Windows and Lighting, from Decorating on a Dime

Christy Ferer, Vidicom CEO, loves fashion and interior design. Below are some tips for windows and lighting.

Burlap and Silk - the contrast of burlap and silk is eye-catching and a bit exotic, whether hanging in a formal living room or a summer beach house. 

Beaded Muslin - a soft, opaque look especially useful when you have an unattractive view to block but you want as much light to enter as possible. The acrylic beads make the entire panel sparkle. 

Upside-Down Lamp Shades: This directs the light up to the ceiling, creating a very dynamic effect.

Made in the Shade: Trim shades with fabric, wallpaper, art paper, crystals, upholstery trim, or shells. Or leave it plain if the background pattern is strong enough to carry the look. 

More Design Tips from Her Book

Vidicom's CEO, Christy Ferer, says "Stick to neutrals. They go with anything."

This rule is responsible for decades of boring rooms. People think neutral means only beige, white or black. True, these colors blend easily with other colors and are easy to live with, but so are lots of more interesting colors. When toned down with white or black, green coordinates with almost all colors, making it nature’s neutral. Celadon, olive, khaki and steel gray are the “new” neutrals, easily pulling together complex color palettes.

Remember what the legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland said: “Shocking pink is the navy blue of India.” The point is that what is neutral for one culture or person is radical for another. Remember this too: Almost any color becomes a neutral when it stands on its own and isn’t made to coordinate with another color

Sandblased Furniture Tips

Sanblasted Furniture 
Pieces of painted furniture
Distilled white vinegar

Your local auto body shop will put the piece in its sandblast booth and add beautiful years to your furniture. Christy Ferer says to heighten the aging process, blot vinegar on any metal features or hinges. The longer you allow the vinegar to sit (at least 24 hours), the more pocked and antique looking the metal will become.

Frame Canopy
Take the measurements of the bed to the lumberyard, where you will find a selection of polymer molding. Christy Ferer and the Vidicom team suggests asking the yard to cut your chosen molding into four pieces and miter the edges. Stay tuned for more tips from Christy Ferer's book, Decorating on a Dime.

Tips on Sandblasted Furniture, Frame Canopy and Mirror Frames

Sanblasted Furniture
Christy Ferer says this is an easy and inexpensive way to get any piece of painted furniture to look worn or "country." If it is scratched, dented, or imperfect already -- all the better.

Frame Canopy
A bed canopy adds architectural detail and weight to a room. It also enlarges and dramatizes the room.

Mirror Frames
Create a substantial mirror for an entranceway, dining room, or dressing area. The larger the mirror, the larger a space will look. Most dramatic are two mirrors facing each other on opposite walls, which is especially effective in a dining room.  Christy Ferer and the Vidicom team agree.

Wire Mesh Bookcase
An easy and elegant way to camouflage open shelves containing stereo or television equipment. You can also use this effect on kitchen shelves.

Furniture Tips from Christy Ferer's Book

Christy Ferer (Vidicom CEO) states that as an upholstery fabric, black vinyl is neutral and practical. It has a rich, clean feeling particularly when used against light wood. Black vinyl is good for lawn chair cushions and kitchen banquettes.

Plumber Tables:
A table base of plumbing pipes in chrome, iron, or copper creates a centerpiece for any room, particularly a kitchen table. Copper tubing can also be used to make delicate end tables; the copper can be varnished to keep its shine.

Display Table:
She suggests adding a glass top resting on any kind of base can become a showcase simply by adding flat decorative items and a piece of identical glass on top. These tables are great-looking as coffee tables, end tables, or even a dining table.

Where to Keep Hats

Hang hats in clusters, preferably over spaces defined by a piece of furniture such as a couch, a desk, or even a bed. Hats can also be hung from hooks around an entire room's ceiling molding, to give the room definition.

Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer says to really make them look integrated, frame the hats with a stencil pattern. Or, if you want instant gratification, use a rubber stamp in any pattern. Pencil a frame of designs around the hat or group of hats about 6 inches from the hat rims and stamp along that line. When the paint is dry, ease any stray pencil marks.

Variations:

• Cowboy hats
• Motorcycle helmets
• Baseball caps
• Fedoras
• Straw hats
• Old hats from a flea market

Wedgwood Walls

                                          

Select designs from the catalogs listed in the Resource Guide to fit any feeling, from baroque to postmodern. Polymer molding and some of the wooden carvings can be used as shelving for small objects. Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer says if you buy polymer moldings from your local lumberyard, you can get the yard to cut and miter to your specifications.

Spray-paint the carvings. You may need 2 coats. Measure and pencil the placement of your design of the wall. Apply adhesive to the wall in proportion to the amount of molding or carving you are applying. Vidicom thinks this a great idea to include the Wedgwood Walls.

