Decorating ideas – Page 16

Spending much of the past year confined to our homes means there has been plenty of time for people to really look at their home surroundings and decide which areas and aspects could do with a bit of an upgrade. Perhaps it’s that rotten, dilapidated garden shed that needs knocking down and replacing, plain indoor lighting features, or an outdated colour scheme?

Regardless of what you feel could do with a more modern update in your home, we have collected a list of simple tips and tricks that could elevate the feel and look of your home!

Outdoor Style

Many homeowners focus solely on the interior style of their homes and have a tendency to forget about, or even willfully ignore, their outdoor spaces. This often leads to eyesores remaining in place for years before they are noticed and removed! You don’t, however, have to commit yourself to a full garden makeover to improve the aesthetic and tidy the area up.

Mowing the lawn, removing weeds, power-washing patios, adding a lick of paint to fading fences or woodwork, and planting some pretty perennial flowerbeds are very easy and relatively inexpensive ways of brightening up your garden. If you want your garden to stand out and look more modern, it would be worth considering up-and-coming trends that you can add to your outdoor space, such as shou shi ban charred timber cladding. Utilising traditional charring methods to create unique and sophisticated looking timber cladding, Shuh Sugi Ban not only provides cladding that ticks the modern trends box, but that also creates an interesting focal point for yourself and your guests to enjoy – whether you decide to clad an outside wall of your home, build an outdoor bar, or cover the roof of an old shed.

Lighting Design

Lighting is a small element of rooms that can be altered to really elevate and improve its overall feel, as well as add a more modern edge. Plain, centralised lightbulbs surrounded by a simple lamp shade are a thing of the past; these days, homeowners are including LED light strips, like those from Neon Mama, feature lighting, and colour-altering lampshades to modernise their space. Keeping abreast of modern interior lighting styles is useful here for providing you with a range of original and striking ideas that can suffuse a room with a sense of excitement or grandiosity – you can then use these ideas to identify affordable alternatives that you can incorporate into your home to replicate the more expensive versions.

Updating Your Colour Scheme

When people think about modern colour schemes, a bold, icy white is probably the first thing that springs to mind – a sort of Scandinavian décor that screams minimalism and sophistication.

However, interior designers are starting to play around with other hues and shades, in addition to bright pops of colour and pattern, to create this modern feel within homes.

As one of the simplest and easiest ways of modernising your space, changing your colour scheme is also relatively inexpensive. Entirely repainting the walls in your home does sit at the more expensive end of the scale (depending on your choice of paint, anyway) but, once done, can remain that way for a number of years, whilst simply dyeing cushion covers and rugs your desired shade, and purchasing complementary items from low-cost home stores, sits at the lower-cost end of the scale – both options (and a combination of the two) can help you to modernise your home.

If painting is something you still want to do, but you want to do it cheaply, a great idea is to purchase tester pots of your desired colours and add splashes of them throughout the house!

Rather than an expensive, time-consuming job, modernising your home on a budget can be easily achieved by being creative and thinking outside of the box. There’s plenty of ideas you can sift through online to inspire you, and then a little further research will help you identify ways you can replicate these modern trends with breaking the bank – you just have to be prepared to invest a little time. But it’ll be worth it, right?

Frosted or privacy glass is now commonly used in professional offices as it acts as a middle ground between traditional opaque walls and translucent glass. This specialized textured glass type satisfies the desired need for privacy in the workspace without eradicating a sense of connectivity. Partitions are almost mandatory in the offices and dividing the office space with opaque walls or solid cubicles completely kills a sense of connectivity & openness.

That’s the reason why many modern offices use frosted glass as their desired partition medium as it perfectly divides an office space without abolishing connectivity. That’s not all, there are many reasons why your office needs a frosted or privacy glass, and here we will explore some of the leading reasons why this glass type is best for offices:

Reasons to Choose Frosted Glass in the Offices

Frosted or privacy glass has numerous applications in the office space and can be used in partition walls, windows, doors, & skylights. In a workspace, the goal is to create a serene and tranquil environment and this glass solution greatly contributes to achieving a professional look while providing ease-of-work.

