When interior designers say the words "garden design", they are crossing an invisible boundary - from interior to exterior. Historically, interior designers have focused exclusively on what lies within the home. But today some of London's most prestigious interior design teams are starting to apply their wealth of knowledge and experience to garden schemes. The resulting whole-estate approach means that top interior designers can now offer homeowners full-service comprehensive expertise that covers every possible need. London is a splendid city in which to work as an interior designer who also focuses on gardens because it is so easy to find fabulous garden furniture, plantings and exterior illuminators from the many outstanding garden centres and wholesalers across the home counties.
If there are walls on either side of a set of steps, you may hear your interior designer start to talk of a "brick-light". The name comes from the fact that its size and shape are precisely the same as a brick! This clever little illuminator can be set back into the wall to provide a general wash of light across the steps. Some prestigious London hotels will use this approach, but it can also be effective for private homes, provided your interior designer specifies a special louvre cover that focuses the light downwards. Some clients crave extra drama - in such circumstances, your interior designer may choose to incorporate directional spotlights, set into the wall to chase the light down. For even more atmosphere, especially in Central London where street lights may be bright, directional spotlights can be set into the wall to light each step individually. Your interior designer may turn to fibre optics - their tiny pretty fixtures are ideal for this type of application. If you have only a few stone steps, it may be best to conceal a lengthy low-voltage strip under the front trim of the steps to provide a continuous downward wash of light. This works well only if the light source is well-hidden; otherwise the effect will be too glittery and glamourous and your interior designer might as well be designing a London hotel!
Well that brings to an end my series titled "Welcome to my Designer Garden! A London Interior Designer Reflects on Magical Garden Designs". Thank you so much for reading.
London Renovation Company - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design and renovation services.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
A London Interior Designer Reflects on Magical Garden Designs - Pathways
When interior designers say the words "garden design", they are crossing an invisible boundary - from interior to exterior. Historically, interior designers have focused exclusively on what lies within the home. But today some of London's most prestigious interior design teams are starting to apply their wealth of knowledge and experience to garden schemes. The resulting whole-estate approach means that top interior designers can now offer homeowners full-service comprehensive expertise that covers every possible need. London is a splendid city in which to work as an interior designer who also focuses on gardens because it is so easy to find fabulous garden furniture, plantings and exterior illuminators from the many outstanding garden centres and wholesalers across the home counties.
London's top interior designers know that garden paths should always be a key part of an overall garden scheme - and this requires cleverly thought-out lighting design! Paths must always be lit for practical reasons - safety and easy access are critical, whether from house to garden or from one part of the garden to another. But interior designers love to use their designer flair, and fortunately for our clients we can make even this type of lighting just as pretty as in other zones of the garden. Sometimes reflected light from illuminated features, such as outdoor urns or statues, may be sufficient to brighten up a pathway at nighttime, but more normally your interior designer will draw out a map of where the ground changes levels (safety first!). Extra illumination may be necessary here, particularly for when elderly relatives come to visit. Some London Interior Designers love to recommend pretty little indicator lights that incorporate LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which are perfect when used to show the route of a path on a dark night or when installed underneath a balustrade.
Let me explain just a little more about LEDs. These clever little lights are often used in digital watches and pocket calculators, where they offer the ultimate in low-heat illumination. Some interior designers love to create patterns within paving stones by replacing a tile detail with an LED! Thanks to their long-life bulbs, LEDs can also be an attractive alternative to fibre optics. Interior designers love to design with LEDs because there is no remote light box to conceal - only a small transformer. Practical even for the most compact London urban gardens!
With the third and final article in this series titled "Welcome to my Designer Garden! A London Interior Designer Reflects on Magical Garden Designs", I will focus on how to illuminate garden steps and stonework.
London Renovation Company - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design and renovation services.
