Art Deco
Retro’s fun, but keep a balance
By Melissa Rayworth The Associated Press Going retro has never been easier. Whether you love ’50s space-age style, ’20s art deco or design from any bygone era, vintage furniture and home accessories are everywhere today.

How 2 Create a Jazzy Art Deco Bedroom in 6 Easy Steps

This article contains information and tips to help you create your little piece of Art Deco style. The colours, patterns, designs, furniture styles and decorative detailing of the Art Deco era will be revealed. Added to this are lists of where to find more information and suppliers of Art Deco items. If you follow the 6 easy steps you can easily put together your Art Deco master piece.

During the Art Deco era interior design was a main focus. Smooth surfaces, exotic materials and repeated geometric forms characterise this style. The style became part of the ‘Swinging Twenties' part of the ‘Jazz Age'.

Tip: Read through the whole article before you start following the steps

 

Step 1:  Know what makes Art Deco different from Art Nouveau

Art Deco is a jazzy style with straight lines, geometric and abstracted shapes used in buildings, furniture and decorative details. This is the main difference from the earlier Art Nouveau style with its flowing lines, organic curved rounded forms, fantasy themes and gentle pastel colours. In comparison Art Deco is bold, colourful, showy and dramatic.

Tip: Look for

• Straight lines

• Geometric shapes

• Abstract patterns

• Egyptian scarab

• Sun Motifs

• Stepped ziggurat shapes

• Fan shapes

• Aztec symbols

• Stylised flowers

 

Step 2: Become familiar with examples of Art Deco design

You can do this from the comfort of your computer desk. Just use the information below to inform your research. This is the easiest way, but you can also visit your local library or you can research in your local area.

Tip: An easy way to find visual information is to do a Google image search. Please note some images labeled as Art Deco are in fact Art Nouveau

In France

• Emile –Jacques Ruhlmann a leader of French interior design and furniture design between 1918 – 1925

• Paul Iribe

• Andre Groult

• Neuilly Villa designed 1929 by Pierre Legrain

• Eileen Gray in 1920 designed Suzanne Talbot's apartment

 

Art Deco USA

Design in the USA was Influenced by French Art Deco after the 1925 Paris exhibition. The Americans loved the bright surfaces and abstract patterns of the style. The 1933 World's Fair ‘Century of Progress' in Chicago saw many Art Deco motifs, designs and shapes used for example the rising sun motif and stepped ziggurat.

Ely Jacques Kahn designed Art Deco skyscraper entrance lobbies

• Bricken Building

• Chrysler Building

• Empire State Building

• Banking Hall of the Irving Trust Company

 

Step 3: Select floor covering

For a bedroom plain wall to wall fitted carpet would be an excellent choice. This was a popular floor treatment of the time. Although geometric patterns and Sarouk Persian or Turkish carpets in geometric or floral salmon pink were popular in the States. In Britain large repeat patterns in soft muted colours (similar to William Morris designs) were used in hotels and on ocean liners.

French carpets were formal in style with highly stylised floral designs. Brilliantly coloured carpets with abstract patterns were used in theaters and department stores in the US and France.

Animal skin floor rugs could also be used in your bedroom. Zebra skin rugs were popular and placed over the plain carpets. Linoleum continued to be popular as did parquet floors.

Tip: What you choose for the floor will influence all your other choices. Remember this when you make your selection.

Art Deco Floors:

• Plain

• Geometric

• Zebra skin

• Persian

• Turkish (Sarouk)

 

Carpets Available in Art Deco Style

Stark's Navarre design

Stark's Laseine design

Bosanquet's Ives trellis design

Axminster Carpets' Honeycomb design

 

Step 4: Select the wallpaper and paint colours

You may want to create a modern styled room with an Art Deco twist or create a room to reflect a real impression from the Art Deco times. Strong colours were used as a reaction to the pastels of the Art Nouveau style. However colours did vary between countries and the decades of the Art Deco era.

In a bedroom green, ultramarine, sea green or deep blue could create a peaceful retreat. But black, red, crimson, burnt orange or hot pink could create a dramatic bold statement. Or a sophisticated elegant atmosphere could be created by using white on white, cream, coffee, beige, bluff or chocolate brown.

Tip: Some colours work better in a bedroom. Greens and blues are said to decrease the heart rate. Reds and oranges are said to stimulate and increase the heart rate.

Art Deco colours

• Chocolate brown

• Red

• Black

• Hot Pink

• Beige

• Coffee

• White on White

• Ultramarine

Walls, ceilings and woodwork were often smooth and sometimes glossy. Wallpapers were also popular. If you want drama and excitement in your scheme then wallpapers with bold geometric, Egyptian or Aztec motifs in vibrant colours would achieve this.

The wallpaper designs of the 1930's could create a sophisticated elegant look. The tea stained colours heighted with silver or gold would create a rich, smart interior space.

A truly feminine room could be created using one of the many Art Deco floral design wallpapers. Or a classic modern Art Deco look could be achieved by using geometric patterns in cubist like designs.

