Design

When it comes to selecting living room furniture, there are always certain pieces that seem to be essential. Living room cabinets are one of such furniture pieces. There are so many varieties and types of living room cabinets that anyone can get confused about what to use! This article makes you aware of the varieties of cabinets that you can find and place in your most visited room of the home. Display Cabinets You can use display cabinets to display your interesting decorative items. If thinking of options, use entertainment units or showcases with sleek designs for contemporary living room, chest of drawers or decorative armoires for traditional or antique decor style, a corner curio for almost all types of decor styles as they come in various designs. Storage Cabinets If you have shortage of space due to a small living room, you can always use storage cabinets as a solution. The modern storage solutions for living room are not at all boring. These cabinets have both types of s...

Many of today's home designs incorporate open floor planning - with kitchen, dining and living areas all very open to one another.  Open planning is great for entertaining and family gatherings because it allows people congretating within these "zones" to remain connected with one another.  One problem with open planning however is that sometimes the combined space becomes too large and begins to lose a sense of intimacy.  Also, how about that kitchen clutter?  Many clients want to remain "connected" with their guests while in the kitchen, but do not necessarily want all of that kitchen clutter exposed to their guests. There are a number of ways to combat these issues.  I will try to illustrate in the following examples designed by Larson Brenner Architects in Stillwater, MN. Photo below illustrates dining area and adjacent front foyer.  A dropped soffit in the foyer and hallway helps to define the edge of the dining space (ceiling elevation changes are a great...

Simply Elegant Home Designs is now using Google Sketchup to better describe the interior design elements of their house plans.   Ron Brenner of Simply Elegant had this to say.  "Better visualization of the product results in more thorough understanding of design intent and better translation by the builders.  We have been using 3d visualization for some time to illustrate building exteriors, and have discovered how valuable that visualization is.  It seems a logical next step to illustrate the interior design elements of a home with 3d.  Nowadays Architects have so many good tools to work with, and so why not use them?  The idea is to use the tools available to us to create a better product and a better service.  I think that some day we may not be issuing 2d plans, sections and elevations, but we will be issuing 3d virtual models.  And some day builders may have a television monitor at the job site in lieu of a plan desk." The animation below illustrates the interior cabine...