Monthly Archives: January 2009

Western tapestries are a great way to bring authentic Native style to your home. If you enjoy southwest and western decor, you will certainly love using bright colored tapestries in your rustic cabin, room or home. Truly functional and versatile, you will find that western tapestries, when used as a tapestry wall hanging or tapestry wall art, will brighten your home and give it a true western feel.

A lot of times designers will add floor rugs and runners to their homes but do not think of using wall tapestries made of the same colorful material to adorn their walls. The truth is that a wall tapestry is one of the simplest ways to enhance color and textures in your rooms and bring life to your home decor. In addition, western tapestries work well as beautiful art, worthy of display, because they are hand made.

There are so many colors and patterns available that you will easily be able to come across the best western tapestry style to go along with your interior decorating. Southwestern decor usually uses light colors with turquoise and desert colors like pink and purple. Western styles look wonderful with beautiful accent colors like red, black and grey. For a Native Indian feel, there are numerous designs available including the popular Navajo patterns. You can also find rich and vibrant colors in every style of woven rug, and tapestry designs that continue getting more intricate.

The best thing about decorating with southwest tapestries is that you can use them everywhere in your home. Use them as a hanging tapestry or as area rugs along with western furniture and southwest style accessories. Or, use them in doorways, in hallways, and in the living room to fill vacant floor space. Hang them in hallways or where you might normally put a decorative picture for a different design style. To achieve a more casual style, hang them at an angle to accentuate that it is wall hanging art. You will be surprised at how much they enhance your home design and how they impress your visitors.

When you begin your home decorating, use your color samples to decide which western tapestries and tapestry rugs to use in your rooms, and you will be excited with how they liven up your home. Always choose the best quality tapestries and do not settle for cheap imitations that will lower the value of your home. Look for wool tapestries and tapestry rugs that are well made and crafted by hand since hand made wool is more durable and is great for creating the look you want

Spruce up your favorite room with a touch of the old west, or enhance the decor in your whole home with western tapestries and tapestry rugs to get that great designer southwest style. Today you can easily find beautiful tapestries to use in your home decor. Many people buy them online or in stores that sell southwestern and Native style home decorating items. If you want to add that one of a kind rustic or western style in your home decorating, begin by using the beautiful colors and Native designs of western tapestries.

Craig Chambers is the director of Mission Del Rey and offers free information online about choosing southwest tapestries for rustic style decorating. For more information visit http://www.missiondelrey.com

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Looking for a great rustic decorating idea? Native drums used as rustic tables are the best and most inexpensive way to incorporate real southwestern design and enhance Indian style in your home. Along with the traditional use of Indian drums as musical instruments in drumming groups and circles, you can use them to add unique, rustic style to any environment. I recently changed the decorating theme in my home, adding unique pieces of log furniture to give it an interesting southwestern feel, and found that including a Native American drum coffee table and drum end table together with other country style accessories, worked beautifully as accent pieces to my log furnishings.

Maybe you are like me and truly love western style floor drums and log drums to use as rustic tables in home decor and southwestern decorating. Indian floor drums are truly a very unique representation of Indian culture and are commonly used by many Indigenous tribes in powwows and other ceremonial rituals. Indian drums for many years, have always been significant to the Native Indian ceremony, such as the powwow, and have helped lay the foundation of religion and spiritual beliefs for many Indigenous groups.

When you start researching the interesting history of rustic drums, you will see just how significant they are to the Indian people. For many years, leaders of the tribes have used the drum beat as a bridge to connect with the Great Spirit and with the Spiritual world. Native Americans think of their drums as sacred and show great respect for the spirit they believe dwells within each drum. The Spirit of the drum is thought to communicate to the drummer and signifies not only life, but also Mother Nature.

Now days, many decorators are bringing these beautiful Native drums into their homes to be used as southwest style furnishings such as rustic tables, coffee tables and end tables. There is something very inviting about adding a beautiful piece of furniture such as a drum table to your western decor, to enhance Native style in your home. You will appreciate decorating with rustic tables because of the unique look they bring to their setting. Each drum comes from a rich historical legacy that literally enriches the environment where it is placed. One of the things you will love most about adding a decorative table drum along with your rustic wood furniture is that it is a very authentic icon of Indigenous culture.

