When trying to decorate around your most prized collectibles, what is the best way to display your treasures? Great answers to this question and more from Leslie Sarmiento, author, speaker and decorator.
Humble, TX -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/13/2011 --You’re looking to update your home, but worried the sleek, modern décor you’ve chosen will clash with your extensive collection of vintage salt and pepper shakers. What to do? Trash the collection, hide it from view, or work around it?
Decorator Leslie Sarmiento tackles the challenge of helping her clients showcase their treasured collections. She disagrees with decorators who equate collections with clutter. Would you throw away a priceless Picasso collection because you’re redecorating? Certainly not. The same goes for baseball cards, piggy banks, family photographs or any accumulation of like items you’ve amassed through the years.
Our possessions are a reflection of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. Just because you’re redecorating, doesn’t mean you have to shed your identity. Leslie says the best way to ensure the home reflects the soul of its owner is to view the collection as a central part of the décor, and decorate around it.
Because every treasured knick knack deserves a place of its own, Leslie suggests collectors scale the size of the collection with the size of the space: small items on smaller shelves, bigger collections on larger and longer surfaces dedicated to showing off bigger pieces. Be proud of the posters, paintings, or photographs you’ve collected over the years; this year’s neutral -- taupe – is a great accent cover that will properly frame and show off the colors of your favorite artwork.
Leslie has seen many unusual collections in her many years of decorating and would never suggest a client dispose of any property – but would certainly recommend the right curio case or corner in which it could be displayed. “After all,” Leslie says, “interior decorating is a collaborative process between the designer and the client.”
Leslie Sarmiento, owner of Decorating Den Interiors, is the author of the Come on Over design series, a series of decorating guides, and developed The Decorating Dreambook, a project planner designed to simplify the decorating process. She has been featured many times on Fox News, is a featured writer on Yahoo, and teaches at the Lifelong Learning Center - Lonestar College in Kingwood, Texas. You can find her online at http://www.LeslieSarmiento.com.