Green with Envy
When designing interiors for the home or business, we tend to focus our efforts on choosing the perfect furniture, decorative items and soft furnishings; often forgetting about the simplistic beauty of nature that we can incorporate so easily into our interior design.
Styling with Plants
The style of plants you choose can change the entire look and feel of your interior design. Living in Thailand we are spoiled for choice with some of the most amazing (and inexpensive) tropical flora options to enhance our interiors with.
Common thinking suggests plants in the home should be in a pot on the floor in a corner where nothing else will fit. While this is often effective, there are so many other ideas to get some green into your interior spaces:
1. Decide on the look you hope to achieve and work the plants in around the design of your indoor space. Potted palms offer a casual, luxury element to contemporary Asian style homes, while large, broad leaf indoor plants look amazing in modern villas to soften the architectural lines. Small potted flowers can give a home eclectic country charm.
2. Decorate your shelves: Make use of bookshelves or open shelving around the home; whether it be in the design of your bathroom, bedroom or kitchen decor. Small, broad leaf plants will cascade down the shelving to create a beautiful accent nestled in between other items.
3. Hanging plants are currently in vogue in house design! Try putting air plants, succulents, broad leaf tropical plants or herbs into hanging glass or ceramic vessels grouped together to create a feature.
4. Living walls add a touch of glamour to an indoor space and once installed, require very little care. It is all in the preparation - get your landscaper to ensure there is a built in irrigation system and drainage, then leave it up to the timer! Living artwork home decor– who doesn’t love that!
5. Pot plant stands are brilliant for adding height to your plants. Rather than trying to find a suitable table for the plant to sit on, there are now stunning pot plant stands in metals, timbers and other materials that are style statements themselves.
6. Choose your pots wisely! The design, colour, size and shape of your pot can determine the style and overall look of your room. There are some amazing hand painted and fired ceramic pots available throughout Thailand with vibrant colours and artistic designs. Metallics such as copper, bronze and pewter are also gorgeous, high-end style pieces that add brilliant accents you can tie in with other elements throughout the home. If you are going for a more natural feel, try woven baskets. These look particularly good in indoor/outdoor bathrooms and casual Koh Samui beach houses.
7. Get advice from an expert! Only certain plants are good indoors and may require either a sundrenched space, or dark and cool location inside the home to thrive. If you haven’t got much of a green thumb, ask for a low maintenance plant that doesn’t need a lot of care. There are lots of options out there!