If you are fascinated by southwestern style home decor, you can easily buy rustic drums to use as coffee tables, floor drums and rustic tables, online and in stores that sell Native American and American Indian home decor. No matter which way you choose to use them, it is easy to find Native style drums that will add true western style to the rooms in your home. If you are fascinated with the rich traditions of the Native Indians and wish to enrich the western furnishings in your ranch style home, you will truly enjoy using Native drums as rustic tables.

Craig Chambers is the director of Mission Del Rey and author offering free information online about how to use Native Drums As Rustic Tables for drumming circles and for chic southwestern home decorating. For more information visit http://www.missiondelrey.com

You may think that you don’t have enough money in your budget to decorate your bathroom. But, it can be done without spending too much money. Just changing your bathroom accessories out to new (or to accessories that you’ve found at garage sales), can’t make a dramatic difference.

First of all, take everything that can be moved out of your bathroom so that you can start with a clean slate. This means everything on the countertops, and in drawers and the medicine cabinet.

Now, make a plan. Decide what you really need to have in the bath and where you are going to put it. Clutter is something that can ruin the look of any bathroom design. Try to find places for toothbrushes, hair care supplies, and the like. Find some organizational systems that will fit in your cupboards and drawers. The more storage space that you have, the less you will be tempted to keep on top of the counters, and ruining the looks of your new room.

Here are some ideas that you can use to beautify as well as cut down on bathroom clutter:

1. Start with a fresh coat of paint. Painting a room is the quickest way to change the decor of a room. You can also paint your cabinets if they are damaged or in poor shape. Make sure that your paint will stand up to the humid conditions that all bathrooms have.

2. If you are really ambitious, you can remove the mirror above the sink and replace it with a new one. Two smaller decorative mirrors over a double vanity instead of one large mirror will bring your bathroom into a more modern style.

3. Add a nice looking hook to your bathroom door to hang up bathrobes and plastic pouches which can contain other bathroom items.

4. Change out the knobs and drawer pulls on your cabinets and drawers. Try something with a little more color or in a different style than the original knobs.

5 Replace your bathroom hardware such as bathtub and sink faucets. A new, shiny faucet will work wonders for your bath.

6 Now, change your bath towel racks and rings. Also, think about where you will keep those towels that you aren’t using. There are many decorative options like baskets and shelves that you can use. This way, you can have the colors of the towels to accent your bathroom but still keep them neat and tidy.

7. Use bathroom accessories to add color and style. Purchase shower curtains, a waste basket, liquid hand soap dispenser, soap dishes, new towels and a toothbrush holder.

8. Buy new throw rugs for the floor. They come in almost every color imaginable so try to match them to your towels and other accessories.

9. Add one or two moisture-loving plants. This will bring life to the room.

10. Finally, add a few fancy candles to add warmth.

These inexpensive ideas will beautify any bathroom without the need to totally demolish it and add all new cupboards, counters and bathroom fixtures. Give it a try and you’ll have a whole new bathroom!

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Planting done near to the house foundation, is of great importance because it may make or break the appearance of the home as it is seen from the street. Yet, it is often done with little understanding of the problems involved; disappointing results are all too common.

There will always be differences of opinion as to the kinds of plants to be used. Some prefer narrow-leaved evergreens, some want flowering shrubs, and still others use a combination of the two. Narrow-leaved evergreens will provide green color through the year with some variation in the different varieties.

Flowering shrubs will have bare stems in winter, some of which are very colorful, but will give an informal effect, as well as life and color to the planting during the summer. Broad-leaved evergreens, where they may be grown successfully, will be green throughout the year and give some flower color in spring. With these facts in mind each home owner should use the plants of his choice.

Pit the Planting to Style of House

Probably there is better reason for more planting around the base of a house having a high foundation wall exposed above the soil line than there is around a house with low foundation walls. A large-growing shade tree placed 15 to 20 feet from the corner of a house minimizes rather effectively the high appearance of a house that is narrow and upright. Plants with a horizontal branching habit help, as do structural devices such as window boxes, window blinds,

Regardless of the kinds of plants to be selected, they should all be chosen and planted in positions where they will not be too large for the area when they mature. Most home owners can get agreeable results by working with enlarged photographs, beginning with a picture of the front of the house and then views of the other sides.

