Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Dec. 4, 2003, edition 1 / Page 22
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wmmm 6C REAL ESTATE/®:t)2 CljarlottE ^ost Thursday, November 20,2003 Tips for decking halls with holiday villages Continued from page 5C Next, Graves recommends adding a layer of white to the winter wonderland. Batting cotton, available at local craft stores, can be rolled out over the elevated display to create a snowy landscape. Sprinkle iridescent white glitter to add a finishing sparkle and a little holiday magic. • Let there be light For a soft, warm glow, Graves recommends display ing illuminated village pieces. The It’s a Wonderful Life holiday village has eight collectible pieces, each illu minated with soft reflective light. • Festive finishing touch es While the miniature build ings are fiUed with holiday character, it’s the festive fin ishing touches that add unexpected charm and frivo lity. Tiny cars on the street and little trees towering above the rooftops are essen tial elements in holiday vil lage decorating. Graves rec ommends getting creative with some of these touches and turn to nature. Pebbles from the garden and twigs from the fi^ont yard can easi ly become boulders and trees in the village scene. The It’s A Wonderful Life Illuminate Wlage is available at Wal greens stores nationwide. \fisit www.walgreens.com for more information. lllie CtiaUotte Updating accessories in bath is quick and simple in time for holidays Continued from page 5C rary designs in brushed chrome .. .dramatic wrought iron finishes and even acces sories made in brushed nick el, homeowners have a wide variety of new and innova tive design options for the bath.” With all of the new options, Americans still hold true to a traditional finish. According to a survey by Creative Spe cialties International and Rooms of America, a con sumer research organiza tion, chrome is still the most popular bath accessory fin ish, but consumers’ second choice, brushed nickel, is on the rise. In addition, other finishes, such as oil-rubbed bronze and wrought iron, are also increasing in popularity with consumers. In fact, non chrome finishes now repre sent almost half of bath accessory sales. Relying on this survey, and other exten sive consumer research. Cre ative Specialties Interna tional recently introduced four new bath accessory col lections designed to reflect the styles used in today’s bath. Sold under the Inspira tions brand, the Stockton, Danbury, Sage and Avery collections each fall into one of three design categories - traditional, contemporary/casual or country. Easy as 1-2-3 Once you have selected the right style of accessory to match your bathroom decor, installing the accessories is a snap! First, position the assembled unit, such as a towel bar, on the wall where desired. Lightly mark the outline of each base. Next, center a mounting bracket within each base outline and mark the hole locations of each mounting bracket. Attach each mounting bracket to the wall, using mounting bracket screws and wall anchors. A special tip, according to Rowell, ‘While it’s not necessary to mount accessories into wood studs, we highly recommend it. It makes for a more secure connection and will hold weight more evenly.” Finally, mount each base on the cor responding mounting brack et, making sure that the base, set screw hole(s) are facing down. Assemble a set screw to each base and use an Allen wrench (included in most accessory hardware kits) to tighten each set screw and secure the assem bly to the mounting bracket. Tb ensure an accessory is mounted in the proper loca tion, some manufacturers, such as Creative Specialties International, offer tem plates with each product. The template can be hung and taped to the wall, giving the consumer the exact loca tion of where the accessory should be mounted. As for final words of advice. Brown, brown all around By Patricia Dane Rogers THE WASHINGTON POST The design world has been tossing a lot of intense colors at us lately. And there is one school of thought that all that hot pink, lime green, sizzling orange and shimmering blue can stand a little sobering up. Enter dependable, steadying, comforting brown, a color much mentioned in knowing design circles these days as being just the thing to ground all that fizzy vibrance. Legendary designer Billy Baldwin is often credited with being the first to use brown with panache. His glossy tortoise-shell library for composer Cole Porter’s Waldorf Tower apart ment in New York more than 50 years ago is still considered the benchmark of brown rooms. Later, Baldwin, who died in 1983 at the age of 80, treated walls of his own glamorous mid town Manhattan apartment a shade he once described as “my favorite” — a shiny “Coro mandel black-brown.” Editors of top design magazines see the brown uptick in houses fh)m coast to coast, in its deepest coffee and chocolate incarnations down to paler bronzes and caramel. “There are a lot of brown walls out there,” says House Beautiful’s Mark Mayfield. “The easiest thing is to do them against cream upholstery a la Billy Baldwin, but the trend is toward creat ing a different, more adventurous formula with splashes of vibrant color that we haven’t seen with browns before: Put pinks, turquois es and chartreuses against brown walls, and they pop.” Just such color combinations are turning up in a wide range of home products, from bed linens (Atlanta-based Sway, a luxury bed- linen design company recently introduced a “caffe and bamboo” combo with reversible shams, duvets and pillows [www.sway- home.com]); to rugs (a brown wool area rug with shocking pink dots by Maine designer Angela Adams can be ordered at Apartment Zero in downtown Washington as can Sway products); to fabrics (pink peacocks and strawberries flock together on a brown back ground in “Bakerbird,” a top-selling