Home Decor Tips: “Pops” of Color to Wake Up a Room

Now that spring is coming soon, our minds and hearts turn to nature’s glorious return to living color, most notably in the many fragrant flowers in bloom. Whether wild on the trees or bursting forth in your garden, these joyous plants are perfect for arranging in vases indoors. Why do we do that? Well, designers well understand the appeal of “pops” of color. It actually comes from the world of cosmetic: just the right shade of eyeshadow, lipstick, etc. Sounds like your favorite fruit treat from the ice-cream truck, doesn’t it? Well, with skillful use of home furniture and accents, you can add the same sense of childlike fun and wonder to a formerly lackluster space. Better still, your decor choices won’t wilt!

One or Two Bright Home Furniture Pieces for Optimum Pop Color

Let’s start where your visitors do in your home: the living room. Too often people are afraid to explore color possibilities here with living room furniture or home accents, fearing to appear too loud or garish. That’s where pop color comes in perfectly. Less is more! For example, accent chairs need not fade into the background in beige or earth tones. Liven things up with one or two in electric, notice-me hues from Kelly green to vivid teal to sherbet orange! These pieces then form an elegant counterpoint to the sofa and table that are most (but not all) living rooms’ centerpieces.

Colorful Bedding for Just the Right Amount of Pop

Your bedroom furniture is a canvas for self-expression with that vast underused space atop the bed itself. That goes just as much for kids’ beds. Try accent pillows and coverlets in wild colors such as magenta or lime green to add some “kick” to your boudoir’s style.

Remember, the goal is simply “pop,” not loudness. When it comes to bright home furniture and bedding to wake up your home decor, our neighbors know to come to our St. Stephens Church, VA store. You’ll love what you find!

3 Simple Ideas for Redecorating Your Living Room

Ask your neighbors how they decorated their living room and you’re bound to be bombarded with a different answer from everybody, and more than a few from a single one! Because the living room is so close to our hearts and our homes, how we furnish it directly affects how we feel when we spend time inside of it. So what could be more fun, and crucial to your happiness at home, than discussing all the creative ways you can personalize your space, on a budget that’s right for you.

Today, your neighbors at the Red Barn Furniture outlet are excited to talk to you about redecorating your living room:

Divvy Up and Decorate Your Space, Slice by Slice

Here’s a neat trick we’ve picked up over the years: decorate by layering. What do we mean by this exactly? Starting from the floor, onward to your centerpieces, curtains and accents, think of your living room as being divided into many slices and interchangeable parts. You want to make sure that each of these slices or parts has what it needs to feel comfortable, appealing, yet only as busy as it needs to be. A sure beat? An area rug, matched by an accent ottoman and sofa.

Unleash the Rainbow in Your Living Room: Colors

What’s one concept in decor that goes overlooked more than it should? How about colors and tones! While you may think you can pick out a color for your sectional sofa and call it a day, you would be mistaken. Your living room, from upholstery to coffee table to wall space, reflects a whole spectrum of color, whether you’re aware of it or not. If you want to relax at home, grab a color scheme that’s soft and monochromatic, or bold and consistent in its shades.

Accessorize to Personalize Your Space for Anyone

After all that subdividing and colorizing, your living room’s more than ready for some accessory charm. Adhering to a particular hue, keep an eye out for artwork and mementos that reflect the mood you have in mind for your living room.  Personal pieces go a long way towards reflecting a space that is uniquely you, and one where you want to entertain your family and friends.

But that’s not even the half of it. Do yourself a favor and stop by our Red Barn Furniture Outlet in Stephens Church, Virginia, to get plenty of ideas, and discounts on the best living room decor around. 

Home Decor Tips: The Living Room

Unless the recent change of seasons has caused you to hibernate in your bedroom, chances are when you’re at home you spend much of your waking time in the living room. If such is the case, you want it to look good.

You want it not only to look good for yourself but to impress guests (we want the same thing). Your house is an extension of yourself, and the way you choose to decorate it can show a lot about who you are.

Through our experience selling furniture, we’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out how to use your furniture wisely to make the spaces it occupies look the best they possibly can.

You know how they say that a picture says 1,000 words? Well, we think a living room sofa and other furniture choices do, too. In other words, your living room furniture sums up your home’s style, and if you think it’s time for an update, check out these tips to help you plan more effectively:

Trends Come and Go

Timeless, classic decor is always relevant. Get the most life out of your living room by keeping it simple and traditional. That doesn’t mean you can’t implement trendy touches in here and there—in fact, we recommend that. Just don’t go all out fully remodeling your living room to align with a style that you won’t like in two or three years. Doing so just makes the homeowner look insecure. Mixing and matching timelessness with trendiness is very tasteful if you do it right.

Keep the main pieces of the room classic—sofa, chairs, coffee table, and entertainment center. Then accessorize with things that suit your style at the moment; pillows, area rugs, items to display on the mantelpiece, candles, vases and whatever other relatively inexpensive items that can be easily replaced as your tastes shift.

Alternatively, have only real mementos and collectibles, shifting their display by theme or season: holiday, spring, etc. Store items not on display in an accent cabinet.

