The Interior Design Handbook Quotes

“Do you prefer light wood or dark wood? Do you like warm or cold metals (chrome, silver, pewter, brass, or copper)? Do you enjoy natural materials or powder-coated finishes?”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“20 to 24 inches (50 to 60 cm) is a reasonable space to leave for a passageway.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Assuming the sofa is of standard height, a good height for the coffee table is 16 inches (40 cm). There should be about 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 cm) between the edge of the sofa and the table, so that sitting down is not a problem, but the table has to be close enough to allow a newspaper or coffee cup to be put down without the need to stand up or stretch too far.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“A coffee table should not be more than two-thirds the length of the sofa.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“A sofa should not take up more than two-thirds of the wall it sits against. Anything more than that and the room will feel overfurnished.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“The work surface between the sink and the oven should be between 32 and 47 inches (80 and 120 cm) wide.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“I read somewhere that “the hall is the gateway between the home and the outer world,” and if that is so, it’s vital that it should not be a bottleneck.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” —Benjamin”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Put up open shelving on the unit behind the toilet. Use the back of the door for hooks on which to hang bath towels and robes, or put up a hook rack instead of hooks, using the holes already drilled in the tiles.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“I haven’t yet come across a bathroom that isn’t improved by a bigger mirror over the sink.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Since halls are often quite constricted and include several doors, I usually recommend long, narrow, smooth rugs that don’t add much height and don’t collect dirt and grit.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“If you are afraid of food being trodden in under the kitchen table, you obviously shouldn’t tempt fate by putting a long-pile rug there—better to choose a naturally resistant, flat-weave woolen rug.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“North-Facing Windows: Cool and Shady Choose… green, nonflowering plants and plants with large, soft leaves. Plants whose natural habitat is on the ground are suitable here, as they need less in the way of light and are more likely to survive in a north-facing window.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“To decide on the length of rod you need and how high to attach it, you need to measure the width of your window from one outer edge of the frame to the other and then add at least 4 inches (10 cm) to each side.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“You are more likely to create harmony if you go for a few large objects rather than many small knickknacks.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“How high should you hang your pictures? American interior designers often say that “57 inches to the center” is the rule of thumb for hanging pictures.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Standing a table lamp on the TV console adds some coziness to the room, and setting a midlevel lamp close to the TV also helps to dull the sharp contrast between a very bright TV and a dark room.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Fowl Ceiling lights Flush lights Track lighting Recessed lighting Pendant lamps Something in Between Floor and reading lamps Table lamps on taller bureaus and sideboards Clamp spotlights on the bookcase Picture lights Spotlights with the light directed at walls or works of art Pendant window lamps Fish Low lamps standing on the windowsill Candles and votives on the side tables Low floor lamps Spotlights inset in the floor LED strings on the baseboards or in window recesses”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“If you do decide on a pendant lamp in the hall, make sure it isn’t open at the bottom end, as that can lead to glare. Choose a model that filters the downward light.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“the lampshade prevents the beam of light from covering the whole surface. And if you do hang a number of lamps in a line, the usual rule of thumb is to leave one and a half times the width of the lampshade between each of them.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“The principle is the same when planning a kitchen island or breakfast bar with seating, even though the work surface in this case will be farther from the floor than a standard tabletop. Having more than one pendant light is a good idea if the size”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Over the kitchen table, interior architects usually agree on a vertical height of 20 to 24 inches (50 to 60 cm) above the tabletop, though the particular light fixture and the height of family members also play a part.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“General lighting / cleaning lighting: A ceiling lamp or light fixture that spreads ambient light over the whole room. Work lighting / task lighting: A reading lamp by the armchair or sofa; lighting over work surfaces in the kitchen; a desk lamp. Spot lighting: Accent lighting or spotlights directed at a wall of pictures, a work of art, a bookcase, or shadow play on the wall. Atmospheric lighting / decorative lighting: Mood lighting, dimmable small lamps, string lights, candles.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“In terms of lighting, a good start is to plan on every room having at least five to seven lighting points, though some people recommend between seven and nine.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“A rough comparison might be the distribution of colors when someone is wearing a suit: 60 percent comprises the jacket, pants, and vest. 30 percent is the shirt. 10 percent is the tie and pocket handkerchief.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“1930s Functionalism/Modernism Exterior •Facade: Cube shapes and light-color plaster facades, or thin, standing wood panels. •Roof: Flat roof, sometimes clad in copper or sheet metal. •Windows: Long horizontal window bands often with narrow—or no—architraves; large panes of glass without mullions or transoms. Emphasis on the horizontal rather than on the vertical. Windows run around corners to allow more light and to demonstrate the new possibilities of construction and materials. •Outside door: Wooden door with circular glass window. •Typical period details: Houses positioned on plots to allow maximum access to daylight. Curving balconies, often running around the corner; corrugated-iron balcony frontage. Balcony flooring and fixings left visible. The lines of the building are emphasized. Interior •Floors: Parquet flooring in various patterns, tongue-and-groove floorboards, or linoleum. •Interior doors: Sliding doors and flush doors of lamella construction (vaulted, with a crisscross pattern). Masonite had a breakthrough. •Door handles: Black Bakelite, wood, or chrome. •Fireplaces: Slightly curved, brick/stone built. Light-color cement. •Wallpaper/walls: Smooth internal walls and light wallpapers, or mural wallpaper that from a distance resembled a rough, plastered wall. Internal wall and woodwork were light in color but rarely completely white—often muted pastel shades. •Furniture: Functionalism, Bauhaus, and International style influences. Tubular metal furniture, linear forms. Bakelite, chrome, stainless steel, colored glass. •Bathroom: Bathrooms were simple and had most of today’s features. External pipework. Usually smooth white tiles on the walls or painted plywood. Black-and-white chessboard floor. Lavatories with low cisterns were introduced. •Kitchen: Flush cupboard doors with a slightly rounded profile. The doors were partial insets so that only about a third of the thickness was visible on the outside—this gave them a light look and feel. Metal-sprung door latches, simple knobs, metal cup handles on drawers. Wall cabinets went to ceiling height but had a bottom section with smaller or sliding doors. Storage racks with glass containers for dry goods such as salt and flour became popular. Air vents were provided to deal with cooking smells.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“storage expert Lu Wei calls the “2:8 principle,” the idea being that the “visual noise” of a home can be minimized by allowing only 20 percent of your things to be visible and putting away 80 percent. That”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“furniture should never be positioned so that anyone has to sit with their back to the door or that the head of the bed should never be at the door end of the bedroom.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“A simple way of doing this is to draw on the floor plan the movements you and the rest of the family make over the course of a day.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space

“Buy a really large and striking pot, or put a much larger plant on the floor so that it stands out from all the other potted plants. Or hang an unexpected little picture.”
― Frida Ramstedt, The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space