Use the right fabric
A dramatic difference can be made in the most basic room through the clever use of interesting fabrics. Cottons, silks, and shimmery fabrics have their place. So do heavier materials like jute and canvas. One of the most budget conscious steps you can take is to go to the local fabric outlet and look for the remaindered bolts of material.
There are often excellent quality heavy cottons on sale because there are just a few yards of it left. Not enough for drapes, for instance but plenty for a table runner with matching arm protectors. Or a valance for a small window and a matching lampshade. If you are not really handy with a sewing machine, such items are simple enough to have the local seamstress do them for you for a fairly inexpensive fee.Several twelve-inch fabric squares with neat hems can pull together various elements in a room.
Place one under a plant, another under a collection of small china figurines, another one under a vase. You get the picture. Suddenly these items seem related to each other and the room pulls together in a subtle way. One living room that was an uninspired rectangular shape benefited from 6 yards of a heavy cotton drapery material. It was cut into a four-foot square of a table cloth that covered a leggy old-fashioned accent table. A magazine rack was covered with fabric that was stapled to the inside bottom, draped over the sides and stapled underneath it.
A long matching runner covered the top of the television set and a piece was cut, hemmed, and laid over the scarred coffee table and then covered with a heavy piece of tempered glass cut to fit the top of the coffee table. I’ve seen clever touches with circles of fabric with elastic run through a hem that goes around the outside edge making a tasteful slip on cover for anything from a wastepaper basket to a plastic plant pot.
The trick to decorating with fabric is to be careful not to overdo it with too many patterns and colors. Keep the accent fabric to no more than two coordinating or contrasting choices.
Related Products:
Tags: fabric