thing they want to see is your "stuff" all around the yard, so make sure toys, gardening tools and garbage bins are put away. A well maintained exterior planter or fresh sod in the front yard can make a world of difference.

2. Thorough cleaning and fixing of visible repairs in all areas of the home, especially the kitchen, bathrooms, floors and closets:
A dirty house or broken door knob is an immediate turn-off. The two most important areas are the kitchen and bathrooms. If you have not deep cleaned all counter and tile surfaces to a spotless condition, you stand the chance of losing the buyer. Another critical area is the closets and your floors (especially older carpets and rugs). Closets should be well organized and not jammed pack. Take the time to go through them, and purge or store some things which you don’t use on the regular basis. Without question, spotty carpets are a total turn-off, and leave people wondering what caused the original stain in the first place. Steam cleaners do wonders!

3. De-clutter your entire home:
Clutter, both inside and outside your home makes it extremely hard for the buyers to visualize moving into your home. It leaves them feeling like your home is too much work! The disorganization will distract the buyer’s ability to focus on your space and they will overlook your best selling features. Also, clutter makes your home appear smaller than it is. At the end of the day, people are buying “space” – that’s generally why they’re looking to move in the first place.

4. De-personalize your entire home:
Your home is your comfort zone and is filled with all of your personal treasures, pictures, and memories – another huge distraction when selling your home. The way we live day to day, and how we merchandise a house, are two different things. People are generally curious, and when you really want them to notice the beautiful entranceway, they may be focused on all the family pictures on the shelves, or the "stuff" all over your refrigerator. Your objective is to change the view of your home from "lived in" to "ready to move in”. You want to turn it into a commodity by neutralizing the decor, and generally making it look like an easy move for the buyer.

5. Updating paint colours inside and out:
While your favourite colours may be a reflection of your style, your choices may cause a buyer to lose interest because it evokes a certain feeling in that room. Or your favourite wall paper may not be in the buyer’s taste. The best way to present a home is for the wall colours to be painted a neutral color. This goes for the outside as well – a loud or non-neutral colour may just keep the buyers from even stopping to see the inside. Instead, choose bold or trendy colours in your accessories.

6. Make pet’s and children’s toys disappear:
Let’s face it, children’s and pet’s things can take over your house. The presence of food, toys, books, and boxes are generally a turn-off. They should really be contained in principle rooms of the house, so buyers are not distracted from the prime objective – viewing your home in the best possible light.

Hope that’s a start. Good luck with your home staging projects this spring.

Office Design & Your Productivity

My husband recently mentioned that his company was moving into their new office soon, and that he needed to plan his new office work space. A plant, good chair, some light, maybe a picture or two, water cooler....it got me thinking about just how important your work environment really is. A poor workplace costs businesses millions each year in lost productivity. And nowadays, the average worker spends about 45 hours a week at work, most of that time sitting in their own office. You want happy and productive employees? Make their work space comfortable!

There's many social distractions at the office that cut down productivity numbers, for sure. Good design and function only helps lead to better overall performance and happier employees. So what aspects of office design are most important? The most obvious is clutter. Many people waste valuable time just searching for papers, phone numbers, invoices, or resources they need. That clutter is likely also slow down your mental energy and makes it more difficult to focus. Try to keep only the necessities on your desk, and put everything else into drawers, shelves, organizers and cabinets. Colour-coded file folders and multiple to-do lists is my secret for keeping all projects and papers in order, whether at work or in my personal life.
The layout and set-up of your office is also important. Make sure you can easily reach things you use most often, like your phone, stapler or a reference binder. If you have to get up every few minutes to reach for them you’ve already broken your concentration and lost time. Equally, if your chair is uncomfortable and you keep getting up to stretch out, your body will eventually start to feel it.

The décor in your office can have a major impact on your mood or energy levels. I’ve talked about the impact of colour before, but I can’t stress enough how really important it is in your working environment. Cool or neutral tones are calming, and earth tones or warm colours can help those creative juices. Also, inspirational photos, plants, personal items or books, natural light from large windows (versus just fluorescent overhead lights) can also inspire, and boost your energy and productivity.

The more you create a work environment that matches your personality and makes you feel at ease, the happier and more productive you’ll be getting the job done!

Blah, Spring-Weather Feeling? Colour to the Rescue

Weather outside is a ‘lil bit winter, ‘lil bit spring, and a lot BLAH. After a long, cold winter, we can all use some warming up, some fresh colour in our lives. And that led me to think about the colours around me, and thinking back to my school days of colour theory.

We all remember the colour wheel from our early school days; red, yellow and blue primary colours mixed, creates the secondary colours; orange, green and purple. Then blending of these colours creates various hues of colours (blue-green, or turquoise), and adding white or black, creates shades of colours (pink or gray). Sounds very elementary, but did you ever stop and think how these colours affect you every day? Or how some hues affect our moods, emotions, productivity, and even our buying habits? It’s true, colour is the basic essence of what attracts us to anything the human eye can see. What’s pleasing to the eye, whether you realize it or not, affects our moods and in some cases, our well-being. Ever wonder why the doctor’s office uses pail shades of green, blues, or brown, versus crimson red or orange? Colour engages people, and creates an inner sense of order by defining a space. It gives us organization. Generally, people are comfortable with and wear colours that remind them of similar things, like the greens or browns in nature, or the yellow-orange warmth of the sun. Colours are references or ‘brands‘ of cultural and environmental elements, like primary colours of a particular country’s flag, red and green used at Christmas time, or symbols of green, meaning money or growth. Take red on its own, and it conveys a feeling of energy or strength, but add a little white, and it becomes soft and gentle. Dark or navy blue can stand for a formal high rank or royalty; add some white, and it becomes tranquil and relaxed; add some black, and it becomes icy. Blue is also known to suppress your appetite (paint your kitchen blue and use blue dishes if you want to lose a few pounds ;). Colour use is a basic rule of good visual merchandising for stores and websites, and specifically used to excite or stimulate customers to look at more and stay longer. And the same applies in Home Staging, or merchandising of a home for sale. First thing that will impact a buyer is the colour, or the mood that house conveys. In today’s market, the only key to competing is to make an emotional impact on the potential buyers, and the strongest way to do that is by choosing the right colours.