London's top interior designers know that garden paths should always be a key part of an overall garden scheme - and this requires cleverly thought-out lighting design! Paths must always be lit for practical reasons - safety and easy access are critical, whether from house to garden or from one part of the garden to another. But interior designers love to use their designer flair, and fortunately for our clients we can make even this type of lighting just as pretty as in other zones of the garden. Sometimes reflected light from illuminated features, such as outdoor urns or statues, may be sufficient to brighten up a pathway at nighttime, but more normally your interior designer will draw out a map of where the ground changes levels (safety first!). Extra illumination may be necessary here, particularly for when elderly relatives come to visit. Some London Interior Designers love to recommend pretty little indicator lights that incorporate LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which are perfect when used to show the route of a path on a dark night or when installed underneath a balustrade.
Let me explain just a little more about LEDs. These clever little lights are often used in digital watches and pocket calculators, where they offer the ultimate in low-heat illumination. Some interior designers love to create patterns within paving stones by replacing a tile detail with an LED! Thanks to their long-life bulbs, LEDs can also be an attractive alternative to fibre optics. Interior designers love to design with LEDs because there is no remote light box to conceal - only a small transformer. Practical even for the most compact London urban gardens!
With the third and final article in this series titled "Welcome to my Designer Garden! A London Interior Designer Reflects on Magical Garden Designs", I will focus on how to illuminate garden steps and stonework.
London Renovation Company - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design and renovation services.
A London Interior Designer Reflects on Magical Garden Designs - Entrances and Exits
When interior designers say the words "garden design", they are crossing an invisible boundary - from interior to exterior. Historically, interior designers have focused exclusively on what lies within the home. But today some of London's most prestigious interior design teams are starting to apply their wealth of knowledge and experience to garden schemes. The resulting whole-estate approach means that top interior designers can now offer homeowners full-service comprehensive expertise that covers every possible need. London is a splendid city in which to work as an interior designer who also focuses on gardens because it is so easy to find fabulous garden furniture, plantings and exterior illuminators from the many outstanding garden centres and wholesalers across the home counties.
If your London home is not far from a well-lit urban street, your interior designer may recommend more intense illuminators to create the designer impact you crave for your garden. By contrast, in the countryside outside London, moonlight may sometimes be sufficient to allow residents and guests to wander safely, but a touch of supplementary light may still be essential to brighten up an entrance or exit. Many interior designers recommend tungsten halogen illuminators, which guarantee the most real-looking colour and are suitable for most buildings. However, I would note that if your home is particularly large, a warmer light source, such as sodium, may be advisable. Metal halide illuminators tend to be very cool and they are therefore best for buildings in London's most urban areas - this type of crisp snow-coloured light can prove highly dramatic in such settings. (If used in the countryside, guests may feel that the effect is slightly too cool and unfriendly.)
Just as entrances prepare us for the interiors to come, so exits should herald a tranquil slide into the garden without. Zones that lie just outside French windows, such as terraces, require first-class mood lighting. Your London Interior Designer will recommend this approach not only for practical reasons but also to guarantee a gentle, atmospheric transformation as your guests move between house and garden. Professional interior designers know that if lights are too bright indoors, reflections on windows will render any garden lighting almost invisible from inside. As a consequence, it is essential to have easy controls to dim down the lights next to an exit or adjacent to your windows that enter onto a terrace. By softening these lights with a dimmer, your interior designer can heighten the intensity of the lighting outside and set the scene for the perfect London garden party.
With the next article in this series on how interior designers create magical garden designs, I will focus on how to illuminate garden pathways.
London Renovation Company - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design and renovation services.
If your London home is not far from a well-lit urban street, your interior designer may recommend more intense illuminators to create the designer impact you crave for your garden. By contrast, in the countryside outside London, moonlight may sometimes be sufficient to allow residents and guests to wander safely, but a touch of supplementary light may still be essential to brighten up an entrance or exit. Many interior designers recommend tungsten halogen illuminators, which guarantee the most real-looking colour and are suitable for most buildings. However, I would note that if your home is particularly large, a warmer light source, such as sodium, may be advisable. Metal halide illuminators tend to be very cool and they are therefore best for buildings in London's most urban areas - this type of crisp snow-coloured light can prove highly dramatic in such settings. (If used in the countryside, guests may feel that the effect is slightly too cool and unfriendly.)
