Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Home & Garden Finishing Touches

You've completed all of your big projects, but you're not finished yet…

Once you've completed all your big projects, your house may look beautiful, but it still lacks a personality.

• You can give your house a personality by accessorizing the interior and by adding family pictures, specialty lights, and other decorations.
• Only after your house has been given a personality does it truly become a home.

Just as with your wardrobe, your home will look better – if it is properly accessorized. In short, accessories are those items that serve to accent and adorn your home.

You have at your disposal a variety items that you can use to accessorize your home, such as:

• Antique items, such as toys and tins
• Boxes and baskets
• Candles
• Clocks
• Flowers and Plants
• Indoor Fountains
• Mobiles
• Mirrors
• Paintings
• Rugs
• Sculpture
• Tableware
• Tapestries

The only limit to the items that you can use to accessorize your home with is your own imagination.

When accessorizing your home, use items that compliment your decor and which serve to add color and life to your home. Try to use items that say something about yourself.

Your goal is to make your home unique and to infuse it with a sense of your own being. For example,

• If you are a collector, accessorize your home with items from your collection.
• Alternatively, you can accessorize your home with items of a personal, religious, or ethnic importance.

Lighting is both a finishing touch and an accessory.

• The lamps and fixtures that you use to illuminate your home can, in their own right, be works of art or interesting features. As such, they can be used to accessorize and enhance your overall decor.

Lighting serves as a finishing touch in two ways. First, on a practical level, it provides you with light. However, in the larger scheme, lighting is also a decorative element. This is influenced by:

• How you direct the light, such as by spotlighting an object.
• The color and style of bulbs.
• Types of fixtures used. For example, lamps, chandeliers, track lighting, or recessed lights.

Another important, but often overlooked finishing touch is the hardware used on cabinets, drawers, and doors.

• Hardware is akin to the buttons on a blouse. Technically, they are there for a practical purpose, but they also affect the appearance of the blouse.

While brass and stainless steel are common choices for hardware materials, there are also many other options available. For instance, you can get hardware made out of:

• Porcelain
• Gold
• Crystal
• Character shaped knobs and pulls (such as clown-head drawer pulls for use in a child's room.
• Antique hardware, both real and reproductions, are available in a range of styles including Colonial, Renaissance, and Victorian.

By varying the styles of hardware used throughout the home, you help give each individual room its own 'feel'.