cotton print at Calico Comers). At the recent International Designer Show House in New York, curtains in “Abbondio,” a dramatic $350-a-yard chocolate Rubelli silk with jumbo blue arabesques, was the star of a study by Parisian designer Jean-Louis Deniot; it’s available through designers at J. Lambeth & Co. at the Washington Design Center. New York interior designer "Wctoria Hagan based her entire new fabric, furniture and accessories collection, sold through Holly Hunt showrooms nationwide, on a deep brown color she calls espresso. “I like its bold ness,” she says, “and its warmth.” Mark Woodman, color marketing and design manager for Beltsville-based Duron Paints & Wallcoverings, credits the current popularity of hrown to its honest appeal to the senses. “Brown has morphed into something extremely sensory, and people take the same kind of lovely solace in it as with Godiva or the finest pipe tobacco.” Rowell added, “The powder room isn’t the first on the list when we think of entertain ing, but it can leave quite an impression with guests. Remember to continue your holiday spruce-ups into the bath and you’ll be surprised at the compliments you receive.” For more informa tion on bath style trends, or accessory products available from Creative Specialties International, write 25300 A1 Moen Drive, North Olmsted, Ohio 44070-8022, call toll fi'ee (800) 882-0116, or visit www.moen.com. Call to see if you qualily for up to $7,500 in closing cost/down payment assistance. Ms N.W. Charlotte - Derita Area Selling below tax value. Great floor plan. 3 BR, 2 BA.Large backvard with deck. Bring all offers. MLS #410651 ' $115,500 Millard M. McCluney • REALTOR/Broker 110 Statesville Rd., Unit A-2 • WEB:www.millardmccluney.com CELL: 704-618-4065 • HOME: 704-395-1160 Assuming 3-1adjustable rate mortgage for 30 yr. term, starting interest rate® 3.5% - payment shown is principal & interest oniy. Ail taxes and all insurance to be added to payment. Some restrictions may apply and interest rate subject to change. Woodman painted his own foyer with wide horizontal stripes of Duron’s Spicenut (No. 8755A), interspersing them with parallel silv ers of Jeffrey Blue (No. 8012W). “It made the space feel welcoming,” he says, “like someone had wrapped their arms aroimd you.” Architectural Digest’s no-non- sense editor- in-chief, Paige Rense, sounds a cautionary note about overdoing the color: “Page after page of brown furniture and walls and our readers wfll nod off in a brown- induced coma.” Brown “can be chic in small doses,” she says, “but it doesn’t change your hfe. .. .Many brown rooms in New York apartments are seen only at night. Brown and aubergine can be depressing in the daylight. As a designer, you have to think of the emotional weU-being of your client. I think people are hungry for Matisse colors.” “Brown has punch,” says Washington designer Whitney Stewart. ‘You can’t go wrong with beige, and you can’t go wrong with dark brown. But you’re upping the ante when you use chocolate as a background color. It’s nervier than beige.” She Hkes Donald Kaufman’s DKC50 wall paint, “a delicious, velvety matte chocolate for the walls with splashes of icy blue or lime green fabric” (www.donald kaufmancolor.com; 201-568- 2226). Decorative painter Malcolm Robson of Rob son Worldwide Graining in Lorton, whose international clientele includes Buckingham Palace and Oscar and Annette de la Renta, says if not used carefully, the color can swal low other elements in a room. “Brown furni ture — even wonderful mahogany and wal nut — completely disappears against brown walls.” The pros are divided on which paint finish es — matte or shiny — show brown to best advantage. Woodman, Stewart and New York interior designer Richard Keith Langham vote for matte’s subtle suedelike look; Hagan prefers a little gloss. Otherwise, she says, “brown can look a little dead.” She lacquered her own New York foyer with Sherwin- Williams’ espresso-dark Black Bean (No. 6006), paired with Pratt & Lambert’s Ances tral ’White trim (No. 1426 FB) and a soft khaki for the ceiling. She says, ‘You need a lit tle cream with the coffee.” A few other tips from design pros: • Langham likes the surprise factor of a matte brown ceilmg and crimson walls. In his New York showroom, a coral sofa and a Bessarabian rug with stylized pink roses and acid green foliage on a brown background are brought down to earth by cocoa walls (Pratt & Lambert’s Congo Brown No. 2065). • Chevy Chase designer Sue Burgess sug gests pairing periwinkle blue walls with brown and white toile upholstery amfa choco late rug. “A vibrant waU color can take your breath away, so earth tones make a wonder ful counterpoint.” • ‘I love seasheU pink with brown,” says Washington designer Joseph Paul Davis. “In a summer house or in Palm Beach, pale pink walls and furniture with brown slipcovers piped in white would be dynamite.” A favorite waU paint is Duron’s Mission Brown (No. AC140N). For Only * $629 Per Month “With 1659 Down” | This “New Construction” House* Can Become “Your Home” REALTY 3 Bedroom, 2 Bath Ranch vaulted ceiling in master bedroom & great room. Price includes a fantastic “Appliance Package” with stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer.,& dryer! riRS'r Citizens Bank Call: 704-947-4949 110 Statesville Road, Unit A-2 • Huntersville, NC 28078 MLS * Assuming $659.00 down payment and $7,500.00 House Charlotte hinds and loan amount of $80,900 with interest rate of 6.5%. Some restrictions apply with interest rate subject to change. Builder paid closing cost only good with loan from First Citizen Bank Mongage i ITS NOT TOO UTE TO GET A GREAT RATE! • JUMBO Loans • Interest Only Loans • Pui’chase Loans • Home Equity Loans • Refinance Loans less-than-perfect credit OK! Call today! 704-54Um AL OVERTON (EXT. 1039) A \ r T NEWWOED MORTGAGE
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