Wallpaper

• Stylised Flowers

• Stripes

• Geometric

• Egyptian motifs

• 1930's (tea stained colours highlighted with silver or gold)

 

Wallpaper Sources

Bradbury and Bradbury's Glasgow Panel

G.P. & J. Baker's Rose & Hummingbird

 

Step 5: Select the Furniture

The interiors of the Art Deco era housed furniture with straight (sometimes curved) clean lines. To create a classic modern room glass and chrome could be used. Lacquered furniture was also popular at this time so could be used to create an elegant sophisticated style.

Exotic timbers could be used to create bold statements and rooms with a sense of drama. Upholstery was often designed in geometric patterns, but plain fabrics were often used. Large tasseled cushions of varying shapes covered with sumptuous fabrics were popular. Using cushions in this manner would create a more informal look.

Tip: It is best to make the final choice on paint colour selections after the furniture has been selected

Furniture

• Chrome

• Glass

• Veneered exotic timbers

• Lacquered: Black, Scarlet, Pale yellow

 

Step 6: Select Art Deco Accessories

Ornaments were sparsely used during the Art Deco period. The classical minimal modern look was starting to have an impact at this time and influenced Art Deco design. The stepped profile is considered the shape of the Art Deco era. Abstracted fans, sunrise and Egyptian motifs were also popular.

Lamps with female figurers holding a ball are a well known icon of the Art Deco era. Also cushion were used in strongly coloured rooms, often black and red with red lacquer-work furniture and China pagoda lamps.

So what could you use to finish off your Art Deco room? Fan design table lamps or a girl with a ball lamp could be used with sleek lacquered furniture or with exotic timber or glass and chrome pieces.

A mirror in a fan or step design would work well with most furniture designs. Art Deco interiors rarely displayed paintings however murals were sometimes used. Ornaments in bronze and other metals of the female or animal form were in vogue at this time so could make a nice addition to your Art Deco bedroom.

Tip: One piece of Art Deco; a lamp, piece of furniture or wallpaper could be the starting point of your interior decorating scheme. Everything else selected should then relate to that object.

This article has illustrated there are three main themes you can use to create your bedroom in an Art Deco style.

You could create:

• A bold dramatic room with strong colours, bold geometric patterns and exotic timber furniture.

• Or secondly you could create a classic modern style using chrome and glass furniture, abstract patterns and muted or neutral colours with strong contrast.

• Or a luxurious sophisticated room could be created using lacquered furniture, subtle patterns and tea stained coloured wallpaper with silver or gold stripes.

That is not to say you can't mix some of the items from each style to create a really individual take on Art Deco. The important thing to remember when creating an Art Deco room; the motifs, patterns and designs are basically the same. I will be writing a series on Art Deco on my Sample Board Online blog http://blog.sampleboardonline.com I invite you to visit. It will be loaded with information and images.

Some Art Deco Sources

USA

Modern Gallery French & American Art Deco

Art Deco Collection

Art Deco Rugs

UK

Antique Suppliers and Reproduction Suppliers Directory

Rupert Cavendish Antiques

The Art Deco Home

Australia

Art Deco Online Store

Art Deco World

 

 

About the Author

Rosena works as an interior design, retail and visual merchandising tutor for Australian College QED. She I has also worked for the Retail Traders Association of Victoria as a Retail Trainer. Rosena has a Diploma in Interior Design, Post Graduate Diploma in Public and Community Health and is a qualified trainer. She also works as an interior design consultant, creates designer art work and is the Australian partner of Sample Board Online a new cool free interior design presentation tool.

Art Deco

Sign Wall
New York Solar: Waiting on a sign
We just need to show the legislators a sign. A really big sign. Literally. We’d like to buy space on an electronic billboard on the 787 Interstate–practically the driveway of the Capitol. We have some chuckle worthy messages that send a clear directive: Pass the Solar Jobs Act today.

Have you noticed that when the temperatures start warming up at the end of winter you start seeing ants crawling all over your kitchen counter? Spring is almost here, and those warming temperatures are waking up the colony that's stayed all snug and cozy inside your walls through the cold months.

Their food supplies are low, and it's time for the foragers to go gathering.

You pay little attention to the ants at first because you only see three or four of them crawling along the edges of the counter top. Normally you just squish the ones you see, and keep on doing whatever you were doing. A couple days later you notice movement again, and suddenly you're looking at a dozen or more ants moving back and forth along the counter wall.

After another few days you walk into your kitchen and there's a cluster of ants all over one spot on your counter. You look closer, and see they've found a few breadcrumbs, and they've formed lines of ants, one line crawling to the little pile of crumbs, and another line carrying those crumbs back toward the hole where they're coming out of the wall.

As the days become weeks you see more and more ants, and now they really start getting on your nerves because they're all over your counter, they're in your cabinets, and they're attacking your food containers.

Ever wonder how the ants find those little bits of food?

Much of the time you see a crowd of ants piling all over something you can't even see. You know it's food of some kind that you've spilled or dropped, and didn't clean up only because it's so small that you didn't see it.