Variations
Apply white star moldings to a midnight blue ceiling. Apply wooden figurines to serve as small shelves that cover up wall damage. Use to decorate radiator screens, furniture, fireplace mantels, or wide picture or mirror frames. Apply rectangular shapes above doorways to create an illusion of height.

More Potato Print Wallpaper

                                   
Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer suggests you wipe off excess paste with a clean, damp cloth. Cut off the surplus paper on the ceiling and floor edges using the utility knife and a metal ruler. Do not be afraid of overlapping edges as the sides of the sheets meet. Wait two hours for paper to dry before stamping, using slightly diluted acrylic paint.

Variations
Wallcoverings:

Cover walls with other natural, everyday "raw" materials:

• gauze
• wrapping tissue paper
• burlap

The more crumply these textures, the better. Tissue may crumple so much that no more "character" or stamping may be required. She suggests textures will be better protected with a coat of clear varnish.

Stamps:

Stamp other surfaces or accessories:

• ceiling
• furniture
• lampshades
• wastebaskets
• floors

Potato Print Wallpaper

Brown paper is an easy wall covering because the more overlapping and the more mistakes, the more charming the look. This is great for kids' rooms or recreation rooms, and it is perfect for stamping with everything from a potato stamp to alphabet-letter stamps or fleur-de-lis shapes. Christy Ferer says all materials can be ordered from sources listed in the Resource Guide.

Cut the brown paper strips according to the wall height, adding a 2-inch surplus on both ends. Apply wallpaper paste, and place the brown paper where the wall edge meets the ceiling while allowing about 1/2 inch of unglued brown paper to overshoot the wall edge. She agrees that you should smooth down to the floor or molding edge, using a clean, soft cloth to the outside corners of each sheet. Vidicom thinks this is a great idea for your home.

Potato Prints for Your Home

Christy Ferer says potato stamps are made by slicing the potato crosswire in half to get a round surface of 2 or 3 inches. Place a small amount of slightly diluted acrylic paint in a small bowl and place the potato relief or stamp straight down into it, wiping the edge of the relief on the bowl before each stamping to prevent drips. Note that commercial stamps from sources in the Resource Guide can be ordered with stamp pads, but you will find a wider range of colors in acrylic paints.

Variations

• Stick-on letters or alphabet stamps
• stars
• dots
• numbers
• animals
• fleurs-de-lis
• fruits
• leaves and vines

Plaid Floors from Christy Ferer's book, "Decorating on a Dime"

Christy Ferer (Vidicom CEO) recommends measuring the floor and order equal amounts of your four colors. The first color should be dense, like the dark green in our photo. The second color is the same color value, but half the density of the first color. (In the photo this is pale green.) The third color is the same density as the second (pale blue in the picture), but a compatible color to the first two. (just like the pale pink is to lavender of pale yellow to pale peach.) The fourth color is white. She says to lay out your pattern beginning in the most visible corner of the room. Wait to glue until you have set out your pattern.

Christy Ferer's Introduction For Decorating on a Dime

Each project is a recipe for instant chic, with specific ingredients and instructions. Most projects can be done during a weekend are also kid-friendly.

The resource guide at the back of the book will become your style bible. It lists in alphabetical order all the materials that have been asterisked in the project recipes with store names, addresses, and phone numbers. Christy Ferer, Vidicom owner, can tell you where to find everything. And if it is not in the resource guide, I tell you how to get it done in Anytown, USA.

Did you know that many automotive stores will lacquer or sandblast your furniture? That your local plumber will make a table base? Your stationary store will laminate? A dry-cleaners in your town will straight-line sew a curtain or pillow case? Your local lumberyard will miter and nail four pieces of molding together to make a giant mirror frame? She says it is all about doing and getting it done.

Christy Ferer Introduces Her New Book: Decorating on a Dime

Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer says she is going to share her secrets for decorating on a dime. After you read this book, you will be able to create these looks using her project recipes. You don't have to be a master of arts and crafts, hire an interpreter just to read the instructions, or become a glue-gun guru to surround yourself with style. What you see in this book is very doable, affordable, and takes only 1 to 3 hours to complete. Here are some simple idea, easily adaptable to your taste, budget and schedule. Christy Ferer says what you can't do yourself, you can delegate to a knowledgeable tradesperson, such as seamstress or plumber.

Christy Ferer's Plans for Her Garden

Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer has a few tips on gardens:

Inside

• Collect and display old garden tools and seed packets.
• Flank a fireplace with old porch columns and a window with outdoor shutters.
• Hang an outdoor trails on the wall or use one as a headboard.
• Use branches as curtain rods and look for root or tree trunk furniture.
• Use window, boxes inside. Set sill and fill with miniature boxwood or dwarf evergreens.
• Electrify outdoor lanterns, sconces, and old glass oil lamps.