Just as entrances prepare us for the interiors to come, so exits should herald a tranquil slide into the garden without. Zones that lie just outside French windows, such as terraces, require first-class mood lighting. Your London Interior Designer will recommend this approach not only for practical reasons but also to guarantee a gentle, atmospheric transformation as your guests move between house and garden. Professional interior designers know that if lights are too bright indoors, reflections on windows will render any garden lighting almost invisible from inside. As a consequence, it is essential to have easy controls to dim down the lights next to an exit or adjacent to your windows that enter onto a terrace. By softening these lights with a dimmer, your interior designer can heighten the intensity of the lighting outside and set the scene for the perfect London garden party.
With the next article in this series on how interior designers create magical garden designs, I will focus on how to illuminate garden pathways.
London Renovation Company - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design and renovation services.
Friday, November 4, 2011
How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration - Illumination and Reflection
When interior design professionals say "on-wall decoration," they normally mean flat objects that may be hung on a wall. This covers photos, graphics, platters, mountings, reliefs and many other categories. London is a splendid locale in which to work as an interior designer because it is so easy to find fabulous on-wall decorative options from the busy artisan set, who frequently exhibit in galleries and warehouses across the capital.
Illumination is an absolutely critical component of interior design in the scope of on-wall decoration. On occasion, it may be breathtaking to feature a spotlight or uplighting that pulls one's gaze into an especially glamourous photograph or artistic feature. Top London interior designers will conventionally incorporate illumination schemes into step one (or even step zero) of their workflow. As is the case across much of the professional interior designer's work, the intent is that nothing will seem accidental or superfluous - we try our best to create a complete and stunning high-impact design profile from the very earliest stages. For instance, interior design professionals will often map out in advance the need for any wall-mounted photo frame illuminators in order to ensure they are included in the power outlet sketches at the earliest preparatory stages of your design effort, so that the contractors will be able to install an outlet that is at the most suitable height. (In many London homes, these types of outlets are custom/bespoke.)
Reflective surfaces (whether silvered objects or framed mirrors) are traditionally a great tool for the interior designer because of how they make a given space seem bigger. They can also allow guests and visitors to better see photos, reliefs and other wall decorations from multiple angles, thereby increasing the visual interest. This can be critical for more cramped London flats with slightly more challenging footprints or unusual corners. Your interior design consultant will definitely make sure to focus on how best to position mirrors, whether to add designer flair or for more mundane purposes. If a mirror has a frame, the interior design team will need to check that the mounting is compatible with other mounting designs or materials in a given design scheme.
If mirrors or other reflective panels are used as design elements, the interior design consultancy should take care to have the mirror reflect an engaging scene. The last thing you want is for your interior design scheme to include a mirror that is situated such that the reflections might be distracting or bothersome to a guest seated on a couch or a resident behind her home office desk. The one good thing is that mirrors can easily be repositioned, but in reality London's Top Interior Design Firms will make sure to achieve perfect positioning from the very beginning.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
Illumination is an absolutely critical component of interior design in the scope of on-wall decoration. On occasion, it may be breathtaking to feature a spotlight or uplighting that pulls one's gaze into an especially glamourous photograph or artistic feature. Top London interior designers will conventionally incorporate illumination schemes into step one (or even step zero) of their workflow. As is the case across much of the professional interior designer's work, the intent is that nothing will seem accidental or superfluous - we try our best to create a complete and stunning high-impact design profile from the very earliest stages. For instance, interior design professionals will often map out in advance the need for any wall-mounted photo frame illuminators in order to ensure they are included in the power outlet sketches at the earliest preparatory stages of your design effort, so that the contractors will be able to install an outlet that is at the most suitable height. (In many London homes, these types of outlets are custom/bespoke.)
Reflective surfaces (whether silvered objects or framed mirrors) are traditionally a great tool for the interior designer because of how they make a given space seem bigger. They can also allow guests and visitors to better see photos, reliefs and other wall decorations from multiple angles, thereby increasing the visual interest. This can be critical for more cramped London flats with slightly more challenging footprints or unusual corners. Your interior design consultant will definitely make sure to focus on how best to position mirrors, whether to add designer flair or for more mundane purposes. If a mirror has a frame, the interior design team will need to check that the mounting is compatible with other mounting designs or materials in a given design scheme.