Professional Look

The concept of frosted glass reeks of professionalism and this textured glass type is best for any home or professional office setting. Unlike the standard glass, this textured glass helps maintain privacy without restricting the ingress of light. Natural light can transmit through the frosting in a controlled & regulated way allowing you to illuminate your office space with the natural light without compromising on privacy. There’s an augmented sense of modern professionalism developed with the use of textured glass in the office space that is impossible to achieve with the traditional cubicles or opaque walls.

Promote Privacy

Privacy is one of the leading reasons why textured glass is the best for offices. The modern offices are made open and connected to help the employees build a stronger sense of connectivity. However, it is not suitable to use standard glass in the office setting as it completely violates personal boundaries. That’s why privacy or textured glass is preferred as it promotes privacy, openness, and connectivity simultaneously.

Show Your Brand Elegantly

Frosted or etched glass serves as the perfect background for office signage and provides professionals with an elegant way to showcase their brand. The surrounding frosting adds a touch of sophistication to your brand logo & sign and makes your workspace feel and look more sophisticated.

Protects Your Interior Furniture from UV Rays

The window frosting also protects the furniture from the direct exposure of harmful UV rays that damages the interior décor, carpets, and furniture. The textured glass only allows the ingress of limited natural light and elegantly illuminates the office space.

Easy to Clean & Maintain

Above all else, the frosted glass is incredibly easy to clean and maintain as it’s rough surface adds a layer of tolerance against dirt and other types of stains. This is another reason why it is perfect for the office space as it requires lesser maintenance and is easier to clean.

Design Versatility

The textured glass can be designed in multiple ways with processes such as acid etching and sandblasting and it is also possible to customize this glass as per the office need for translucency. This gives creative design enthusiasts greater design freedom to renovate and remodel their office space in cool & elegant ways.

Where Frosted Glass Can Be Used in Offices?

The incredible characteristics of frosted or privacy glass make it the perfect choice for all interior & exterior translucent décor needs of office space. This glass type helps divide the office space elegantly without compromising on connectivity, openness, and lighting. Many offices use textured glass partition walls to build different sectors in the office for privacy and secrecy purposes. It is also the preferred type of glass for designing meeting rooms as it injects a sense of elegance and professionalism.

In addition to this, office windows and skylights can also be designed with frosted glass instead of clear (standard) glass as it creates a fine boundary between the indoors and the outdoors. Besides this, its UV light protection characteristics and light transmission properties also make it the perfect window glass replacement choice for offices & homes.

Is It Safe Enough?

Frosted glass is also renowned for its strength and durability as it is made with high-strength & durable tempered glass. This makes it completely safe for both home and offices and it is sturdy and incredibly hard to break. In addition to this, the breaking mechanism of tempered glass is also unique and exceptional as it doesn’t shatter into sharp and harmful shards of glass like the ordinary glass. Instead of this, the tempered glass breaks into many spherical and harmless pieces of glass making it safe for anyone standing nearby.

Frosted Glass Cleaning Tips

Frosted or privacy glass has a rough and corroded surface and all acidic cleaners or hard scrubbers must be avoided when cleaning the textured glass. Instead of these, this glass type requires alkaline cleaning agents or non-acidic cleaners. Toilet cleaners, vinegar solutions, and other heavy-duty & abrasive cleaners must also be avoided to maintain the delicacy and exclusivity of textured glass.

Cleaning frosted glass is an incredibly easy and simple process and ordinary glass cleaners work the best for cleaning the dirt & stains from the textured glass. It is best to use a paper towel, newspaper, or microfiber cloth for cleaning the privacy glass as it is gentle to the surface. It’s best to clean a large frosted or privacy glass in patches & sections to prevent overuse of cleaning solution. All you need to do is apply gentle pressure while cleaning and the stains & dirt comes off easily from the frosted surface of the glass. For the tougher & stubborn stains, you can use a homemade cleaning solution made with baking soda, dish soap, and water.