Ants are experts at sniffing out those little spills, and droppings. When their food supplies need rebuilding a few scouts head out looking for anything edible. The scouts leave a scented trail that shows them the way home.

Those trails are a lot like Hansel and Gretel's trail of bread crumbs in the forest only better because birds eat Hansel and Gretel's crumbs (and ants find them), while ant trails have a smell that ants follow. That smell doesn't disappear so quickly like breadcrumbs can.

So the scouts leave their scented trail on their way to finding a food source. That trail tells the scout where home is.

When the scout finds food, it grabs a load, and starts back along the trail it left on the way to the food. As it carries the food back to the colony it leaves a new trail. This trail has a different smell, a smell that the worker ants follow to the food so they can haul it back to the colony.

That's all interesting enough isn't it, but it doesn't fix your problem of ants all over your counter, in your cabinets, and attacking your food does it?

What pest control techniques can you use to do that?

If you don't want those ants bugging you all spring and summer long your first step is clean up all those spills and droppings where you find ants gathering. Doesn't matter if you see anything in that spot, if ants are traveling to, crowding up on, and crawling away from a certain area along the same trail they came from, something edible is there.

Clean that place with soap and hot water to get rid of whatever food the ants found there.

Next use soap and hot water to wash away their scented trail. Clean along the path where you see two lines of ants crawling. It's where the ant lines are going in opposite directions.

If you wash away their trail the ants at the food source get lost, and can't find their way home.

And the ants coming out of the colony have no way of finding their way to where the food was.

Keep doing just those things, and you force the ants to look for food someplace else. You won't get rid of the ants, but they won't send a large invasive force into your kitchen. As long as you keep things clean all you'll see are those occasional scouts.

Joseph Jackson is an experienced pest control technician and author of ANT RIDDANCE, a how to guide for performing do-it-yourself pest control for controlling ants.

Find other pest control ebooks by Joe at http://www.bugsmiceratsnomore.com

Sign Wall

Design Wall
Levee wall gains footing
The completion of the levee wall project for the city of Stillwater is still a ways off, but at least it seems to have climbed up the priority list for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is heading up the project.

The Blog: Designer Wall Hanging Wooden 40 X 40 Cm Black Photo Frame

Designer Wall Hanging Wooden 40 x 40 cm Black Photo Frame

Time Frame

Sometimes time freezes for you.

Autobiography of a photo-frame

I’m as old as the walls of this house and for twenty years I have adorned them. I was young then but now I rejoice to see the future generations breathe and live inside me. Perhaps my owner fell in love with me the moment he saw me. I’ve been a part and parcel of his life ever since.

The story of my life started twenty years ago, when I was bought from a small gift shop on the Mall Road in Shimla. I was young, sturdy and wore designer attire. But like every tree that grows old, spreads its branches and provides shelter, I have aged gracefully too! Time has added maturity and elegance to my demeanour. I am now the Designer Wall Hanging Wooden 40 x 40 cm Black Photo Frame.

Well, well, isn’t that a long name! To do justice to my name, I have grown from accommodating one picture then to nine pictures now. My photographs are like my children; I provide them with safety and security. I protect them from wear and tear. Like a figure that looks stunning in an elegant robe, I make my pictures look graceful. My sleek wooden arms embrace each photograph with love, as if embracing someone special.

By the way, I am a pretty modern Photo Frame. I mean, modern even in my outlook. I love looking good and feeling great. And I must say that my owner takes very good care of me. He knows that I don’t like monotony in life. Therefore, he changes the pictures in the frame every now and then. Sometimes you’ll see me wearing four, polka-dot shaped photos in the corners while at others you may find one large picture right in the middle! Since change is the only constant, I love experimenting with multiple pictures in a single frame.

Lean is in and I am someone who keeps in tune with the times! So, I make sure that I don’t gain any extra pounds (no fatty tum-tum and no love-handles!) and keep my basic body-statistics intact. I maintain my weight at a cool 1.495 kg and measure 40 x 40 cm flat – round the year and the clock. That also helps me in occasional travel; after all, lighter things are easier to carry!

Read full story here at: http://www.bindaasbargain.com/blog/Designer-Wall-Hanging-Wooden-40-x-40-cm-Black-Photo-Frame-

About BindaasBargain.com

Bindaas Bargain is India's 1st one deal a day online shop. A shop that works within a time limit. A GenX online store where you can buy products varying from cool gadgets, home theatres, funky watches, smash games, you name it – we have it all. All at incredibly cheap prices, delivered to your doorstep swiftly.

Click here to know more: http://www.bindaasbargain.com/

About the Author

About BindaasBargain.com

Bindaas Bargain is India's 1st one deal a day online shop. A shop that works within a time limit. A GenX online store where you can buy products varying from cool gadgets, home theatres, funky watches, smash games, you name it – we have it all. All at incredibly cheap prices, delivered to your doorstep swiftly.

Click here to know more: http://www.bindaasbargain.com/

Design Wall