Use Color Wisely

Remember the relative or co-worker with the loud clothes? Colors can scream at you and your guests if you don’t choose wisely. Generally, to present a higher class statement, start your living room palette with neutral colors. Think earth tones, maroons, grays… almost the same scheme as the clothes in a finer men’s store. These not only calm the people in the room but form the perfect background for the spots of bright color you DO showcase in your living to add what designers call “pop.”

Maybe you have a gray reclining sofa with muted red pattern accent pillows, a different patterned oversize storage ottoman in an elegant neutral taupe, and a bright canary-yellow vase on the table next to them. Set that all against a pastel blue area rug.

That’s just one idea, but the options are limitless. Just keep the big stuff classic, and from there feel free to play with ways to accent them.

Of course we hope these suggestions get you started on the living room you want. That said, we understand are many different personality types, and a different style to suit each of them. Just remember: keep things generally simple and stay true to who you are. If you follow that mantra, your home will look stunning in no time. And if you need the furniture to make it happen, our St. Stephens Church, VA store is here to help.

Reinventing Your Living Room Upholstery for the Autumn Season

As the leaves slowly but surely change their colors, Mother Nature is giving us that cue again to transition into the autumn. What that means for each of us may differ, but when it comes to our homes and our living spaces, we think it should include a healthy reassessment of what we own and how we furnish the hub of the home—the living room. With so many new styles and options always making themselves available, you should take advantage of this seasonal shift to assess what’s hot and what’s not for you in the fall of 2018. 

A New Sectional Sofa from August Onward

In this seasonal perusal of your living room, it may in fact dawn on you that you need yourself a new sectional sofa. When it comes to this piece of upholstery, you can reshape the mood of the room, and your range of motion, just by carefully selecting the tones and feel of the fabric—be it plushy or leathery. Perhaps the allure of a chocolate colored sectional sofa calls to you with all of its beautiful contemporary curves; or your eye glides more gracefully along the sleek lines of a more vintage designed left-facing sectional.

Rock into the Autumn on a Power Lift Recliner

If you have a sectional sofa, but no power recliner, how much do you actually see yourself and your friends lounging in your living room? As we head into August and onward, you may want a power lift recliner that’s equal parts cool and warm, comforting you with its high-designs. Your rocker recliner can tailor itself to the rest of your living room furniture, while still retaining a clean and cozy profile. When you’re shopping with us, there’s no reason why your power recliner can’t enhance your aesthetics and maximize your comfort, courtesy of microfibers.

Your New Futon Sofa Will Carry You Comfortably

Ask around, and we guarantee you’ll hear that the futon sofa is the sexiest piece of furniture for your living room, and homes in general in 2018. Available in soft fabrics, as well as leather, any futon sofa oozes an aura of the old-school. You’ll be hard-pressed not to spend your evening on the adjustable futon—and then convert it into a makeshift bed for yourself. When the living room of your home possesses one of these classic pieces of furniture, relaxing is that much easier. 

Wherever you see an opportunity to upgrade your living room furniture, seize upon it now by visiting the Red Barn Furniture in St. Stephens Church, Virginia. Once autumn rolls around, you and your family will be thanking us. 

Motion Furniture 101: A Brief Guide for New Shoppers

While deep, stuffed upholstery rightly has a fine reputation for offering a most welcome respite for your tired body after a stressful day, motion furniture such as reclining sofas, rocker or glider reclining chairs, or power recliners offers more support, adding infinitely more value to your purchase and giving you at least a decade of wonderful service relieving achy joints. With literally hundreds of options in a showroom such as ours, and with jargon confusing to the novice motion furniture shopper, choosing the right kind of reclining sofa or chair may seem daunting but need not be. Here is our short guide to finding the right motion furniture for your needs.

Recliner or Tilt Motion?

The recliner option in motion furniture gives you a footrest and, normally, a choice of up to 3 positions: upright, “TV” midway between upright and fully open, and entirely reclined. These seats require less floor space to unfold than your tilt-back models, whose moving backs can be extended to any reclining position, so you have a trade-off between a full relaxation experience and square footage in your living room. Carefully measure the available space in your room to make your selection. Also, tilt-back chairs don’t come with footrests so you would need an ottoman.

You Have the Power!

Power lift recliners understandably cost a bit more but arguably are worth that for their versatility alone. These offer a gentler reclining motion, more possible positions, and a smooth ride back to the upright setting. Some motion furniture features power headrests to boost neck support. Manual recliners, on the other hand, are simpler so they are less likely to need servicing.

The Importance of Lumbar Support

Especially if you are nursing a chronic injury, sufficient support for your back, often in the lower part of your spine, in medical parlance the lumbar region, is essential for you to get the most out of your new motion furniture. Features to look for include adjustable lumbar support. If that region of your spine is particularly bothersome, look into a seat in which there is no gap between your lower back and the chair or sofa when you sit in it.

Gliders vs. Rockers: What’s the Difference?

Although gliders and rockers may seem virtually the same to the uninitiated, they differ significantly based on the kind of motion you prefer. The glider actually offers you a smoother “ride” because it contains a sliding mechanism attached to a sturdy base, as opposed to the rockers’ swaying motion on curved pieces at the ends of the legs.

While we at Red Barn Furniture Outlet offer you this online guide as a service, of course we hope you drop by our showroom in St. Stephens Church, VA just northeast of Aylett to sample our motion furniture models to find the sofa or chair that best makes you say “aah.”