Tones and lighting in painting interior designing and decoration

PRECEDING SPREAD
To get a look reminiscent of a spa, opt for natural tones and soft lighting. The lights above the bed are on a dimmer, an inexpensive device that lets you control the mood of a room. I recommend putting dimmer switches on almost every lamp and overhead light so you always have control over a room’s brightness.
Lighting the Way
The panels have fibers running through them that give the illusion of texture, but because they’re “swimming” in a polymer, the fibers don’t collect dust the way some- thing with real texture, like a tapestry, does. To give the resin a glow and cause the fibers to pop, I placed small directional lights above the panels, just as if I was showing off a painting. Certain types of lamps can also add warm radiance to a room and, if you have any interest in do-it- yourself projects, lamps are especially easy to make. Plus, you can turn all kinds of unconventional objects into lampshades: the lights flanking Patricia’s bed were created out of Chinese neck pillows, which look like curved wicker baskets.
Because they’re flammable, I had to use low-wattage bulbs (don’t try this at home with halogen bulbs the lamps will catch fire, and that’s not good!), but that wasn’t a problem: The low lights enhanced the peaceful atmosphere of the room. It’s also easy to make a lamp with wood veneer as a shade. It’s simply a matter of constructing a base out of a couple sticks of wood, then shaping a strip of veneer into a circle, and gluing it together.
The light bulb illuminates the grain of the veneer, and your simple lamp becomes a thing of beauty. 1 Luxury and elegance are not two words you’d usually associate with me (it’s okay; I know I’m a down-home kind of guy), but I can rise to the occasion. In fact, because I’ve traveled so much and spent many nights in hotel rooms, I’ve gotten to know more about luxury and elegance than I ever dreamed possible. (I’ve also gotten to know more about crummy motel rooms than I’ve ever dreamed possible, but that’s another story.)
The headboard was designed to echo the pattern on the bedding, a beaded design in my line for Sears called “Origami.” Next to the bed, cylindrical hanging lights take the place of traditional table lamps, freeing up the bedside tables for books (and all the other stuff that inevitably creeps onto them). The crunchy sisal rug under the bed provides a nice contrast to the bed’s glossy finish. The wallpaper chosen for this room reminded me of the gardenias in the yard. BOTTOM If you’re going to make a bed yourself, choose wood with a beautiful grain. This headboard is made from teak carved using a routing machine.   I’m partial to adding strips of color to beds. Here it’s beaded bands of dusty green at the foot and on the pillows.
Then I was presented with the task of designing a room for Bruce and Paulita Lewis, a California couple dealing with a tremendous amount of hardship, I wanted to capture the feel of a chic hotel room. Paulita was battling stage IV cancer and she really needed a clean, serene, and beautiful place to recover from her grueling treatments. Ultimately, Paulita passed away but I hope that by creating a beautiful room with an air-cleansing HEPA filter, we helped extend her life a little bit. Paulita definitely deserved some indulgences. After a remodel of their home went sour, Bruce and Paulita along with their two children (and the most massive cat I have ever seen-that thing was the size of a toddler) were all living in a small room in Bruce’s mother’s apartment. Not only was the work on their house shoddy-rain eventually caved in the roof-but also the contractor left town with $40,000 of the family’s money.