Reds, pinks and even periwinkles are all the rage and the bigger and bolder, the better. When shopping for the best furniture Chicago offers, step out of your comfort zone and try out a new colorful piece. Many designers and furniture makers are using rooms full of color these days, according to stylists at HGTV.

If bold-colored furniture pieces seem too wild for you, try starting with one piece as an accent for your room. Color as a background is becoming more of a norm in decorating. No more beige sofas with brightly-colored throw pillows – now the sofa is bright and the pillows are a coordinating bold color.

Your Chicago furniture dealer has some colorful choices in the showroom and can custom design any pattern or color you choose. Even traditional natural-finished woods are receiving a splash of color. Several wood furniture makers are opting to let buyers choose the color or finish rather than offer only a limited choice of “natural wood finishes”.

Red is definitely proving to be the hot color, but if you have other preferences they are certainly available. This color trend is just one more way you can express your personal style – only on a larger scale. There are so many choices for buyers of some of the best furniture Chicago has to offer. As such,  you might want to have a good idea of your color preferences and personal style before you visit a showroom. That could prevent you from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices.

So don’t be afraid of color – it can be your best friend when furniture shopping and decorating your room. When you visit your Chicago furniture dealer’s showroom, don’t rule out bold choices and out-of-the-box pieces. Try something new and add some color to your home – and your life.

You want your office, whether it’s at home or actually at the office, to be a reflection of who you are. It also needs to be functional, and professional to some extent. Your Chicago office furniture dealer can help you find a way to achieve all this at once and create a modern office in the process.

“Modern” does not mean it has to be contemporary in style, just that it incorporates all the functional items and technology that you need to be successful. When you visit your Chicago furniture dealer, have an idea of the style you want to create. Are you leaning more toward a traditional study with wood and muted colors or are you looking for something fun and colorful with geometric shapes and lots of light.

In choosing the pieces you want to incorporate, think about how much storage space you need, what type of work area will be the most efficient and how the furniture might be positioned so you can easily access what you need.

Forget those ugly metal file cabinets. You can hide your files in a beautiful credenza, display your art on a pedestal or even order custom pieces for your specific needs. Use a unique divider screen as a “bulletin board” or to display honors and awards. Your Chicago furniture dealer will help you incorporate your ideas into your dream office space.

There are materials that can help reflect your personal style – your desk doesn’t have to be oak or mahogany, glass and steel. You can choose from materials like brightly-colored plexi-glass or Lucite and you can even get them in geometric shapes.

Chicago office furniture buyers want to find something unique and by browsing catalogs and websites before you shop you can get a much better idea of what will work for you.

Whether you have a small home or a small space within your home that you just can’t seem to arrange and decorate exactly right, these tips from your Chicago Illinois furniture retailer will help you make the most of your small space.

To stretch your small space there are a few things you can do. Start by getting rid of the clutter. You’ve probably heard this advice before, but it really will give you a clean slate to work with and make a difference in how the space feels.

Consider softer, lighter colors for walls and fabrics. This will give an open feel to the room and colors from nature, like green and blue, can take this a step further. Your Chicago furniture dealer can help you choose a color palette that can enhance your small space.

Keeping the palette in one family of colors will help bring the room together and create a flow. Carry your colors from wall to furniture, with varying shade or hues in the same color family.

Shed some light on things by adding sheer curtains or shades that can open easily. Replace heavy or dark drapes with lighter colors and fabrics. If you lack natural light, add some soft accent lamps around the space. Chicago Illinois furniture store decorators have many options in lighting they can share with you.

When you visit your Chicago furniture dealer, take note of how the display rooms are arranged, with a clear path into the room. You want to offer an open invitation into your space so the size won’t seem like such an issue. Using shorter, smaller pieces near the entrance and keeping taller pieces back toward the walls will help open the space.

When you are a guest you want to feel welcomed and pampered, so why would you want any less for guests in your own home? You don’t of course! You want to provide a haven where they will feel like they are visiting a five-star hotel, regardless of the purpose of their visit.

Your Chicago furniture dealer can help you achieve a guest oasis in the midst of your home, no matter how chaotic is seems to be most of the time. If you truly have a dedicated guest room it is set aside for guests and ready at all times. It is not a catch-all for items you can’t decide what to do with or a repository for all your old furniture.

Your guest room must be clean, smell fresh (not like cleaning solution) and look inviting. It should be somewhere you would love to stay if you were away from home. When shopping at your best furniture Chicago retailer bring in your chosen color palette and some style ideas and let the designers assist you in preparing your guest paradise.

You don’t have to spend a lot. Some basic yet comfortable bedroom pieces, including a comfortable chair for reading or watching television mixed with some interesting pieces you already own can create the effect of being in an upscale hotel. Chicago furniture dealers will help you decide the scale and number of pieces to best meet the needs of your guests.

