Tips on Selecting the Perfect Dining Room Furniture

WALTHAM, MASS. – March 24, 2008 – Whether you’re seeking to upgrade your dining room to add elegance when entertaining your friends, or to cozy up your family dinner hours, FurnitureFind.com's lead Design Consultant, Davis Remignanti offers these practical steps to ensure that your dining room furniture will rise to the occasion:

• Sturdy Support: Choosing between dining tables with legs or a pedestal base? Pedestal tables can fit additional chairs more easily than most leg tables. However, leg tables tend to be more stable and less likely to tip if something heavy is placed near the edge. Regardless of style, avoid a tight fit when every chair is occupied, by measuring your room before buying a new table.
• Please Be Seated: When selecting dining chairs, look for good back support and strong arms. These features will not only provide comfort, but will help ensure that guests will want to linger over coffee and dessert!
• Up with Upholstery: Add a dash of color and soften the "serious" look of all-wood dining suites with fully upholstered chairs. They come in a wide range of styles, but perhaps the most versatile is the elegant Parsons Chair, which can double as accent seating when needed.
• Accessorize the Look: If space allows, enhance your room with accessory furniture. Add an opportunity to show off your collectibles in a curio cabinet, or contribute both style and storage to the space with a sideboard buffet.
• Through the Looking Glass: They look elegant, but glass top dining tables can require more cleaning to keep the fingerprints at bay. If you like the look, it’s a trade-off you’ll need to make.
• Show Your Style: Perhaps your dining room furniture might benefit from a little “mix-and-match” attitude. Don’t be afraid to invest in a quality dining table and combine it with an antique buffet or coordinating (but not matching) chairs.

FurnitureFind.com (http://www.furniturefind.com/) provides an excellent shopping experience for their customers every step of the way – with the largest selection of brand-new merchandise from top manufacturers at the lowest prices and service only a phone call or email away.

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Public Relations contact: Tiziani Whitmyre Inc., http://www.tizinc.com/

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Hot Home Design Trends in 2008: Bringing Glamour Back

Waltham, Mass. – December 26, 2007 – While interior design is still celebrating natural, eclectic and rough hewn materials, there has been a resurgence of chic, retro glamour, according to Davis Remignanti, Lead Design Consultant at Furniture.com (http://www.furniture.com/).

“Design trends are fascinating things to observe. They can be predictable or surprising,” he says. “The recent interest in natural materials has spawned the renewed fascination for glamorous and refined designs” in the look he calls “Luxe Redux.”

Here are highlights from Remignanti’s 2008 Design Trends report:

• The Return of Glamour - A renewed appreciation for post-Deco glamour brings refined silhouettes and finishes to the fore. The look of “Luxe Redux” features gently swept lines, strong geometric forms, and finishes that emphasize exotic veneers. “The look is glamorous but in an approachable and welcoming way.”


• Scaling Down – Exaggeratedly oversized furniture is on the way out. Manufacturers are returning to smaller scale pieces more in proportion with normal human scale.


• Scaling Up – Not everything is going small scale. “A very hot trend is large scale patterns used in fabrics and floor and wall coverings. If you’re choosing a pattern over solid colors, make it big and bold,” he advises.


• Black and White – Stylish interiors are using black and white as the main color scheme. “Using black, even as the dominant color in a room, can yield classic and refreshingly chic results. Accent colors pop strongly against a black and white backdrop.” For that reason, he advises caution to design novices. “It’s a look that can be tricky to pull off successfully.”


• Accent Colors – A “spice-inflected” palette will be the hottest look in accent colors for the coming year. He lists carnelian, flax, russet and acid green as the hottest hues, and predicts that 2008 will be the year that blue makes a strong return. He also says reflective materials like chrome, mirrors and mercury glass are important for room accents.


• Vintage in the Mix – A still-strong trend of “a la carte,” mix-and-match interiors has people combining old and new pieces in interesting ways. “Vintage pieces bring a unique energy to a room’s décor. Sometimes it can be hard to tell which pieces are old and which are new,” he says.

Remignanti counsels against the idea of “rules” for good design, but offers one piece of timeless advice. “Remember that however well put together a room may be, it’s meant to be used. If a room isn’t comfortable and inviting for those inside it, it’s a design failure, no matter how stylish it may be.”