If mirrors or other reflective panels are used as design elements, the interior design consultancy should take care to have the mirror reflect an engaging scene. The last thing you want is for your interior design scheme to include a mirror that is situated such that the reflections might be distracting or bothersome to a guest seated on a couch or a resident behind her home office desk. The one good thing is that mirrors can easily be repositioned, but in reality London's Top Interior Design Firms will make sure to achieve perfect positioning from the very beginning.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration - Hands-On Installation Tips
When interior design professionals say "on-wall decoration," they normally mean flat objects that may be hung on a wall. This covers photos, graphics, platters, mountings, reliefs and many other categories. London is a splendid locale in which to work as an interior designer because it is so easy to find fabulous on-wall decorative options from the busy artisan set, who frequently exhibit in galleries and warehouses across the capital.
Ordinarily, pictures best create a harmonious design feel when positioned in squares or rectangles. London is a global style hub, and hopscotch random shapes can certainly provide visual engagement for high-flair TV-ready interior designs, but in reality it is preferable to focus on standard right angles for most design objectives.
The second point I like to make is that symmetry is key. This is ideal if the interior designer has a single central picture together with a collection of others that constitutes a thematic cluster.
Thirdly, London's interior designers will focus on the idea of 'horizons' to allow for the horizontal alignment of the ceiling-facing edges of many different pictures in a cluster. If you have a variety of rectangle mountings, each of which has different dimensions, it may be preferable to use two horizons - one upper and one lower - to provide a great visual.
Fourthly, top London Interior Design Professionals like to refer to 'anchoring' as another key concept. This involves using the biggest pictures in a cluster to serve as the vertices of an invisible rectangle - smaller pictures are then positioned to develop the remainder of the space.
Fifthly, interior designers sometimes fall back on the cross arrangement when they have a client who craves extra visual flair and the elimination of rectangles altogether. This can be ideal if the pictures are rectangular but of all sorts of different dimensions. The interior designer will position the wall hangings in the shape of a cross, with bigger frames below the "horizon" and more modest mountings above in order to create a feeling of harmony.
Sixthly, a favourite technique among certain London interior designers is to build stability into a design by allowing the biggest wall hangings to migrate down towards the baseline of a cluster, along just one horizontal line. This creates a sense of solidity for the wall decoration scheme. I have collaborated with London's most prestigious interior design boutiques who emphasise placement of the tallest picture at the midline of the horizon in order to pull one's gaze toward the ceiling and create a feeling of exquisite spaciousness.
In the third and final article for this series called "Interpreting Designer Flair - How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration," I will explore the use of illuminators and reflection to create concepts that delight the observer and guarantee harmony.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
Ordinarily, pictures best create a harmonious design feel when positioned in squares or rectangles. London is a global style hub, and hopscotch random shapes can certainly provide visual engagement for high-flair TV-ready interior designs, but in reality it is preferable to focus on standard right angles for most design objectives.
The second point I like to make is that symmetry is key. This is ideal if the interior designer has a single central picture together with a collection of others that constitutes a thematic cluster.
Thirdly, London's interior designers will focus on the idea of 'horizons' to allow for the horizontal alignment of the ceiling-facing edges of many different pictures in a cluster. If you have a variety of rectangle mountings, each of which has different dimensions, it may be preferable to use two horizons - one upper and one lower - to provide a great visual.
Fourthly, top London Interior Design Professionals like to refer to 'anchoring' as another key concept. This involves using the biggest pictures in a cluster to serve as the vertices of an invisible rectangle - smaller pictures are then positioned to develop the remainder of the space.
Fifthly, interior designers sometimes fall back on the cross arrangement when they have a client who craves extra visual flair and the elimination of rectangles altogether. This can be ideal if the pictures are rectangular but of all sorts of different dimensions. The interior designer will position the wall hangings in the shape of a cross, with bigger frames below the "horizon" and more modest mountings above in order to create a feeling of harmony.
Sixthly, a favourite technique among certain London interior designers is to build stability into a design by allowing the biggest wall hangings to migrate down towards the baseline of a cluster, along just one horizontal line. This creates a sense of solidity for the wall decoration scheme. I have collaborated with London's most prestigious interior design boutiques who emphasise placement of the tallest picture at the midline of the horizon in order to pull one's gaze toward the ceiling and create a feeling of exquisite spaciousness.