After shopping for the best furniture in Chicago for the key pieces, be sure to clean out the closets and buy some quality linens for your guests. Then don’t forget the posh and thoughtful touches: a basket of towels and soaps on the bed, some chocolates or mints on the pillow, and reading material, including some literature on local sites or events.

Attention-getting colors, large blocks of color and bold, bold, bold are the bedding trends we are seeing this year and they are the perfect compliment to the sleek, understated bedroom furniture that has become the rage.

Silks, cottons, or even fabrics with more texture like wool and organza find their way into bed coverings for the savvy sleeper. Whether you want something to wow the eyes or prefer bedding that is all snuggle and comfort, there is a bold pattern and a perfect color waiting for you.

Although trends come and go, as bold stripes in bedding will someday, your Chicago furniture dealer is here to stay with a custom design for any style of home and the perfect bed to match that gorgeous ensemble you saw in the downtown window and plan to build the entire bedroom around.

Whether it’s a soft, natural layered look that requires graceful lines in the accent pieces and a feminine headboard or bold, geometric stripes that call for contemporary lines and metallic accents, the dealers of the best furniture Chicago offers will have exactly what you need.

Leathers and plastics are even showing up as bedding accents – and what better way to bring in some texture and connect to your western Victorian or ultra-modern bedroom pieces. Chicago furniture dealers are happy to help you select any portion of your room décor and will gladly help you choose the perfect bed to cover with your ideal bedding set.

So when shopping for the best furniture Chicago has to pamper yourself in a bedroom oasis, keep in mind that custom means the professional staff will work to find exactly your style and to coordinate with any existing pieces or ideas you have.

We’ve downsized a lot since the Big 80s – cars, hair and many other things have been minimized. In the last decade furniture has begun to follow that trend as well. With the baby boomers retiring to smaller quarters, young professionals gravitating to smaller urban apartments and some of us just trying to save money by downsizing out homes, the need for slimmer furniture is at its peak.

Chicago, Illinois furniture retailers have noted and met this demand for smaller profiles in chairs and shorter sofas. Small-scale furnishings may not be in the majority but they certainly have their place in the decorating market.

Manufacturers and designers don’t limit their selections to seating; tables, beds and other functional pieces are being scaled down to fit into consumers’ homes. Your Chicago furniture dealer will likely have a slimmer version of what you now own if you need to save on space. Just don’t expect the price to be scaled down as well. Most pieces run about the same cost-wise as their larger siblings.

Rooms are getting smaller as well. The high ceilings and open spaces – such as the “great room” – so popular in the last decade are slowly giving way to smaller “purposed” rooms. Media rooms, offices, even crafting or scrapbooking rooms are showing up in today’s homes. Chicago, Illinois furniture buyers are looking for smaller pieces to be in synch with their smaller spaces.

So for those who have noticed their floor plans being a bit crowded, visit the designers at your custom furniture store in Chicago, Walter E. Smithe, for assistance finding pieces to perfect scale for your lifestyle. Whether you need to swap out the high-backed dining chairs for something lower or trade your eight-foot sofa for one a half foot shorter, they have the resources and ideas to make your floor plan work.

Whether you’re red or blue or just plain red, white and blue, campaign furniture may be just the unique touch you need to complete a historic look or spark a conversation. Your Chicago furniture dealer, without getting too political, wants to offer you the opportunity to bring a piece of history, or at least a replica of it, into your home.

If you’re not familiar with campaign furniture, let me enlighten you a bit. It really has nothing to do with politics, except so far as war and politics go together. Campaign furniture is actually thousands of years old, possibly invented by the Romans. About three hundred years ago the English decided it would be elegant, if not practical, to use in some of their war campaigns as the British attempted to conquer the world.

Now campaign furniture is among the best furniture Chicago buyers can find with historical significance. These campaign pieces were designed for easy travel. They could fold up or be dismantled to pack into the hold of a ship or the back of a horse cart.  Tables, chairs, desks, beds – almost anything a master carpenter could dream up and assemble without nails or screws might find its way into the tent of a high-ranking officer or ambassador.

Sometimes known as “knockdown furniture”, campaign pieces were very portable and took little time to set up. You might visit a Chicago furniture dealer to add one of these pieces to your décor as a novelty, but they can be useful as well as being a showpiece.

If may be difficult to picture a fancy wooden piece in the tents of our modern warfare, but we have to remember that the British liked to do things in style and the Romans did everything on a grand scale. We can just thank them for providing us with a novel decorating idea.

Buyers of the best furniture Chicago retailers offer are fortunate to be using these pieces as décor and not small comforts as they trek far from home on dangerous missions. Of course, we can choose to furnish an entire room with campaign pieces and never have to worry about breaking them down before the enemy advances or packing them into a cart for transport.

Most of the pieces were made of stronger woods like teak of mahogany, which could survive various climates, harsh travel conditions and insects. For us, these are just beautiful woods reminiscent of a bygone era.

