Modern Furniture

When the my sister Chris was newly married, her rich and highly starched mother-in-law presented her with an heirloom: a magnificent suite of ebony furniture.

Chris, in search of simplicity, promptly painted it white. Her relatives were appalled, but Chris, not yet a decorator, knew she was on to something. The lesson? If you can’t afford a stunning four-poster antique bed, buy a battered flea-market specimen with good lines. Sand, prime, and paint white. It will reign in your bedroom like a bride.

Tip: For visual continuity, do this to a second piece of furniture too, suck as a tall bureau or wooden chair.

You can boost a low ceiling using color contrasts. Paint the walls darker than the ceiling (use any two colors, or shades of a color, that you wish). Then, using the darker wall color, paint a 6-inch-wide border all the way around the edge of the ceiling, as if framing it. The central, lighter area of the ceiling will now look higher.

To magnify the effect, leave 6 inches of white space between the edges of the ceiling and your darker painted frame. The central framed area, now smaller, will look even higher.