Home Makeover Interior designing and decoration tips

So Eric moved from Montana to Idaho and took on the job of parenting his niece and nephew. They’d been living with their mom in a dilapidated trailer and, while Eric moved them out of there quickly, he couldn’t do much better. He could only afford a “berm house,” a partially underground basement type structure. They were all living there (along with all the spiders and other bugs taking shelter in the house) when we came along and built them a brand- new house. Eric is this awesome guy who really stepped up to the plate when the kids had no one else to turn to, and I thought his new living room should reflect the “grown-up” decision he made. While I didn’t want to make the room too serious-or forget that two kids were going to be hanging out in there- I wanted to make it look like it belonged to a mature adult. And, as Eric proved, he is definitely an adult.
Unlike most rooms I do, this one didn’t have any big hits of color. There’s still pop-for instance, the white pottery pops off the wood and the dark furniture pops off the lightly colored floor-but the room is for the most part subdued. Yet it’s not dreary. One reason is that the materials used in this room have a very natural feel. The rich dark wood furniture and blond flooring used as a wall covering make the room feel as earthy as the Idaho terrain outside its doors. We also brought in other natural elements like tree branches, sculptures in organic forms, lightly tinted landscape photos, and even a small tree. One rule of thumb to remember when you’re doing a room in neutrals is to vary the tones or risk ending up with a dull space.