Walls cover the biggest surface area in any room and have a massive impact. Flooring is also one of the most important elements in the home.  Walls may be the first thing we see but the floor is one of the very first things you feel when you enter a place. Our New Year’s message is simply to get your walls and floors right and then everything else will look wonderful!

Walls offer some of the easiest and most affordable ways to refresh your home and the hallway sets the scene for the rest of the house.

‘The most important rule with hallways is to keep it light and bright. Firstly, hallways generally aren’t afforded the luxury of natural light so you must increase the reflected light in the hallway as much as possible. As well as light coloured paint, add a mirror to help reflect light too. Secondly, the hallway is the first glimpse of your home that visitors will see – so make it welcoming and full of life using colours that are calm and refreshing.’  David Mottershead, MD Little Greene

AND we like to think that Alternative rugs and runners create the same magic for floors. After all a hallway without a runner can appear unwelcoming, a room without a rug unfinished.

Be inspired with our ideas and turn your interior blank canvas into little masterpieces.

• Historic Update with Alternative Flooring & Little Greene

Bring a modern edge to a traditional wallpaper design by choosing an unexpected colourway and them temper with a naturally tactile floor. The classics reinvented with a modern twist look fabulous when executed in a surprising palette.

The Little Greene Paint Company’s Wilton -Sovereign damask paper makes a grand entrance, especially where the metallic shade matches Alternative’s Gold Sisal Bubbleweave flooring.

Metallics is also one of the hot new trends both on and off the catwalk. Add just a light sheen with a statement rug or go for a floor-filling decadent carpet.

• Be creative with accent colours

Rugs and runners are an easy and versatile way to add an accent colour into more natural decorating schemes. Tutti Frutti gives a hit of colour to neutral décor, or pick out a bright streak from the stripes and paint your wall in citrus brights. We are mad for Marigold! And thanks to Grand Designs for blowing Little Greene’s Trumpet (Feb issue p.18)

You can also paint or paper an accent wall in a dramatic colour or print and highlight this shade in a rug and accessories.

Use wallpaper in the same way and limit bold wallpaper to one wall to get the look without being overwhelmed and then tone down a zingy design with a big, naturally textured floor.

•  Monochrome update with Alternative Flooring & Little Greene

An elegant black and white mix makes a timeless scheme, but bring bang up-to-date with a single blast of bright neon colour.

• Elegant outlines

Paint architectural detailing to break up large wall areas and do the same on the floor – make your own rug with and outline with a border. Paint pretend panels to create a whole new surface to play with without altering the bricks and mortar.

• Catwalk

Take a cue from catwalks and follow the colour blocking trend. Bold blocks of colour on walls can work the same ways a rugs on floors  – to give structure to a room, make a design statement and create focus.

• Graduating Stripes with Alternative Flooring & Little Greene

Paint horizontal stripes to make a design statement or graduate colours with wider bands from the bottom up to increase feeling of height. And then let the imagination run wild with a striped runner!

If you’re not following Alternative Flooring on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram now might just be the moment.

Take a look and don’t miss our January Facebook competition to transform your hallway and makea fresh entrance for 2014!

ENTER HERE! 

Make joining the Alternative Community your New Year’s resolution

JOIN HERE!