Outside

• Make garden music with wind chimes.
• Create a garden sculpture gallery with stone, terra-cotta, metal, wood, slate, or marble sculptures.
• Use mirrors in the garden, positioned so they reflect flower beds, an expansive view, or a piece of art. Or use mirrored gazing balls set on pedestals or just placed casually on a garden wall or step.

More Outdoor Furniture Rules to Break

Christy Ferer recommends you accessorize indoors with antique awnings, terra-cotta urns, pottery, and gazing balls.

Rules to break:

"Garden furniture is for the garden."

Adirondack chairs, sandstone benches, chaise longues, and weathered teak or wrought-iron chairs can easily be softened and refined for the indoors with overstuffed cushions and velvet throws. Old, weathered pieces with peeling paint bring beautiful patina and texture to a room.

"Garden style is for causal rooms."

Bringing the outdoors in doesn't mean transforming your home into a greenhouse. Small "green" touches relax traditional, formal, and even the sleekest modern rooms. Put an old tool set on the small side table or a bowl of pebbles on the mantel. She suggests using a vintage urn as a planter. Old stone columns can come inside to define an interior entrance.

Interior Design Tips: Ceilings

Christy Ferer, Vidicom CEO, says the ceilings of the fifth wall of a room, so don't overlook it. Ceilings used to be elaborately decorated, ornamented with moldings, often highlighted with contrasting paint colors, or painted with pictorial panels of landscapes, mythological figures, or cloud-filled skies.

Author Georgette Mosbacher draws attention to her library ceiling with an antique map copied onto canvas and affixed to the ceiling. She says, "My ceilings are high and decorating them is a very good way to pull the eye up and keep the ceiling in scale to the rest of the room." Jack Hemingway kept his father, Earnest's, fishing poles on the ceiling of his Idaho home, while Sotheby's executive Florence Grinda displays an extensive pottery collection on hers. She suggests a flat screen TV can be easily hung from a ceiling.

Christy Ferer's Interior Design Tips

Christy Ferer, Vidicom CEO,  has something to say about corners and above the door. Make corners and other obscure spots work for you. Fill them with indoor trees, corner cupboards and benches, a grouping of bamboo stalks, or a screen. Fill a corner with objects relating to a favorite hobby or sport - maybe tennis, golf, or a horseback riding. She agrees this could be the ideal place to show off those trophies, award plaques, or prize ribbons.

Christy says the area of wall space right over a door can be a valuable asset to a room when it's decorated. This is where French decorator Pierre Passebon often groups collections of plates. Sybile Denfert-Rochereau has paintings edged in gilt and framed with molding mounted above the sitting-room doors of her chateau in the south of France. Bill Blass uses this area for narrow architectural drawings.

Tips on Decorating Laundry Rooms

Since this is your private space, take risks with color and accessories. Assemble a collection of vintage detergent boxes or tins on a shelf mounted over the washing machine. Christy Ferer says tuck everything into baskets large and small for easy storage. Cover the room with a soft throw rug. Sneak in a little TV or portable CD player.

Christy's laundry room is filled with objects from her travels - straw hats, pottery, copper pitchers. She painted the walls a rich red and stenciled them. She keeps her mops in a big old milk can. She used Velcro to attach an inexpensive polyester gold organza skirt to the wash basin.

Neglected Space Rules to Break from Christy Ferer

Christy Ferer has some rules to break when it comes to neglected space:

"Decorate bathrooms practically with fixtures and furnishings customized for bathrooms and use non-breakable accessories only."

Nonbreakable can be confined to the shower. The rest of the bathroom doesn't have to be devoid of interest. Silver, porcelain, or wood objects look great in the bath.

"Don't waste time or money decorating a laundry room. Nobody sees it."

Flash! Any room where you spend time should be visually pleasing. Even the lowly laundry room can pamper you by looking good and reflecting in your personal style.

She argues that "Corners and ceilings should be left bare so that they don't detract from the rest of the room."

Why can't they add to the room? Corners are pockets of space that can be put to use as work or display areas, while a ceiling's decoration can be the topping on a beautifully decorated room.

Neglected Space Ad from Christy Ferer's Book

Christy Ferer says any room in which you spend time deserves to be beautiful. Too many of us have boring bathrooms. Horrendous Hallways. Dull landings and laundry rooms. We figure they don't matter because for the most part they're not seen by guests. Stop treating yourself as a second-class citizen. Every part of your home should please you. Corners. Ceilings. The space under the stairway. Windowsills. Balconies. Christy Ferer suggest these are notoriously neglected by most people.

It only takes a little thought to accent the ignored spaces in your house by accessorizing them with clever visual surprises... the painting hung over the doorway to stretch the eye and the room upward...  a statue teetering on the top of a tall piece of furniture, maps, fishing rods, and pottery decorating the ceiling.