Drawings, made to scale, of each elevation of the house can be used with equal effectiveness. In either case, place a piece of tracing paper over the photograph or drawing and, with a soft pencil or crayon, block in the various foliage masses you think will look best.

Usually it is best to have low-growing shrubs at the sides of the doorway, somewhat symmetrically space.. All entrance plantings, however, need not be symmetrical. If there is an unbroken, large wall space at one side of the door, a tree-form shrub or a vine might fill that space and provide an attractive variation from the more usual design.

In the case of a split-level house, taller growing shrubs or small trees may be used at the high corners and the low corners may be treated as for a one-story house.

What planting is done along wall spaces will be governed largely by the length of that wall and the location of the door, windows, and wall spaces. Uninterrupted wall spaces, several feet wide, between a door and a window or between two windows, may need a foliage mass somewhat higher than the window sill.

Sometimes a small-growing tree is planted beside a window to provide shade, to block the view from the street into the room, or for some less obvious reason, such as variety from the more usual design. If either of these plantings is located somewhat to one side of the wall space, it will usually be more interesting than one set exactly in the middle. Also, the length and height of each wall space will be the clue for the kind and number of plants to be used. A large wall space usually will require more plants and taller-growing ones.

Above all, planning will help you to decide the type of plants most suited to your house.

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Antler lamps are wonderful for enhancing western home decor. Much more than a lighting fixture, antler lamps bring charm to your environment. If you have a mountain cabin or western style home, the elegant character of antlers with their beautiful shapes and variations in natural color will give your home the distinctive rustic style you are hoping to create.

For decades, ranch style home owners as well as those building more sophisticated cabins have used antler lamps as beautiful rustic lighting to complete their western or southwestern home decor. Because of the natural shape of antler lamps and chandeliers there is a rustic charm inherent within the antlers that wonderfully enhances any type of rustic furniture. There is something distinctive about antler lamps that combines all the elements and gives off a sophisticated western feel in the area. Antler lamps have a quality about them that easily enhances balance and focus in any environment.

Antler lamps also accompany many other western elements in home decor. In the Northwestern states or “north woods” antlers may be attached to snow shoes and complimented with rawhide lamp shades to make beautiful wall sconces. The light wood and rawhide lacing on the snow shoe, together with the leather binding and pleasant glow of the hand stitched shade, make it a wonderful harmony. Weather you choose to adorn your antler lamp with rustic light rawhide shades or country style dark rawhide lampshades, the choice is yours and the effect will be fabulous.

Smaller antler chandeliers are made from whitetail deer antlers while large chandeliers sometimes have many tiers of huge elk antlers. Weather your area is large or small an antler chandelier will bring the spirit of the old west alive in your home.

In Jackson Hole, WY the town’s square is decorated with arches made from Elk antlers. It is certainly unique, and you can create the same look with antler lamps. Small lamps are made from whitetail deer antlers while large light fixtures such as chandeliers may have tiers of elk antlers with rawhide lampshades. One of the most popular lamps is created using moose antlers, unmistakable with their great dark palms and beautiful dark rawhide lamp shades.

Throughout the year, organizations like the Boy Scouts will search for the prized sheds. If you ever find antler sheds outdoors, it is an amazing occurrence. Antler lamps enhance that same style in your home and can change your setting’s ambiance in a most exciting way.

Antlers are found in different qualities that are categorized like rare coins. The best quality is awarded an “A” grade. The grading system, indirectly, has to do with the length of time the sheds lie outdoors before found. The more time they are left in the wild, the more they break down. New antler sheds are a darker brown color. Sheds that are not found quickly will start to bleach in the sun until they become a chalky white. Another factor they loose their quality is because of chew marks from small animals and stains from wet ground or moss.

There are also different ways of making the antler lamps themselves. Some lamp makers use glue to hold the antlers together. Others may fasten them together with a rawhide thong for a rustic Indian look. And some of the most attractive antler lamps may use a combination of being glued, drilled and screwed together, with the holes closed up for a natural look. High end lamps will almost always include rawhide lamp shades.

Each antler is somewhat varied than any other, so each antler lamp is a unique treasure and is great for rustic lighting. Enhance western decor in your home and compliment your rustic home furnishings with the beautiful, rustic antler lamps.

Craig Chambers is the director of Mission Del Rey and offers free information online about choosing Antler lamps for rustic decorating. For more information visit http://www.missiondelrey.com

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