Flower Power

I love flowers. They’re pretty, they smell good, and they can brighten up a room for just a few dollars. In fact, creative flower arrangements, artfully placed, can change the whole look of a room. A dramatic, monochromatic vertical arrangement creates a very different mood than a tight bundle of warm pink hydrangeas or a casual bunch of daisies or sunflowers. It might not be practical to fully redecorate with every mood swing, but why not share your feelings via fresh bouquet of flowers on a side table?

These are some of my favorite uses of flowers to dramatize and enhance the look of a room:

Kit Pollard

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I love this space for it's storage, color and creative use of flowers. Bright red blooms peek around a corner, adding vibrancy and excitement to an otherwise understated kitchen.

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I love this visual trick. A modern, rectangular vase nearly blends into the wall, but the lavender stalks it holds differentiate it, while softening the overall look of the kitchen.

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In this room, the flower arrangement draws the eye outside, making the landscape a part of the overall decor. The room itself is spare and modern and risks being too minimal, but the greenery outside softens the overall scheme.

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This room boasts my current favorite color combination - gray and yellow. It looks fresh and modern and I love how the flowers reflect in the mirror, doubling their effect.

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White bedrooms look so clean and fresh to me, but they do run the risk of being boring. In this case, a tight bundle of (very) bright blue hydrangeas adds interest and personality.

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Without the sophisticated flower arrangement, this room would lack interest - it would be bland. The verticality of the flowers draws the eye upward and to the left, towards the cabinet, while the two chairs on the right offer balance. In this case, no color is necessary - the simplicity is enough.

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This space is the exact opposite of the one above. The stark interior and sophisticated furniture are lightened up by fun flowers in a bright pink. I think a soft arrangment of bright tulips would also work here, making the overall look less hard and more approachable.

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With so much color in this room already, wild blooms would be overwhelming. The spare pale green of this arrangement lends some Asian simplicity to the space that tempers the bright chairs and lamp, keeping the overall look from crossing the line into overly cutesy and childlike.

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I love orange to begin with, and the way this dense, but casual tulip bouquet echoes the interior color of the shelves in the background really works for me. Since the foreground is fairly monochromatic, with a gray rug and glass table, the strong color adds vibrancy to the whole room.