Home Decorating For Dummies
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Historic patterns reappear from year to year in fresh, new combinations of colors. Color and scale affect a pattern, making it more or less formal. Some historic patterns, originally seen in monochromatic colorways, look very different in multicolors. Some perennial favorite patterns are listed here. Keep in mind that many appear on materials other than textiles:

  • Calico: This cotton fabric is printed with small, brightly colored floral patterns. Cheerful and modest, calico creates a cozy feeling that is a big part of Country-style decorating. This pattern also shows up in china.

  • Chintz: This cotton fabric features generously scaled floral arrangements and comes in many colors. It’s typically found in traditional English styles. Glazing (a shiny coating) gives it extra pizazz. So do the ribbon-and-flowers patterns that the French add, and broad stripes that seem so typical of English homes.

  • Flame stitch: A pattern that looks like flickering flames, flame stitch is multicolored and, when woven, very textural. You often notice flame stitch with 18th-century furniture. Somewhat masculine in character, it’s at home in traditional settings but looks great as an accent in a contemporary room.

  • Gingham: This pattern consists of two color checks (blue and white, red and white, yellow and white), usually in a woven cotton fabric. It almost epitomizes humble Country styles. But, a silk gingham, especially in large over-scale checks, acquires an elegance that is at home in any villa or town house.

  • Herringbone: The diagonal ridge that reverses direction periodically in this weave creates a vertical stripe effect. Some people think it looks like a fish skeleton, which is how it earned its name. Herringbone is most often seen in vinyl wall covering replications, especially in commercial interiors. It’s tailored and masculine in character.

  • Stripes: Stripes are, obviously, repeated vertical lines, but keep in mind that stripes come in many different varieties, including the following:

    • Awning stripes: Big, broad, monochromatic stripes used for awnings, found in upholstery and wall coverings

    • Rep (or irregular) stripes: Alternating narrow and wide stripes, often in woven silk fabrics used for upholstering Traditional-style chairs

    • Roman stripes: Stripes in alternating bright colors and sometimes of varying widths, found in silk and synthetic fabrics for curtains and upholstery in traditional-style rooms

    • Satin stripes: Alternating matte (dull) and satin (shiny) stripes in silk and silk-like synthetic fabrics (and wall coverings), appropriate for traditional rooms

    • Ticking stripes: Narrow, monochromatic stripes, most often in cotton fabrics used on pillows, but a favorite slipcover fabric for all kinds of country-style rooms from cottage to Sun Country style

  • Toile du Jouy: This line drawing of a pastoral scene in a single color appears on plain-woven cotton fabric. Designers strongly identify but do not limit toile du Jouy with French furnishings. You can use it in every room in any house.

  • Tree of Life: An ancient Oriental rendering of a sprawling tree, this pattern often also includes other plants and animals. You often notice the tree of life in 18th-century printed fabrics and wall coverings. It also seems very much at home in formal and dressy living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms.

  • Trellis: Garden trellises (narrow strips of wood lath joined either in a square or diamond pattern) are the basis of patterns often repeated on fabrics, wall coverings, and area rugs with and without accompanying flowers and vines. They add a sense of spatial depth, which provides a three-dimensional space-making effect that’s very liberating. This pattern is appropriate in any style of room.

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Katharine Kaye McMillan, former senior editor of a New York City-based national magazine, is a writer whose work appears regularly in magazines and newspapers. She is a contributing writer to internationally circulated Florida Design Magazine. She is the co-author of several books on decorating and design, including Sun Country Style, which is the basis for licensed signature collections of furniture and accessories by three leading American manufacturers and importers. A graduate of the University of Texas in Austin, she holds a masters degree in psychology and is a doctoral student in psychology at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida.

Patricia Hart McMillan is a nationally known interior designer, whose interior design work for private clients, designer showcases, and corporations has appeared in publications worldwide, including the New York Times and USA Today. Known as a trend spotter and for clearly articulated views on design, she is quoted frequently and extensively in both trade and consumer publications. She a ppears on TV and talk radio. A prolific writer, she is coauthor and author of seven books on interior design and decoration, with Sun Country Style signature collections of furniture based on two books. She has taught decorating courses at several colleges and conducted numerous seminars across the U.S. She is decorating editor for Christian Woman Magazine and reports on design trends for The Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune newspaper based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She has been editor-in-chief of two publications and was head of a New York City-based public relations firm representing some of the most prestigious names in home furnishing and building products. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a minor in art history (with an emphasis in architecture), from the State University of New York (New Paltz). She was awarded a certificate from The New York School of Interior Design.

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