Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with furnishings

House Style

dreamphone — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:35:40 -0800

What style do we like for house accessories and furnishings? And what styles are there, for that matter? In selecting accesories and furnishings for our 50-year-old cape house, we’ve found ourselves needing to select small-scale accessories (like towel bars for the bathrooms, doorknobs for the downstairs rooms, and the like) and large scale (kitchen tables, couches, kitchen cabinets). Problem is, we don’t have an overarching “vision” of what our house will look like or what style will predominate, so we often end up selecting items that are pretty generic so that the items don’t clash with a style established later on down the line sometime. I’m worried that this is going to leave us with a bland, boring house decor. My idea for how to remedy this is to select a few styles that we really like, which will not only guide us in choices large and small, but will also enable us to select items that are more distinctive, without the fear that they will clash.

So, what styles are there out there? Ideally, I’d love to find some kind of illustrated resource that displays many current house furnishing styles with sample couches, tables, bathroom fixtures, lighting, and so on. (I’ve done a lot of catalog browsing, but it hasn’t yielded a cohesive enough picture for me. I really want something that lays it out in clear terms.) Google inquiries for “house styles,” reasonably but unhelpfully, return results for style guides for editors.

Seattle style in an NYC Apartment?

lorrer — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:38:34 -0800

Help my NYC apartment feel more like a Seattle home. I'm still in the process of furnishing my apartment - a year after moving in. I don't have a whole lot of time to spend, and I've realized after many attempts at decorating that I like a natural/outdoorsy/relaxed feel, but not particularly rustic and not at all "country." Naturally, I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I feel in tune with homes along the lines of the ones pictured here. But, I left the Seattle area well before furnishing a home was remotely a consideration, and have no idea where to look for ideas on how to make a space that I can feel connected with (other than the magazine I linked to, which I just found via random google searching). I'm living in Brooklyn and have trees outside all of my windows, which helps, but I still miss the misty days, miss the theme of oversized (by comparison) windows and nature-grounded art, and miss the constant nice smell of greenery and fresh rain that I enjoyed growing up.

I'd like any resources on home decor or design that will help give my NYC apartment the natural feel of a home in the San Juans, or, failing that, the East Side :). Any tips for magazines, websites, or promising stores in NYC or non-time-intensive projects I could do would be fantastic. I'd also love any recommendations for indoor plants that are easy maintenance and would give off a pleasant evergreen smell, or otherwise help make the apartment smell earthy/plantlike (not like flowers or cooking herbs).

Looking for style at home in Vancouver

phoenixc — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:27:50 -0800

Vancouver.filter: I'm in Vancouver for a week and was wondering if there are any neighbourhoods that have a concentration of shops that sell home accessories, linens and furnishings - much like the stretch of blocks along Toronto's King East, Queen West West and Queen East neighbourhoods. I'm looking more for home accessories that I can bring back with me to Toronto at the end of the week, although I also can't resist browsing furniture shops. My taste is pretty broad - my current hit list includes the Montauk Scroll, clear glass coffee tables, Saarinen pedestal tables and pretty home accessories a la Anthropologie.

Sit different

ldenneau — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:35:47 -0800

Where can I get one of those ball chairs like they have in the Apple Store? My kid loves em. Tried looking, got as far as the Baleri Italia web site and its user-hating Flash interface (they're in the "tato collection"). Anybody on the west coast carry them or a less expensive knockoff?

light bulb blowout

mono blanco — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:58:41 -0800

How do I fix a light fixture which causes a bulb to blow out, but only after a month or so? I have a light fixture, a ceiling chandelier, which takes six 60-watt light bulbs, ordinary screw-in bulbs. One of the lights keeps blowing out. Not immediately but after a few weeks or a month. Andd once or twice it happened when I flick on the switch. The other five light sockets seem to be fine. I can understand if I had an immediate short circuit that blew out the bulb as soon as I turn on the swtich. But what could be causing this problem of substantially shorter life?

Sisal Rug Maintenance

bevedog — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:21:02 -0800

My wife and I are thinking of buying a sisal or seagrass rug from Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrell or one of those places. I like the way they look brand new, but am worried about how it would wear. Are they easy to clean? How do you clean it--you can't vacuum it, can you? Will the cat shred it within 24 hours?

Foam "Bean Bags"

benjh — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 09:32:45 -0800

When I was on Dallas on business last month, I saw these, which seem to a be a pile of memory-foam like substance, wrapped in cloth. Though it was comfortable, it seemed a bit pricey for what it was. Anyone seen anything similar, or know where I could find that foam that's inside to make my own?