In the third and final article for this series called "Interpreting Designer Flair - How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration," I will explore the use of illuminators and reflection to create concepts that delight the observer and guarantee harmony.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration - Selecting Artwork
When interior design professionals say "on-wall decoration," they normally mean flat objects that may be hung on a wall. This covers photos, graphics, platters, mountings, reliefs and many other categories. London is a splendid locale in which to work as an interior designer because it is so easy to find fabulous on-wall decorative options from the busy artisan set, who frequently exhibit in galleries and warehouses across the capital.
When I think of on-wall decoration, I most frequently think of pictures. I often tell my interior design team that pictures are critical to making a residence feel personal. Having said that, I will caution that suboptimal placement of pictures can all but destroy even a highly effective interior design scheme. I note that this can be particularly problematic in some of the more cramped London flats. I tell my clients that there is a mental checklist that needs to be filled in - equally applicable for digital graphic prints as for historic sepia-tinted photographs. One of the top rules that I have my team keep in mind at our London interior design consultancy is about "relational picture hanging." By this I mean that everything on the wall should echo or reinterpret another feature in the design. Junior interior designers sometimes fail to put enough thought into this, and the result often looks "accidental" - which of course would be highly unsatisfactory! When I put together interior design concepts, I try to use the colour or content of pictures to make a connection to bookcases, panels, couches or curtains... or even to built-in elements of interest, including dado rails, coving or cabinetry - any of which can be highly fascinating in some of London's more historic period buildings.
I try to avoid placing on-wall decoration in a symmetric configuration (for example, centred on a couch or dresser) because this would risk making the interior design concept feel slightly pedestrian and mundane.
In London, we know all too well that drizzle and cooler temperatures are not unusual during much of the year. As a result, interior designers in the capital will regularly select more cheerful pictures when they choose on-wall decoration. I place significant emphasis on clustering images that are somehow connected to each other. For example, my London Interior Design team might position a series of country scenes near to each other on the wall, or they will take the same approach for pictures of historic factories or waterways. Some of the best-known London interior design consultancies will also cluster on-wall decorative elements that share the same colour concepts or mounting styles.
With the next article in this series on how interior design professionals choose on-wall decoration, I will turn to the hands-on details of how to physically secure pictures to a wall.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
When I think of on-wall decoration, I most frequently think of pictures. I often tell my interior design team that pictures are critical to making a residence feel personal. Having said that, I will caution that suboptimal placement of pictures can all but destroy even a highly effective interior design scheme. I note that this can be particularly problematic in some of the more cramped London flats. I tell my clients that there is a mental checklist that needs to be filled in - equally applicable for digital graphic prints as for historic sepia-tinted photographs. One of the top rules that I have my team keep in mind at our London interior design consultancy is about "relational picture hanging." By this I mean that everything on the wall should echo or reinterpret another feature in the design. Junior interior designers sometimes fail to put enough thought into this, and the result often looks "accidental" - which of course would be highly unsatisfactory! When I put together interior design concepts, I try to use the colour or content of pictures to make a connection to bookcases, panels, couches or curtains... or even to built-in elements of interest, including dado rails, coving or cabinetry - any of which can be highly fascinating in some of London's more historic period buildings.
I try to avoid placing on-wall decoration in a symmetric configuration (for example, centred on a couch or dresser) because this would risk making the interior design concept feel slightly pedestrian and mundane.
In London, we know all too well that drizzle and cooler temperatures are not unusual during much of the year. As a result, interior designers in the capital will regularly select more cheerful pictures when they choose on-wall decoration. I place significant emphasis on clustering images that are somehow connected to each other. For example, my London Interior Design team might position a series of country scenes near to each other on the wall, or they will take the same approach for pictures of historic factories or waterways. Some of the best-known London interior design consultancies will also cluster on-wall decorative elements that share the same colour concepts or mounting styles.
With the next article in this series on how interior design professionals choose on-wall decoration, I will turn to the hands-on details of how to physically secure pictures to a wall.
Interior Design London - Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
