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Home Design Trends // Rose Gold Accents

Having taken the fashion world by storm, rose gold accents have made their way into the interior design world. This finish is now available on plumbing fixtures, hardware and flatware. Rose gold is a gold alloy made from a combination of gold and copper. It has a warm, pink hue and lends to an elegant, timeless and warm feeling in the home.

Photo: Tray Table, Phillip Mainzer

Photo: Lamp, Nate Berkus

Photo: Flatware, Anthropologie

Photo: Pinterest

Chameleon Design // Nominated for 4 SoCal Awards!!

If you are in our neighborhood, stop by and give us a high five – because that’s what we’re doing at our office right now!  We’re pleased to share our good news!  Chameleon Design has received the prestigious honor of making it to the finalist round of The SoCal Awards, presented by the Greater Sales & Marketing Council of Southern California.  As with every design we do, we strive for only the best in design, innovation and creativity.  Receiving industry recognition by our peers as well as leaders and influencers about our hard work is cause for us to celebrate!  A BIG THANK YOU to our wonderful clients who trust us with their work daily.  We’ve been nominated in the following categories:

Category: Best Sales or Information Center Pavilion Park
The First Great Park Neighborhood
Five Point Communities
Marketing Director: Jann Rowe
Strada Advertising/Chameleon Design

Great Park Neighborhood

Category: Best Interior Merchandising of a Detached Home priced under $500,000
AVO – Plan 2 ALT
Planet Home Living
Marketing Director: Melanie Ryan
Chameleon Design

AVO Plan 2

Category: Best Interior Merchandising of a Detached Home priced over $1 Million
Azurene at Brightwater – Plan 6
Woodbridge Pacific
Marketing Director: Karen Spargo
Chameleon Design

Azurene

Category: Best Interior Merchandising of an Attached Home priced under $600,000
Cortile – Plan 4
Brookfield Residential
Marketing Director: Mercedes Meserve
Chameleon Design

Cortile

Chameleon Design Featured Project: Cielo, Plan 2 // Brentwood, CA

Plan 2 at Cielo at Palmilla is a three-bedroom home built for a young family with two children. The theme of the design is “contemporary chic” and our beautiful color palette included linen, grey, light beige, glossy white, and bright pops of berry. To complement those colors, we selected espresso kitchen cabinets and ceramic tile flooring in a light beige with linen loop patterned carpet in the bedrooms.

Living Room

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Loft

 

Home Design Trends // Swing Arm Sconces

We’ve been noticing swing arm wall lighting popping up everywhere these days and we like it!  Swing arms are space-saving wall sconces with flexible “arms” that pivot or extend out over a table, sofa, bed or countertop. They can provide a focal point to a room but won’t compete with art on the walls, which makes them easy for anyone to implement into their decor.

Pottery Barn

Restoration Hardware

Wayfair.com

Jonathan Adler

Home Design Trends // Tassels

Tassels have a long history of being used in decorative arts adorning European palaces, homes and people dating as far back as ancient times. But today’s tassel embellishments being used on furniture and fashion offer tremendous variety.  They’re fresh and sexy, glamorous and artful, and can be bohemian chic or modern; every home appreciates that.  Here are some looks that may work for your home:

Pillow, Furbish.com

Screen Shot 2014-08-20 at 10.39.32 PM

Curtains, Anthropologie

Throw, West Elm

Photo: Pinterest

Chameleon Design Featured Project: Cielo, Plan 1 // Brentwood, CA

Cielo at Palmilla is a beautiful enclave of new homes in Brentwood, CA. They offer buyers large floorplans, bright interiors and modern amenities. Plan 1 is a three-bedroom home built with a young family in mind. We worked with the theme of “soft palette farmhouse,” and used soft teal, cocoa brown and creamy whites to bring it to life. Cabinets were finished in white and flooring is warm, scrubbed wood plank and a wheat cut pile carpet.

Kitchen

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Secondary Bedroom

Nursery

Exterior

Simple Ways to Upgrade Your Home Like a Designer

It takes a certain eye to be able to pull a room together and make it fabulous and functional, all at the same time. With that being said, not everyone can afford to hire an interior designer to come into their home and guide all of their design decisions. And some of us actually want to be the one who makes our own design decisions, using our own individual style and preferences.

So how can we get the inspiration to take our interiors from boring to beautiful, without the expense of a professional designer? We’re sharing some simple tips to help you begin designing your rooms into a space that, until now, you thought only an interior designer could create.

Display Books
Books are the greatest accessories ever. They add warmth to any room. Stack and intermix them with fun objects for an instantly polished look.

Photo: Pinterest

Photo: Pinterest

Avoid the Matchy-Matchy
Different textures make any interior look more expensive. Combine sisal, leather, metal, linen and glass to make a simple space seem as if it’s been curated by a professional.

Photo: Chameleon Design

Throw Some Pillows
Accent pillows can look high-end but are super easy on your wallet. They’re a perfect low-risk chance to play around with color and pattern.

Photo: Chameleon Design

Include a Statement Plant
The fiddle leaf fig is beloved by design pros–and the magazines that lovingly photograph their work–for its large size, lollipop shape and cheery shade of green. Add one or a similar big green plant to inject color into an otherwise mostly neutral palette.