So what colour reflects your personality (as I sit here looking at my blue jeans and red sweater)? How does colour impact you? See if you can spot the colour clues next time you’re shopping, or out, dining at your fav restaurant.

Invest in the Nest

So everywhere you turn, there are signs of a slowing economy. All authorities say that the next 12 months will be uncertain. My visit to the Spring Canadian Giftware and Tableware Association Show definitely showed signs of the slowdown. It’s Canada’s premiere retail trade event of the year, showcasing 1.3 million square feet of innovative house wares, tabletop, home decor and accessories, handmade items, collectibles, and more. But with obvious lower than usual attendance, and smaller new product displays by many suppliers, it was clear that many are being cautious.

Strangely enough, talking to some revealed that not all areas of consumer spending are down. What do people do when they don’t have the cash to spend on outside entertainment and big luxuries? They spend more time at home with family and friends. Our home is our greatest and most stable long-term asset, so putting money into it is always a good idea. What better time to be talking to people about investing in their nest!

The term ‘cocooning’ was first introduced during the recessionary times (along with things the VCR and microwave popcorn). And this time around, some experts are calling it ‘anchoring’, but it's all the same. It’s about taking shelter...or making your place cozy and comfortable with things of great comfort and quality. And that's exactly what I saw at the gift show. Many things inspired comfort, quality, natural warmth, and just a little luxury and sparkle.

Furniture and accessories are looking woodsy, natural, grainy, and even rustic. Re-claimed wood, metals, and glass appeared throughout, and seemed to be the overall theme in many of the displays. It's apparent that all the talk about the importance of going GREEN has finally resonated with manufacturers. A lot of metallics were muted, not as glossy. Less mirrored furniture pieces (that was so strong last year) and more tailored, industrial, kinda masculine-meets-Asian-lines. Another hot trend I noticed throughout was lacquered pieces like trays, Buddha’s, sculptures, vases, boxes and general accent pieces, in vibrant and bold colours. Warm Asian-inspired colours like reds, purples, yellows, turquoise, and "friendly" grays. These bright jewels of colour sitting on rustic, natural wood grain tables looked amazing, and I have to say, inspiring! Good to see colour it back!

If you’re looking to update and invest in your home, but can't afford to do the big stuff for now, try some lower cost options:

- repaint your rooms, or colour block a focal wall with a hit of a hot, trendy colour
- splurge on smaller home accessories, like a lacquered box set, vase, or sculpture
- disguise older, warn out looking bedroom furniture or sofas by investing in a new accents pillows and matching throws
- buy sexy new lamps - or even just new lamp shades to change the mood
- try rearranging your furniture or move things to different room, and you'll be surprised at how it instantly looks new again

Here's hoping for a healthy and prosperous year for all!

What's your resolution?

It's New Year's Eve! Time to drop the ball and set those New Year´s Resolutions for 2009. Whether they are in the areas of career, health and fitness, or your home to-do project lists, it's sometimes difficult to actually keep on track. Make this the year to finish those remodelling and redecorating projects. With so many diverse and interesting design trends in the horizon for 2009, how can you not! There is a design style trend for everyone - Parisian Apartment, Safari Chic, Asian and Globally Inspired. Too many to list. As you pack away those Christmas decorations and pull out your usual room decor, take a look around. Remember style is what you make it, what inspires you. Whether contemporary or traditional.

Stay tuned for more trend talk just around the corner in January, from the Spring 2009 CGTA Gift Show, the largest gift and décor retail event of its kind in North America. Sure to find new, niche products, hot-sellers, and everything new in all product categories from around the world. Also coming up in February is the coveted Interior Design Show. It's design seminars feature some of Canada's more talented design teams, and this year discuss the latest trends in colour, lighting and green design.

Want inspiration and motivation to stay on track of your decorating resolutions. Stay tuned.....


Buon anno!

Fresh Fall Inspirations

Fall is upon us. One of my most fav times of the year. Though you wouldn't know it from standing outside the last few days, colder weather is just around the corner. I thought I would share some tips on enhancing that delicious, crisp, cool, fall weather feeling, indoors.

1. When tidying up the landscape and leaves around the house, don't just throw away all the coloured leaves, pine cones, twigs and stones. Add them to a wonderful vase or dish in your front hallway to welcome guests.

3. Choose full draperies and rich pillows, in deep earth tones like moss green, birch brown or red maple, to add warm layers to your rooms.

4. Make the most of the warm sun as our daylight gets shorter. Add accessories with a reflective quality, like glistening chrome or nickel, polished silver or bronze, and crystal or glass.

5. Bring the beautiful harvest colours from the yard indoors by placing a mirror adjacent to a window.

6. Proper lighting can also add warm layering to a room. Ambient lighting (like pot lights) allows you to move through the space easily. Task lighting (like table lamps) is essential in living, family and bedrooms. Throw a dark shade on, versus a bright white shade, and instinct drama is achieved.

Have fun decorating your place for fall. Before you know it, the winter season will be here.