First Impressions

Updated on March 24, 2010 by Design2Share

Updated on March 24, 2010 by Design2Share

For many homes, the foyer is the first interior space you see after coming through the front door. It's a crucial transition point from the outside to your indoor environment, and our show hosts Nicola and Irwin discuss ways to make a memorable first impression when decorating a foyer. Their tips and advice will help you create a dramatic, inviting, and entertaining space that will greet you when you come home and welcome all visitors. This episode covers the origins of the foyer in the French theater, color hierarchies for foyers and adjoining rooms, creating a sense of drama, adding functional and convenient features, the importance of lighting (and why many foyers have lanterns hanging down from the ceiling), dramatic and inviting themed displays, and how to welcome guests when you're throwing a party. And we tell you how lice became one of the most important factors in designing the features of early foyers!

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Kitchen Remodeling

Updated on November 15, 2009 by Design2Share

Kitchen remodeling jobs often provide strong returns on investment. But where should you start and what projects should you undertake when facing an intrusive gut-job or (at the very least) an inconvenience for your family during a kitchen makeover? Irwin and Nicola demystify this process in the latest Design2Share Q&A episode. Their tips and advice cover the importance of kitchens as the heart and gathering place for the home, how to make a multi-functional kitchen plan, ways to use open plan layouts to help tie in kitchen decor with adjacent rooms, the average costs for remodeling, specific details you can change or refresh to achieve more impact on a limited budget, appliances that will help you achieve a better look, and the welcome groundswell for using eco-friendly building materials and recycling in your kitchen project. Finally, our "tip2share" segment recommends new resources that won't strain the environment. Go green!

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Art & Accessories

Updated on November 15, 2009 by Design2Share

Art and accessories are like the jewelry of a room. Furniture, rugs, and window treatments are the basic outfits. You need art and accessories, thoughtfully added  to your interiors, to complete the design ensemble. The end result will be a great "finished"  look. Bottom line: you aren't done decorating until you accessorize. This episode of Design2Share Q&A covers Nicola and Irwin's tips and advice on how to select special pieces, what to do with scale in any room, tips for buying art with your design scheme in mind, changing outdated picture frames and lampshades, the importance of David Hicks' concept of "tablescapes" for arranging accessories, where and how to buy artwork, and tips to keep in mind when purchasing art.

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Setting a Great Table

Updated on November 15, 2009 by Design2Share

Updated on November 15, 2009 by Design2Share

In this Fast Food and Restaurant Era, we often neglect the importance of sitting down to a meal at home or doing a little entertaining around a prepared or take-out meal. Bottom line: you need nights at home where you go all out for yourself, for your significant other, for your family, or for your friends. Our dynamic design duo's advice and tips in this episode cover how to set a great table, bringing scale and drama into your arrangements, adding surprise and humor and fantasy to your meals, ways to mix and match the same elements to switch from formal to informal table settings, how Marie Antoinette's breasts inspired glassware, and Irwin's chocolate ice cream dessert project (yum!).

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