Some antique campaign furniture never made it to the campaign. Some was just designed for country homes which were not used year-round. One very eccentric Roman emperor even had parquet flooring constructed and laid out in his tent. Those were the days . . . .

Accent tables may not be the first thing you shop for to furnish a room, but they can certainly be the finishing touch and provide a hint of your personal style or even a touch of whimsy.

Your Chicago furniture dealer can offer you styles of accent table in a variety of styles and materials. If you prefer a classic or traditional style, wooden and detailed may fit in your décor. Those with a more modern or even a retro preference might look to metal or even acrylic in flowing shapes or transparent designs.

The fun part about the accent table it that it is what the name implies – an accent. This does not have to be a functional piece, but it might as well be. Why not perch a lamp or basket on top or fan your favorite decorating magazines across the surface? Buyers of Chicago furniture modern styles will appreciate the freedom in decorating that accent tables provide.

The accent should be on your personal style. If you are eclectic or eccentric you may want to mix in a few existing pieces or flea market finds with your purchased tables. A stack of antique hat boxes, an old steamer trunk, a brightly-painted milk can or any other fun items that can stand on their own can be pressed into service as an accent table. Chicago furniture dealers have many choices and ideas on how to best use accent tables to maximize your room space and personal style.

Retailers with Chicago furniture modern pieces also carry items made from repurposed and recycled materials which add a point of interest to a room. Many of these pieces are unique and unusual, so can become a conversation focal point in your décor.

I’m in the middle of a mini-bathroom makeover due to a leaky shower. My parents are getting ready to renovate two bathrooms. Let’s be honest: we all want more from our bathrooms today than strict functionality. We want them to be fashionable, comfortable retreats which reflect out personal style as much as the rest of our home. Although you might not think about actual furniture in the bathroom, your Chicago furniture dealer has many suitable pieces.

When you prepare for a bathroom makeover the first thing to do is pad your budget. That’s because Murphy’s Law always applies to home renovation and bathroom renovation in particular.

I lived through a major bathroom renovation in my last house and it cost about twice as much as we thought it would. But the addition of a large custom closet for my clothing, a laundry closet and a Jacuzzi tub were well worth the mess and the stress! You know where to find the best furniture Chicago has to offer. Now do yourself a favor and find out where the best deals in fixtures are as well.

A few dollars can be saved if you do your own demo work, and, of course, you can save a bundle doing the entire project yourself. But that takes some knowledge and experience. Consider the possibility that you may encounter mold or water damage when you begin the demolition. This can add to your rebuilding cost.

Ventures into plumbing and electric work are best left to professionals. If you happen to have some licensed friends who owe you a favor, by all means give them a call! Other tasks like tiling and drywall can been done by the homeowner, but for a finished look I recommend a lesson. Many home improvement stores offer free workshops on these types of renovations.

With a bathroom space, your layout may be pretty well set, so think about smaller changes you can make such as cabinet and sink styles or how best to use the wall space. Well-placed outlets and good lighting and ventilation also should be discussed at the outset. Designers of the best furniture in Chicago can give you advice on room layout.

If it’s storage space you need, look at how you can work it into wall cabinets, closets or a vanity. Your Chicago furniture dealer will have ideas and samples of furniture-style sink stands and vanities you might want to incorporate. Make a mini-mock-up of the space – or better yet, a life-sized model out of appliance boxes. A friend advised me to do this before our first renovation and I was surprised at the difference in the real space and what I had pictured in my mind.

Keep in mind that even a small bathroom space can easily cost $4,000-5,000 to renovate. You may want to do the basic necessities and add in the niceties a bit at a time as your budget allows. As with any home project, choose something you like and that fits with your lifestyle. A bathroom is not as easy to trade out as a sofa.

The air is warmer and the sun in streaming through the window – highlighting the dust motes in the air and the grime on the outer window pane. It’s definitely time for spring cleaning. The problem is the actual cleaning doesn’t usually provide the emotional satisfaction we need. Chicago contemporary furniture dealers have many pieces and designs to help you make a change for spring.

The drive to freshen and update our décor, bring in a lighter color or new accessory or just make any kind of change is almost unavoidable this time of year. A small change like finding ways to let in natural light or trying out a fresh paint color can give you the sense of renewal you crave. If it’s drastic change you seek, there are many places to find ideas and advice on total room or home makeovers. Your Chicago furniture dealer can offer many ideas or help turn your own ideas into reality.

The Whole Living channel is presenting renovations segments at 11 a.m. Mondays through the month of April. It can be found at Sirius 112 and XM157. Your favorite magazine can be the perfect place to pick up spring redecorating ideas. Sometimes just looking at the cover is an inspiration. Buyers of Chicago contemporary furniture also may want to look at trends online.

Retaining your personal style and comfort is key in creating a welcoming and stylish home. The radio segments of Whole Living will address how to create a balance of all these aspects. Once you have a fresh idea, visit your Chicago furniture dealer for help in bringing it to life.