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Choosing the right furniture for your space is the key. Your choices might not be exactly what you want now, but they will be the right choices for you over time. Remember, after you buy the “right” furniture you will end up customizing the space with your “stuff” anyway and the furniture will blend into the space. But, as you start your bedroom furniture shopping, consider these “right” choices.

Shopping from the beginning

As a start shopping for bedroom furniture consider the bedroom as empty and your wallet as reasonably full. What do you really need in a bedroom anyway? Start with the true basics. You will need: a bed, a dresser, a night stand or two with lamps and a good chair or two with possibly a table and lamp. This is really about it and you could probably do without a couple of these items as well.  Start slow and go for the true basics first. Past the bed (minus the headboard), try to pick a piece that you want to have with you for the rest of your life. From here, build around that piece. Choose carefully and take as long as you need. As long as you have the bed and a ceiling light you’re ok for a few days.

Quality/price

Tags: bedroom, bedroom furniture, Furniture

We all remember our grandmother’s house. It was either warm and welcoming or smelly and stark. Her couch was either the kind you sink into and never want to leave or the kind that when you sit on it your behind actually bounces off, as if the inanimate piece of furniture was trying to catapult you across the room.

A piece of furniture can look nice but not feel nice, which is why everyone ends up gathered in your kitchen when you have parties. That couch you thought would bring the room together so nicely did such a good job that you feel guilty breaking the monotony by entering the room. Unless your house is a wing in the Louvre, your furniture shouldn’t be museum pieces-or else you’re destined to be the type of grandparent with the “smelly” and “stark” house. And no one wants that. So, put away the Scotch guard and protective covers. New furniture is in order.

The good news is that you don’t have to choose form over function. Barbara Barry, whose line of classic, yet modern, highly functional furniture is now being carried at Robb & Stucky Interiors, who claim the largest staff of licensed interior designers in Florida and Arizona and recently earned a spot in House Beautiful’s “Top Five Furniture Stores” in addition to their five-year stint as recipients of the ARTS Award.

A likely partnership, given that Barry’s own achievements include being named to the Interior Design Hall of Fame by Interior Design magazine, and Architectural Digest’s “AD100″ for three consecutive years, received the “Star of Design” award for lifetime achievement, won “Designer of the Year” from Traditional Home magazine and “Best in Residential Design” from Interiors magazine. Despite all those fancy awards Barry’s furnishings create warmth and continuity with a distinct form that is pleasing to the eye and inviting to the body. Homes outfitted with her furniture are as comfortable as they are beautiful, simply stated, yet refined. So, you’ll never have to choose form over function (or vice versa) ever again.

Tags: Furniture, home decor, house design, interior accesories, Interior Design

Furniture restoration is heard in a variety of settings. If you like watching do-it-yourself shows, shows that help determine the value of antiques, like the Antique Road Show on PBS and other similar programs, you may someday find yourself looking around your home and thinking you’ve got some furniture restoration projects you wouldn’t mind taking on yourself.

Some furniture restoration projects are fairly simple and straightforward. Getting rid of a waxy build-up on an antique table or roll top desk, for example, is a project that may be different and much more difficult than what it was originally anticipated to be. What you thought was just build-up may actually be deterioration of the item’s finish.

Before immediately going to furniture refinishing, however, there are steps you can take to make sure you are doing the job right. In some cases, by removing the build-up, you can see that the project may be as simple as cleaning the surface with a soft rag and mineral spirits. In other cases, refinishing furniture is the only way you can fix the problem; this is often the case when the surface finish has been softened and cleaning it leaves exposed wood.

Rather than stripping the finish of many wood tables, cabinets and desks, the weekend do-it-yourself project doer often looks at the possibility of refinishing furniture by painting over the existing finish. Before taking on this method of furniture refinishing, you should make sure the original finish does not have cracks within it, otherwise those cracks may show even after your furniture refinishing project has been completed.

Tags: antique, Antique Road, antique road show, antiques, build-up, diy, do-it-yourself, Elmer, finish, Furniture, furniture refinishing, furniture restoration, help, mineral spirits, project, refinishing, restoration, restoration projects, roll top desk, soft rag, surface, tips

Tags: chair, comfy, comfy place, Furniture, look, old chair, place, wood, wood chair, wood chairs, wood putty