To read Remignanti’s full report of 2008 design trends, “GlamSlam, Luxe Redux,” visit Furniture.com at http://content.furniture.com/Common/PDFs/PressRoom/2008_Design_Trends_Luxe_Redux.pdf.

About Furniture.com
Furniture.com (http://www.furniture.com/) offers consumers the best of Internet shopping by merging the convenience, accessibility and ease of online shopping with the proven infrastructure of North America’s largest furniture retailers. At Furniture.com, consumers quickly browse, compare and buy brand-name furniture and accessories, find decorating advice and product information, and utilize interactive design tools. To complete the experience, Levitz, Harlem, and RoomStore Furniture in the U.S., and Leon’s Furniture in Canada, provide customer service and fast, in-home delivery.

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Public Relations contact: Tiziani Whitmyre Inc., http://www.tizinc.com/

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Entertaining for the Holidays: Easy Tips to Refresh Your Décor

WALTHAM, MASS. – November 13, 2007 – Preparing a home for holiday entertaining needn’t require an entire season – or budget. You can easily put your house in order in just one weekend with the right approach, Davis Remignanti, Lead Design Consultant at Furniture.com (www.furniture.com).

He offers these tips to ready any home for festive gatherings of friends and family:

Start Fresh: Before beginning, take a fresh look. Have you outgrown your décor from 5, 10, or 20 years ago? Ask a trusted friend for the honest truth. Then, take action.

• Go with the Flow: Re-arrange furniture to increase floor space and allow guests freer movement. Continue your party’s theme from room to room for an uninterrupted flow to the ambiance. Use Furniture.com’s free interactive Room Planner (go to: http://www.furniture.com/Common/roomplanner) to experiment with layouts.


• Make Small Nooks for Small Talk: Create cozy conversation areas by arranging nesting tables to hold guests’ food and drinks. And after the festivities, these space-saving tables will serve a million more uses, for snacks, games, craft projects, and more.


• Don’t Crowd: Face the facts: Ten guests won’t fit around a dining table made to seat four, no matter how you try. Either upgrade to a larger table, or spread out with a more casual buffet. Or, consider a bistro-style dining set to evoke a social atmosphere. The taller-than-standard table height makes it easy for guests to serve themselves drinks, buffet dinner, or even make their own desserts!


• Mix & Mix: Matching all the furnishings within a room is design passé. Experiment. Mix sizes, scales and textures to give your rooms a unique – rather than a retail showroom – style.


• Create Walls of Inspiration: Give the walls a fresh new color, border, or mix of textures for visual interest. Express who you are with a new piece of artwork that encourages conversation. The most harmonious arrangements take cues from the room. For instance, try hanging pictures in a rolling up and down grouping over a camelback sofa.


• Add Color: A little bit of color can go a long way. Bright accent pillows, bold frames and coordinated candles in decorative candleholders can make a dull or sterile room more attractive and welcoming.


• Light Up Your Life: Bring a new look to a room by updating the lighting. Coordinate the look by making sure lamp heights are equal throughout, and all have the same color shade.


• Accessorize, Accessorize, Accessorize: Arrange accessories symmetrically for a formal look, or asymmetrically to get creative. Highlight a special item by placing it against a contrasting surface. Reflect the seasons and bring nature indoors with arrangements of leaves, stones and fresh flowers.


• Don’t Stress: Forget perfection. Anything “out of place” makes a home more cozy and charming. Go for what feels right. It’s your house – above all else, enjoy the party.

About Furniture.com
Furniture.com (http://www.furniture.com/) offers consumers the best of Internet shopping by merging the convenience, accessibility and ease of online shopping with the proven infrastructure of North America’s largest furniture retailers. At Furniture.com, consumers quickly browse, compare and buy brand-name furniture and accessories, find decorating advice and product information, and utilize interactive design tools. To complete the experience, Levitz, Harlem, and RoomStore Furniture in the U.S., and Leon’s Furniture in Canada, provide customer service and fast, in-home delivery.

# # #

Public Relations contact: Tiziani Whitmyre Inc., http://www.tizinc.com/

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Technorati tags: furniture.com, home design, home decorator, interior design, holidays, entertaining, furniture, furnishing, home , decorate