Window Treatment Tricks

Design2Share traveled in July to Italy, and we stayed at some beautiful hotels. Two of our three hotels were decorated in traditional, elegant styles, but we opted in Parma for the sleek modernism of the Grand Hotel de la Ville (above). Join NYC interior designer Irwin Weiner ASID as he shares some decorating tips and tricks with window treatments, inspired by the simple curtained wall of his hotel room. Ciao.

Picture Rail Molding

The race we run with new home construction and remodeling is to put up drywall, add some baseboards, perhaps a touch of crown molding, slap on the paint, and call it a day. Once upon a time, more attention was given to moldings, from the handsome shadow box moldings in the photo above or simple picture or chair rail moldings to help define a room, give it more architectural interest, and offer options for layering more wall texture, color, and interest - for very little added cost and time. In this Design2Share video, we take you on a quick tour of a master bedroom suite in rural Pennsylvania to see how a plain box was turned into a more handsome space by interior designer Irwin Weiner ASID.

Placing Your Bed

The conventional wisdom of decorating your bedroom was to go to a furniture store, select a bedroom set that included everything from a matching headboard and end tables to dressers and vanities, and wedge everything into the room. Today's decorating is all about being more conscious about furniture and accessories. We put more time and thought into selecting pieces for their beauty, design, function, and provenance. Bedrooms are more eclectic and things don't have to be so matchy-matchy like in a hotel. But bedroom decorating still boils down to placing the bed - the largest and most important piece of furniture in the room - somewhere that makes sense. In this video, we look at an unfinished bedroom from the 2010 Hampton Designer Showhouse (a room now decorated as a sitting room by Design2Share's in-house designer, Irwin Weiner ASID) and look at our options for bed placement.

Feng Shui & Your TV

The electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) radiated from a television screen are very powerful, and even though the ancient practice of feng shui hadn't even dreamt of these modern communication devices, the practice still has much to say about how energy should be correctly used in any home. Our video covers some background about TVs and a few cautions. The chest used in the video is a Dutch colonial armoire purchased in South Africa. Large chests make great storage cabinets for TV and sound systems, clothing, books, CD collections, and other items.