Summer in the apartment: How to add light and greenery to the house
Seasonal changes concern not only the wardrobe, but also the apartment. With the onset of summer, I want to add lightness and freshness to the interior: you can restrict yourself to simple methods, like buying a pair of new plants, or you can decide on something more serious - for example, paint the walls. We asked the experts how to quickly and easily transform an apartment if you want to arrange a real jungle at home or just to freshen a bit.
I like the white color, it is great for summer: neutral, cool, it is good to rest in it; he, like a mat, ideally emphasizes any "hot" accents. You can paint in white walls or buy bright curtains.
If you have a balcony, save inspiration for it: refresh the painting of the fences, make decorative wood pallets, put light rattan chairs, put pillows with bright jacquard covers or coarse flax, place hanging lawn pots for lawn and do not forget to buy closed glass candlesticks and solar-powered lights. If you don’t have a balcony, you may be able to turn the wide window sill into a place from which you can look at the summer city. Add a blend of essential oils of sweet orange, rose, ylang-ylang and mint to your homemade flavors to make the house smell like a summer garden.
Houseplants - a logical companion of summer, let them be everywhere. Check which ones cannot be without sunlight, and feel free to place the light-loving ones in the living room, on the kitchen shelves and in the bedroom. The main thing is to study what kind of care each of them needs, how often it is necessary to water, fertilize and spray. If the latter is necessary, then get a nice spray gun: the plants will be happy for such attention, and at the same time you will moisten the room.
The ideal thing for summer is a lightweight suspension chair or even a hammock. If you have a place to install it (in a safe courtyard, in the country or even at home), it will become a comfortable resting place after a hot day - and a very expressive element of the interior. Just carefully read the mounting design to make a reliable installation.
I personally associate summer with the sea, the sun, plenty of greenery and flowers, and also with refreshing cocktails and ice wine in a beautiful glass. I think many like this. Therefore, I propose to start from this.
First you need to decide on what changes you are ready to go to feel the summer in your apartment. If you want something radical, you can, for example, re-paste wallpaper on the same wall. I like the ones that Karina Kino does, she has a lot of options with flowers and tropical plants.
A less radical, but also quite effective option is to change textiles in an apartment. Remove from the eyes of all the warm, wool, thick and dark: blankets, pillows, and maybe even curtains. And replace, respectively, with light and, if possible, natural fabrics (cotton or linen). For inspiration, you can go to Zara Home or inexpensive, but cool store Modi. In it, I saw a pretty and very summer collection of textiles with artichokes.
The dishes are also quite capable of creating a summer mood, and the new cocktail or wine glasses have not harmed anyone yet. I really like a small shop in Moscow "Pharmaceutical garden" Good to be home, there are really summer options. My favorite is the collection of plates and glasses with a monster and palm trees.
If we are talking about plants, then they play a big role in the summer interior. If the gardener has not left you, and you still want to plant trees on the ground, I recommend sanseviería: it requires almost no maintenance and will survive even in the most severe conditions.
Colorists say that the main color responsible for joy is green, that is, the most summer color. The most logical way to add greenery to the interior is to literally add potted plants. If you are afraid of not coping with care, borrow only color and motif. In the stores, both off-and online, there is now a huge selection of decorative pillows, cotton blankets, tablecloths, napkins with floral prints. Choose the largest drawings, exotic leaves, parrots, huge inflorescences. No little calico flowers! Combine this jungle with graphic geometric ornaments, they are still at the peak of popularity. And, of course, not necessarily limited to one green. All shades of blue, from ultramarine to indigo, and sunny yellow will make him an excellent company.
In addition to textiles, pay attention to the "small interior forms": table and bedside lamps, coffee tables and even chairs. Chairs, if they are wooden, can be painted, and you can restrict one or two. A pair of bright ceramic tables and a large lamp with a cactus or fish base will complete the image of a tropical living room.
The bedroom is still simpler: curtains and bedding can be seasonal. In winter, flannel duvet covers and knitted sheets; in summer, cotton or satin. Let the bed be dressed in tropical leaves, and the curtains be bright, but monophonic, or with a geometric pattern - this technique will help avoid the effect of "all the best at once."
Another important component of daily joy is tableware. Do not neglect it! Do not regret the old plates and cups, let them go (there are a lot of helpers to this: Avito, “give it away” communities in social networks, etc.). So you kill two birds with one stone: please yourself and make someone else happy.
Well, if you have a little creative fuse, pay attention to the lamp above the dining table. If you are a happy owner of a Soviet vintage chandelier with Czech crystal pendants, then add pendants - let them be from stained glass, a lot of interesting scrap can be found at flea markets. Attach thin ribbons hanging freely in a cascade, and an electric garland with micro-droplets (also called “angel's hair”) - this is how every summer dinner will be romantic.
