Vastu’s Annual Floor Sample Sale
It’s that time of year again – Vastu’s Annual Floor Sample Sale is just one week away!
We’re excited to announce that from March 25 – April 3 sofas, occasional chairs, tables, beds and dressers will be on sale for up to 50% off. Here’s a peek at what will be available…
Vastu’s 10 tips to better design: #4
#4: Art matters
Artwork is your chance to personalize a space, by choosing specific pieces that have a history or provide meaning. Using large, colorful, or carefully grouped artwork can give a room the focal point to define and create a mood. Smaller, well chosen items in seating areas draw you and your guests closer and create intimacy in a space. Large items provide visual impact quickly and immediately set the mood of a room. However, even the best furniture in a room or art in a collection can seem wrong with it’s not positioned correctly. The right items still have to be in the right places.
To keep from hanging art too high (setting off the balance and proportion of the room), the center of artwork should be at eye level, or the bottom of art should be approximately 7” above the sofa height. Personal photographs and smaller artworks usually work best in smaller, more intimate spaces, like bedrooms, studies and hallways.
Hint: Art can be seasonal too. Keep your pieces rotating throughout your house, to provide fresh perspectives to rooms as you spend more time inside. Or create an art budget for the year, treating yourself to new pieces throughout the year.
#1: Simple solutions, #2: Fabric first, #3: Mixed green
Vastu’s 10 tips to better design: #3
#3: Mixed greens
Potted plants and flowers in interesting vases add warmth to urban interiors, which frequently do not have outdoor space. Consider nontraditional pots, such as galvanized steel, aluminum, lined wood boxes, to accentuate an urban environment. Pick up a new vase on your way to picking up flowers. Vases can be swapped out to provide new and interesting accents and seasonal floral arrangements are a quick, inexpensive way to change a mood, highlight a time of year or a special event.
Hint: Buying professional arrangements will guarantee that your flowers will last longer. Always describe the feeling you want from the arrangement, e.g. cool, unique, traditional, holiday, modern. And don’t forget to describe its use! Go wide and low for tables, tall and dramatic for entry ways.
#1: Simple solutions, #2: Fabric first!
Vastu’s 10 tips to better design: #2
#2: Fabric First
Because there are an infinite number of paint choices but limited fabrics, floor coverings and window treatments, plan fabrics first and match your paints later!
Generally, using light shades of neutral color helps to keep rooms light and airy, but don’t be afraid of a patterned wall treatment or a few richly colored walls. These alternative treatments can often push the walls out and make the space look even larger. Sometimes going bold with big stripes and strong colors will give a dull room or bad view that perfect antidote. Fresh white ceilings or crown molding look crisp and clean but also draw the eye up and make the room seem open. A nifty trick for bedrooms is to paint the ceiling a pale blush color, which can flatter skin tones.
New condos that come in white or builder’s beige paint can seembland at times. Add instant warmth and style by selecting an accent color or choosing a few places to make a splash. Place a red bowl on the coffee table, colorful pillows on the sofa, bright artwork on the wall, or dress up a lamp shade. Go tone-on-tone by adding neutral tans and browns with lots of texture to keep a simple palette interesting (woven, grass, stone, leather, suede, smooth and rough).
Hint: Pillows and draperies can easily be changed out for each season if you have them ready for duty. Simply plan your color palette accordingly, and even buy them off season for possible bargain prices. To save space and money, only buy pillow covers to change out!
Vastu’s 10 tips to better design: #1
#1: Simple solutions
Sometimes simple solutions for design problems are the best ones. Often, making a creative change to an existing space is a simple solution that makes a dramatic impact. Think Contrast, Color, Creativity, and Comfort. Look to one of these four C’s to build upon for your space solutions. Examples of simple “C” solutions: Contrast: use smaller, less expensive accent pieces as the visual interest in your space. They’re easy and cheap to change with your mood or the season. Color: painting is one of the simplest and most cost effective ways to change a space. Just remember tip #2!!
Hint: Take Comfort for example…. to help make people more comfortable at standing cocktail parties, place the food at buffet height. Also, use an array of tall candles and lights, or tall glass vases filled with seasonal items, placed on side tables or credenzas to provide subtle up lighting and also elevate your furniture profile.
Recessed Lighting 101
When helping customers design spaces in newly constructed homes, or places undergoing a renovation, we often get questions about lighting plans – especially recessed lighting plans. We stumbled across a great blog post that offers some recessed lighting basics. Click here to read the post in its entirety, but we’ve included a few highlights below…
The Basics
- Recessed lighting is one of the most versatile ways to light a room
- Recessed lighting is available in a number of sizes and lamp combinations
- Recess lighting is available in compact fluorescent, which means significant energy savings
- A good recess lighting plan will provide general lighting in living rooms, family rooms, bedrooms and hallways, task lighting in the kitchen, and accent lighting for artwork
Vastu upholstery in 7 steps: Steps 5, 6, and 7
We’re in the home stretch! We talked about the first two steps in the Vastu personalized upholstery process here, and then went on to share steps 3 and 4 in the process here. So you know that first you choose a style, then you determine dimensions, then you select a fabric (or leather), and then you choose a leg style and finish. Now, we’re going to share the final three steps you take to create your unique upholstered piece made by Steven Anthony.
Step 5: Seat and Back Cushions
You may choose how many cushions you would like for both the seat and back of your sofa or sectional assuming the style you choose has loose cushions. All of our loose seat cushion sofas are made standard with down-wrapped foam cushions. Watch this video for a closer look at how Steven Anthony constructs his sofa, sectional, and chair cushions:
Step 6: Cushion Firmness
Vastu upholstery in 7 steps: Steps 3 & 4
Well, we covered steps 1 and 2 yesterday, so now we can move on to steps 3 and 4 of the Vastu personalized upholstery process.
Step 3: Fabric or Leather
You can choose from hundreds of different fabric and leather swatches located throughout our store for your Steven Anthony upholstered piece. We’ve got some amazing choices – everything from incredibly durable microsuedes, top grain leathers, velvets, gorgeous woven upholstery, and more. We carry well recognized names in the world of upholstery like Maharam and Designer’s Guild. And while we’re confident most customers will find a fabric or leather they like from our numerous options, you do also have the option of providing your own upholstery. We want to ensure you’re getting exactly what you want!
Step 4: Legs and Frame
Wood legs and wood trim details are available in 16 different stains and finishes. Legs are also available in varying heights and a few different shapes. If you prefer your sofa, sectional, bench, ottoman, chair or bed had metal legs, no problem! You can choose from metal post legs, L-bracket legs and metal trim details – all available in a brushed or polished finishes in varying heights.
Vastu upholstery in 7 steps: Steps 1 & 2
Here at Vastu we’ve tried to streamline the upholstery ordering process. Since our Steven Anthony upholstered pieces can be made any way you like, we’ve developed 7 easy steps to help you create the beautiful, personalized furniture you’ve always wanted and we’d like to take a closer look at those steps here on the blog.
To get started, you must decide if you are planning to personalize a sofa, sectional, lounge chair, dining chair, bench, ottoman, or bed.
Step 1: Style
You can choose from a number of standard Steven Anthony styles either shown in our showroom or on our online catalog, or personalize a style all your own with our design staff. And keep in mind, our standard styles are just guides. You can change any of the styles in a number of ways.
Step 2: Dimensions
Thank you United With Love!
We just want to say thank you to the United With Love team for including us in their blog post on wedding registries. For details on Vastu’s wedding registry process, click here.
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