On Thursday evening February 21. over 30 customers attended the first Designer Night featuring Michelle Postma, the local sales representative for Uttermost who covers the entire state of Michigan along with Stacey Winn, the manager of Teknicolor in South Lyon. Between the two of them they have over 30 years of experience in the Home Decor, Textile and Paint Industry.
Michelle spoke about using bigger pieces in your home to avoid clutter. Too many small items in a room tend to make your room look messy and unorganized. The trend is to purchase a few big pieces, such as a lamp, picture, mirror or larger tabletop item to make the room look bigger and cleaner. She also recommended having a mirror in every room of your house. The reflection the mirror gives off will make your room appear much bigger than it actually is and will give your home an overall open feeling. She also touched on the latest color trends - blues and browns are still very hot, and red is coming back hotter than ever. Golds are also very in. In terms of prints and tabletop items roosters, butterflies, botanicals were among the several that are popular. Michelle also shared before and after pictures of her condo upnorth, and it was amazing that a condo less than 600 square feet could look so large with the right pieces and placement of furniture.
Stacey Winn got everyone excited when she discussed the trends in wallpapers and paint techniques. Wallpapers have changed dramatically; gorgeous, colorful and in big patterns with a lot of texture. Anything goes in any room, and believe me it's difficult for me to choose between all of them! Stacey urged us to be bold and wallpaper a room in our home. She passed around many wallpaper books featuring the latest wallpapers.
The faux painting of the past is no more, rather it has progressed into a mudding technique that brings an enormous amount of texture to your wall, and as Stacey said, "it's so much fun to do"! Once done the wall is then painted and can also be glazed to give your room an amazing and rich appearance.
I know I took away several new tips and I hope my customers did as well. I'm already looking forward to holding another Designer Night in the near future!
Stacey Winn from Teknicolor, Sue Stowe, Grande Trunke Home and Michelle Postma, Uttermost
Stacey Winn from Teknicolors getting everyone excited about the new bold and big wallpapers!
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In the little spare time that I do have, one of my favorite things to do is leaf through the pages of my home decor magazines that I get each month (House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Traditional Home, Veranda, Cottage Living, and many more) for new decorating ideas and product trends. Whether it's a new paint color, fabric, cool glass vase or certain way of arranging candleholders, books, flowers or other tabletop items, I always get this "ah ha!" - "that's a great idea, why didn't I think of that?" moment. House Beautiful offered 101 easy makeovers in their January issue! Here's a few I thought I would share that are easy to carry out in your home. Try some of them or link to www.housebeautiful.com/decorating/home-makeovers/101-easy-makeovers?click=main_sr for all 101 of them.
1. Find a tired old bargain brass chandelier at a thrift shop or antiques shop. Spray paint it white. Or a color — if you have courage. Or if you're lucky like me, you'll have one in your house hanging - one of the builder's originals!
2. Add a little architecture: Buy wall brackets and hang them above your living room doorways, like keystones. I posted a picture of one to give you an idea.
3. Buy a big pretty tray — try lacquer or metal. Take all the things on your coffee table and arrange them on the tray for a whole new pulled-together look. This is a new trend that is being shown in many of the home decor magazines.
4. Buy flowers for your bedside table instead of your living room. Just a few buds in a small vase. Just for you.
5. Put a real rug, not a bathroom rug, in front of your bathroom sink. It will hold up just fine.
6. Instead of buying complete matched sets of towels (something's always missing at the store), buy different shades of one color and mix it up.
7. Change every light switch in your house to a dimmer. Including the bathrooms.
8. Remove all the pictures scattered around one room and rehang them on one wall, together — "salon style."
9. Buy a pair of sconces that take candles. No need to hire an electrician, and the prettiest light you'll ever have in a room.
10. Rearrange your fireplace mantel. Instead of one candlestick at each end, mass lots of them on one side. Remember: Odd numbers make the best arrangements.
After further thought it hit me that I should bring this to life and hold a special event at Grande Trunke Home to show and talk to you first hand. Having visual hands-on experience with products, arranging products and color is far more effective for me and I'm sure for you too.
Uttermost, a company that has been in the Home Decor business for 33 years is the perfect company to talk about home decor tips, trends and colors. Their designers, develop and produce 1,000 new home decor items each year, and their products reflect the latest in great design for your home. In addition, their latest ad campaigns are featured in House Beautiful, Veranda, Architectural Digest, and Metropolitan Home.
After presenting the idea to my Uttermost representative, she glady accepted the invitation and will be at Grande Trunke Home on Thursday, February 21st for an evening of inspired design, decorating and color! If you are interesting in attending please RSVP at www.grandetrunkehome.com and click on "Promotions" or call 248 446-6040. Because of the value of the evening, attendance will be limited to 25 people so it can be an open discussion in a small relaxed setting. I've very excited about this evening and hope you can join us!
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With much accomplished on Friday I headed to the mart early Saturday morning to loop back to three Home Decor and Gift Vendors that I had briefly visited late on Friday afternoon. Each one had their own specialties that I am excited to bring into the store in order to offer the latest and greatest in the gift and home decor industry. See a couple sneak peek pictures. Grande Trunke Home will now carry pottery, new glassware, including vases, hurricanes and bowls, and a brand new line of metal accessories. My favorite though is in the gift line; oil and tealight burning ceramic containers and round garden balls with sayings that will touch your heart. The round garden balls can sit on a patio table or be stuck into the ground using a metal garden stake (included). These are just being introduced this spring and I really believe customers will fall in love with them. They are gift boxed in beautiful packaging and will make fabulous gifts for the upcoming holidays.
I also visited Uttermost, who offers beautiful lamps, mirrors, clocks, pictures and tabletop accessories. I carry a large array of their line and am always amazed at the quality, design and correlation between the products. They introduced many new items at the mart and I just had to pick up a few for the store, including a few pieces for the spring for the garden.
To round out the day, I spent some time in search of new girlfriend cards and plaques. You may or may not have heard about the Dolly Mama Card line. They are absolutely hysterical, and I know they will fit into the feel and what my customers like to buy. Look for these at the store next month.
I could have easily spent another day or two vistiting the temporary showrooms, but my time was up, and my shopping partner, who had provided other points of view on whether or not to purchase, my mother, was totally exhausted!
Another great trip to market and I am so excited to start receiving these new products in the store to keep it fresh for my customers and continue to provide high quality distinctive items.
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