In the summer, it is very easy to add a touch of life to the interior: cut flowers, tree branches, herbs and even fruit - everything will work, and for this you do not even have to go to the flower shop. In the trend of the utmost naturalness and fleeting beauty. You can collect wildflowers and herbs near the house, put them in a transparent glass on a white table - and it will be cool. Do not worry about the size and color combinations, this is the case when nature has tried for you. The main thing - to correlate the scale of plants with the amount of free space that you have. Ideally, you need a lot of air and a solid background.
I am very glad that the fashion for branches finally comes to us. The Japanese ikebana has been using them for several centuries already, and it’s not for nothing: they are amazingly graphic and, by their power, the statements are in no way inferior to the huge bouquets of roses that we love so much. A harmonious solution would be to take several branches of the same species and add three to five identical flowers there. From the fact that we have easy to find, I recommend the cotoneaster, lilac, hazel, hawthorn, red log and willow. I would avoid birch and linden - they are too flat. Chestnut looks powerful, and poplar, for example, smells very tasty. The branches must be cleaned: remove some of the leaves and fruits from them, leave only the general lines and try to observe the proportions ¾ - each next one quarter less than the previous one. To be spectacular, such a composition must be clean and airy, it is better to cut more than leave too much. Listen to your intuition: what seems beautiful is good.
Ostromodnaya theme - to combine living materials (leaves, flowers, branches, fruits, fruits) with artificial (wire, plastic, vinyl, glass, household items. Vases can now be made of everything: fashion actively inserts flowers even in socks, sneakers and handbags, bricks, tin pipes, chemical test tubes and burned plastic are brought to fashionable photography. Again, your taste, clean space and the right background are the main thing.
If we talk about indoor plants, in the summer you can buy them without restriction. In spring and summer, it is much easier for plants to adapt to new conditions, in contrast to autumn and winter, since they receive much more sun. Now much better than all types of ficus, palm trees, citrus. Separate attention can be paid to annuals: petunias, calibrahoa, purslane, fuchsias - with a little effort you can arrange a mini-garden on the balcony. Do not forget about spicy herbs, the easiest way to care is rosemary, mint, thyme. Herbs can be grown both on the balcony and at home, the main thing is not to forget to put them in the most bright place. I, by the way, do not recommend eating what grows behind glass, especially if there is a road nearby.
My favorites are all kinds of epipremnums and philodendrons. These guys are ready to grow in different light conditions and do not require every second care. Among the epipremnums, my favorite kind of marble queen is a variegated variety with a lot of white on the leaves. It looks very beautiful, but also requires more light, unlike its green brothers. The top choice of Soviet hospitals - sansevieri - is undeservedly unloved, although even the most classic “pike tails” look cool in a well-chosen pots on a beautiful stand.
Fashionable plant now - ficus lyrate, or ficus lyroid. It does not cause me questions in terms of care, it grows beautifully, but in the autumn and winter period it can just fall asleep. And, of course, everyone loves succulents; I'm not a big fan of them, simply because I live in Moscow, where the sun is only three months a year. Nevertheless, you can always buy a special lamp and enjoy your handsome all year round. There is also a very beautiful stromant: the reverse side of the leaf is of spectacular burgundy color, and in the evening the plant folds the leaves upwards. In general, it is from the family of marandidae, which are quite sensitive to moisture, but in general there is no particular difficulty in caring.
Before going to the store, it is better to study how the main types of pests look: a mealybug, spider mite, scythe. Shop plants often get sick because of crowding and improper care, and by bringing such a purchase home, you can infect your green friends. After the acquisition, be sure to quarantine the plant, keep it a week apart from the rest. If during this time everything will be fine with him, transfer to a permanent cache-pot. I treat all plants with a special insect spray as a preventive measure (but be careful with plants with pubescent leaves). Replacing after purchase is necessary: the soil in which the plants are sold, is unsuitable for long life, as there are no nutrients in it.
As for buying plants in places like Auchan Sad, Leroy Merlin, OBI and IKEA - how lucky it is. Not all stores are equally good (or, conversely, poorly) contain plants. It is worth taking plants in garden centers, especially if they are grown in local nurseries - they are adapted to your conditions in advance. In Moscow there is, for example, a place on Pervomayskaya with a good choice.
You need to be careful with direct sunlight, especially from noon until evening: they can burn the leaves. It is necessary to ensure that the air was not too dry, often ventilate the room. And, of course, do not forget about watering, in the summer it should be done many times more often, do not let your pet die of thirst. If you are going on vacation, it is better to agree with friends to look after the plants, or to purchase pots with a system of sampoliva. If you are a real enthusiast, you can organize a whole system with capillary irrigation: there are simple solutions like a sphere on a tube, there are complex ones.
For inspiration, I mostly watch instagrams of foreign colleagues: urbanjungleblog, studioplants, houseplantjornal, forthehome, plantladyco. From the Russian, I can only recommend the magic Anya from St. Petersburg, a.n.t.a.s, she knows all about tillandsia.
Photo: Urban Outfitters (1, 2), Zara Home