Storage

Wardrobes, shelving and dressers can be sourced in a range of colours and styles. One of the most favoured colours is white as this evokes a classic sense of French chic. Valbonne wardrobes and Chateau armoires are popular choices for clothes storage while château chest of drawers and dressers make ideal storage for nik-naks and household ornaments.

Beds

One of the most chic and luxurious item you can decorate your home with for the French style effect is a French reproduction bed. Back Moulin Rouge style carved beds, a touch of the palace of Versailles with a gold effect bed or elegant French country style Rattan beds are all available. Ultimately, it depends on what aspect of French culture you are looking to evoke and remember – match the bed to the surrounding and the surroundings to the bed. A bed that looks good enough for Louis XVI is going to look particularly out of sorts amongst cheap beech effect chipboard furniture.

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Sofas

French style Sofas can generally add one of two effects to a room – either a touch of elegant formality as might be found in the waiting room of a stately home or a rustic and relaxed feel as might be found in a French Gite. Sofas can be gold effect with toile fabric or carved château sofas in white with wicker backing.

Chairs

Along with sofas, it is important to have the right occasional chairs to go with your desks, tables and dressing tables. There are a range of styles available but some of the more popular are Versailles style gold, white and black chairs with (or without) toile fabric upholstery.

Lighting

A wide variety of chandeliers, lamps and lampshades can be purchased to compliment the furniture in the room. Chandeliers range from the reasonably restrained to the thoroughly ostentatious with colours ranging from clear, to black to gold effect. Lamps and lampshades offer more of a boudoir / moulin rouge style effect to a room and add atmosphere to a room with their lighting.

Mirrors

Finally, to finish off transformation of your home into a scene from a Alexander Dumas novel, add a reproduction style mirror to the room. Mirrors are great decoration pieces as they can light up an otherwise dull or badly lit room and also give an effect of space to room that may seem pokey and small. For a front room, consider a classically styled over mantle mirror and for a bedroom a variety of ornate wall mirrors, dressing table mirrors and mirrored armoires are available to lighten up your boudoir. Mirrors come in the small range of colours as with furniture and range from the understated to the thoroughly ornate but all are elegant and stylish in their own way.

Hopefully, the above suggestions will give you some ideas as to how to transform your home into a French palace without having the budget of a monarch behind you. All the above items are available from retailers both on the net and on the high street. So go ahead and add a touch of Gallic elegance to your abode

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Accent chair furniture is great for accentuating the over all look and feel and can liven up the textures and colors of the larger pieces such as sofas, ottomans etc. This is a very good method of creating extra seating in the room without requiring you to indulge in too many setting changes, just buy a pair of accent chairs and you can have extra seating options, without much space being taken away by them, for the less elaborate varieties at least.

The accent chairs are mostly not placed around the focal point of the room, places like fireplaces which are the centers for the maximum buzz in that particular part of the house; they in fact create a secondary seating area for reading and also filling up spaces in the large sized rooms. The main conversation area is left to sofas and wing chairs, while the accent chair furniture can take up the quieter corners suitable for sitting down with a good book or having a more privy conversation. You can place one or two accent chairs under the window where someone can unwind in a little more privacy and still be a part of the whole group. It’s a very good idea to multipurpose a room with a couple of accent chairs, place a pair in one corner of your den with a table and you will be able to create a table for playing cards or board games, which will create a more relaxing environment for someone who doesn’t necessarily feel like crowding around the TV set. Put a chair and a table with a lamp in your favorite corner of the room and you will create a perfect place to sit back and read.

The basic idea is to make the not so prominent places in the room more functional. You can have a host of designs for the accent chair furniture and can choose something according to the decor of your house. Try to get something that easily blends with the setting of the room and the color, texture and overall design of the chair compliments the whole environment, its color scheme and furnishings, without attracting too much attention towards itself. Accent chairs are available in various types and sizes; you can choose the simplest ones with just a seat and a backrest or the more elaborate ones which have cushioned armrests. It should be something that comfortable fits into the room and doesn’t make it look more crowded and smaller. Choose one with a contemporary and modish look or a more traditional one to add the old world charm to your interiors. This choice is also largely governed by the décor already gracing your living room or your den. In the end everything boils to your choice and preference, but this is a good way to use the extra space in your home judiciously, giving the whole environment a more comfy feel.