Photo: Pinterest

Layer Your Rugs
A great way to cover a large space without investing in a room sized rug, it’s also a easy way to incorporate mixed patterns and lend a relaxed bohemian style to a space that can easily be changed up later.

Photo: Pinterest

Photo: Pinterest

Paint Your Bookshelf’s Backing
A simple way to create depth as well as a fresh, vibrant look with minimum effort is to paint only the backing of built-ins or bookshelves.

Photo: Elle Decor

Add Mirrors
Whether used as a single statement piece or in a small grouping, mirrors lighten and open a lackluster space. Target is a great “luxe for less” source for fab mirrors these days.

Photo: Chameleon Design 

Home Design Trends // Artisan Pieces

Handmade and artisan craft pieces are currently a big home decor trend, ranging from knit accessories to imperfect pottery. Marketplaces like Etsy have created a platform for creative-types to sell their handmade products to people from all over the world, growing this desire for decor pieces with character. Many retailers have picked up on this trend and have designed pieces to appear handmade, with a slight irregularities or adding a rustic finish to create the appearance of age.

Rope Dyed Pillow, Mercado Global 

Handmade Mug, Leif Shop

Striped Tablecloth, Little Market

Handwoven Market Basket, Connected Goods

Feng Shui Tips To Bring Good Energy Into the Home

Feng shui is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years ago in China. It’s a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any given space to assure health and good fortune for people inhabiting it. Feng shui has long observed that the front door represents our relationship with the world. When it’s captivating and positive, that is the kind of energy that shows up and channels throughout the rest of our home.  Here are a few simple suggestions to get the good vibes flowing your way:

Make the space outside the door as appealing as possible
Keep your front door area in tip top shape by replacing any burned out lights, wiping down the door and its hardware and by just keeping the space clean and approachable. And if you can do nothing else, sweep. It’s a simple ritual that maintains pleasing space and calls forth positive energy.

Infuse the front path or porch with color and fragrance
Healthy plants and bright flowers elevate beauty and suggest good health. Maintain both, and feng shui says that it’s a magnetic invitation to whatever you desire in your life.

Maintain a visible address
Refresh it, if necessary: a quick polish to the numbers or a few new screws to firmly hold them in place, a fresh coat of paint to update a faded curb address, or a well-posted name in an apartment building will ensure energy knows exactly where to find you.

Use your front door daily
Most of us enter our homes through a secondary door. However, feng shui holds that the really potent, boundless energy available prefers the front door, if invited. Make it a routine to open the door at least once a day. When we do, we invite bounty and abundance into our lives.

Keep the front door clutter-free
The wider a door opens, the more open we become to unlimited resources and opportunities. If there is unnecessary clutter, find a home for it. Designate a basket for shoes, place a tray nearby for keys and mail, and install hooks to hang anything else that might otherwise linger on the floor.

Let your creative juices flow here. Whether you add thriving plants or attractive light fixtures it all beckons the good life to find its way to your front door!

FengShui1

feng-shui-tips-entryway

Common Decor Mistakes // The Living Room

There are certain mistakes that even the savviest home designers make. We’re calling out some of the most common issues we see when it comes to living room design, as well as some solutions to assure you won’t make these mistakes again. We’ve shared images of our work to demonstrate how you can effectively tackle these common décor mistakes.

Purchasing Furniture in Sets
We tend to gravitate toward rooms that give off a collected air, spaces that feel as if they have lived a life. When the sofa and chairs are perfectly matched or the side tables, coffee table, and armoire are all the same, the space loses that unique, personal feeling.

Solution: Switch up your furniture selection to create a unique mix.

Photo: Chameleon Design

Lighting is an Afterthought
Home decorators commonly focus their attention on statement pieces like a sofa, and then add in lighting at the last minute to fill in any gaps.

Solution: Think about the lighting scheme from the beginning of the design. Whether opting for a statement chandelier, a pair of sculptural table lamps or decorative sconces, paying attention to the lighting you incorporate into your décor will create a more cohesive overall look.

Photo: Chameleon Design

Pushing Furniture Against the Wall
While it’s not a pitfall often seen in large spaces, pushing all of your furniture flush against a wall may be doing you a disservice.

Solution: A furniture plan featuring floating pieces is more conducive to conversation both when hosting guests and when just enjoying family time at home. Place a console behind a floating sofa to give it additional heft or position a side table between floating lounge chairs to provide a sense of permanence.

Photo: Chameleon Design

Not Mixing Materials

Solution: A variety of fabrics, finishes, and textures is key when designing a layered, dimensional space. If your side tables, console, and coffee table are all wood, consider subbing in a glass or metal piece to create more variety. Similarly, if your sofa is linen, we recommend switching up the fabrics on your draperies, lounge chairs, and throw pillows to create more visual appeal and keep the eye moving.

Photo: Chameleon Design

 Area Rug That’s Too Small
An area rug that is too small will make your furniture look crowded rather than planned and you’ll lose valuable useable square footage by cramming everything close together.

Solution: Take time to measure your space to see what the ideal size would be, and invest in a rug that is suitable for your room.

Photo: Chameleon Design