Anywhere
High Gloss
The most durable and easiest to clean of all paint sheens, high-gloss paint is hard, ultra-shiny, and light-reflecting. Think appliance-paint tough.
High gloss is a good choice for area that sticky fingers touch — cabinets, trim, and doors. High-gloss, however, is too much shine for interior walls. And like a Spandex dress, high gloss shows every bump and roll, so don’t skimp on prep work.
*Practical application: kitchens, door, and window trim
*Durability: very high
Semi-Gloss
Good for rooms where moisture, drips, and grease stains challenge walls. Also great for trim work that takes a lot of abuse.
*Practical application: kitchens, bathrooms, trim, chair rails
*Durability: high
Satin
Has a yummy luster that, despite the name, is often described as velvety. It’s easy to clean, making it excellent for high-traffic areas. Its biggest flaw is it reveals application flaws, such as roller or brush strokes. Touch-ups later can be tricky.
*Practical application: family rooms, foyers, hallways, kids’ bedrooms
*Durability: high
Eggshell
Between satin and flat on the sheen (and durability) scale is eggshell, so named because it’s essentially a flat (no-shine) finish with little luster, like a chicken’s egg. Eggshell covers wall imperfections well and is a great finish for gathering spaces that don’t get a lot of bumps and scuffs.
*Practical application: dining rooms, living rooms
*Durability: medium
Flat or Matte
A friend to walls that have something to hide, flat/matte soaks up, rather than reflects, light. It has the most pigment and will provide the most coverage, which translates to time and money savings. However, it’s tough to clean without taking paint off with the grime.
*Practical application: adults’ bedrooms and other interior rooms that won’t be roughed up by kids
*Durability: medium-low
One lesson I learned is that I should have done a large sample in a corner. Paint looks very different when it reflects on itself. So, what looked like very pale yellow sampled in the middle of a wall, looked very very yellow when it was reflecting on itself. Someone suggested to me that next time I should paint the inside of a decent sized box and then put it in the middle of the room to see how the paint might look on all the walls when it’s reflecting on itself.
Dana Frieling Interiors SaveEmail The gray walls in this Austin, Texas, home are a dramatic backdrop for a nice-size fiddle leaf ficus. The tall wicker basket visually balances the top-heavy tree, and it's likely that the actual pot is propped up within the basket to give the illusion of a taller tree — a great trick to use anytime. If your style needs something a little less rustic, try using an enameled metal garbage can or a tall ceramic planter. You could fill the lower half of the pot with filler rocks or dirt before adding the plant or tree.
The best indoor palms are kentia palm (Howea forsteriana), sentry palm (Howea belmoreana), lady palm (Rhapis excelsa) and parlor palm (Chamaedorea elegans). Avoid majesty palm (Ravenea rivularis), even though it is widely sold as an indoor palm, queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) and butterfly palm (Dypsis lutescens). Most indoor palms will enjoy a steady supply of water, light fertilizer once a month and bright but indirect light. Tip: Trim off old, brown leaves once or twice a year, or as you see them appearing. The old foliage of many palms needs to be periodically removed and doesn't mean the plant is struggling
Orchids. While it’s true that these exotic flowers can be quite expensive, it is also possible to find lovely orchids at the grocery store for a reasonable price — just keep your eye out. Pot several white orchids together in a large blue and white china bowl for an elegant centerpiece that will last for months. And if you keep them through their dormant period after they finish blooming, you can have orchids again next year for free.
Logitech Harmony Ultimate Remote Control - $349.99 This new remote from Logitech uses RF instead of infrared (IR) light to communicate to a little hub that can be placed in a closed room, closet or cabinet to control your equipment. It talks to a little black puck called a hub, which sits wherever your equipment is. The hub has an IR "blaster" that sends the right IR remote control signals to control each of your devices — cable boxes, DVRs, VCRs, Blu-ray players etc.; you just program the remote on the web by selecting the models of each of the devices you own. This lets you hide all your A/V equipment, freeing you to leave your decor as technology free as you want it to be.
This is what a typical A/V closet might have in it. There's a variety of equipment, including an A/V amplifier, a Blu-ray player and several Sonos ZonePlayers. Each of those silver boxes sends a streaming audio signal to a zone made up of a unique set of speakers — perhaps the garden or the kitchen or the open dining and living room area. This way you don't have bulky A/V equipment sharing space with precious antiques and other furnishings. The white box bridges the Sonos network to a home theater system so that it can be its own audio zone when the TV is off.
Set Up Audio Zones On the audio side of hidden A/V tech, built-in speakers can almost invisibly add music throughout your house. Whether you use a wireless audio system, like one from Sonos, or a prewired system, such as those from Niles or Russound, you can set up your home with separate audio zones; kids can listen to their thing upstairs while the grownups enjoy a glass of wine and chill with ambient sounds downstairs. Particularly nice is that you can control the volume, link multiple rooms with the same music or allow people in different spaces to listen to different sources. It's a high-tech system that doesn't impede on your traditional interiors. Here you can see how ceiling speakers are used in the kitchen, adjacent dining room and adjacent family room. Since no walls divide these spaces, all three rooms are connected in one unified audio zone
Framed wallpaper - try it on a ceiling?
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