Heritage Room- continued

Here are two beautiful pictures of the Dominican Republic. Your photos or posters do not have to be simply landmarks, but anything that reminds you of home or where your family is from.

These pictures have great colors to pull from when painting your room. Since this room is dedicated to your Latin heritage, let it dictate your palette. And that doesn't have to mean a vibrant rainbow of colors, either. If I had to use these pictures, there are two palettes that I would suggest. The first would be a sunny, golden beige, as it would compliment both settings. The other would be a calmer, more subdued gray taupe- a greige. You find this tone in the two photos, as well. If the room was a yellow beige, I would use the tan gray or greige as the mat color for framing the pictures.

Now, to make these pictures the focal point of your wall, scale is very important. Scale means that you are not going to take two little 8x10 pictures and try to stick them in the center of a humongous wall and call it decorated! (You know you've got a wall like that!) Your art work should sit in the center of your wall and be at least 1/3 the size of that wall. That means, if you were to use these two pictures on a 12' wall, you would want these pictures to take up at least 4' of that space. How do you do that if they are not large enough? Kinkos or Staples or Office Max has the ability to blow up your photo to a larger or even poster size. If you have beautiful pictures such as these, don't buy art, create it from what you have. Once you have blown up your pictures, purchase a mat in your coordinating color. Save money whenever you can by going to Michaels and having your picture blown up to fit a large standard size mat and frame (then use that 40% off coupon they have in the newspaper every week or two!) Trick number #2. Let's say you are taking the good advice of your designer- ME, and getting the large stock frame and mat to save money, but they don't have the greige colored mat and you are ready to cruse at me... walk right over to the acrylic paint aisle and purchase the correct color for your mat and a foam brush (not a brush with hairs that will leave brushstrokes). Lay out some old newspaper and paint your mat the color of your choice. I do this quite often and it will save you hundreds of dollars instead of ordering a custom mat! Space these two framed pictures on the center of your wall, 1 foot apart from each other.

With such a beautiful backdrop, place a neutral beige sofa below these two pictures and accent the sofa with yellow and gray pillows. If you have gone for the gray tan walls, use a sunny beige mat and a creamy yellow or beige sofa with a yellow undertone and reverse the pillow colors. I have another example of this Latin style below.