If you have an empty living room and the dollars are tight, Oriental style is the perfect decorating choice. Start with a basic furniture package that offers a room full of pieces at a very affordable price. This sort of furniture is just waiting to be turned into something fabulous. You only need to add that Asian touch.
To source your Eastern influences, scour Asian grocery and homeware stores for inexpensive items to mix and match. And if you live near a Chinatown, you’ll find everything from richly glazed ceramics and decorative objects to fabrics and soft furnishings in one location.
Putting the look together
- Look for Asian ceramics and fabrics featuring calligraphy as well as designs of dragons, flora, fauna and scenes based on religious or folk tales.
- Ornate patterns and exquisite embroidery are hallmarks of Oriental fabrics which feature colours such as red, green, gold and black.
- Dot the room with groups of lacquered accessories such as miniature bamboo wedding baskets.
- A traditional Japanese three-fold screen can make a useful room divider.
- Oriental displays don’t have to be expensive to be successful. Tightly grouped and invitingly arranged, even mass-produced pieces look lovely.
- Let your Oriental dinnerware do double duty. Put it on display especially if it’s sculptural in shape.
- A large glazed ceramic piece can look striking if you leave enough free space around it to maximise its impact.
- Cherry blossoms and orchids native to the East (real or artificial) and fruits such as rambutans make stunning displays.
Even on the strictest budget, you can turn an open-plan space into a room you’ll love to live in. Take one furniture package, add a big helping of Oriental style and you can create a fabulous living area.
- Furniture packages are excellent value for budget conscious. You can furnish an entire room, sometimes two, for very little. And the pieces are usually simple so you can set the style.
- If your preference is for a modern look, opt for plates and noodle bowls with contemporary Japanese design influence.
- To make an Oriental-style hinged screen that can work as a room divider, use lengths of timber and cheat the panels by using woven natural table runners.
- Furniture packages come in all sorts of styles. The black legs and rails of this package make it particularly suited to an Oriental makeover.
- Give a package-furniture table Asian style with finds from Chinatown. Cross red-tasselled table runners to form place settings. Set out Oriental-inspired crockery. Add printed fabric napkins and wooden or decorator chopsticks. Finish with a centrepiece of exotic fruits.
- Rambutans are widely grown throughout Southeast Asia. Colloquially referred to as the hairy lychee, the name is derived from the Malay word for ‘hair of the head’ due to the outer covering of long red tendrils. And they look truly stunning piled in a bowl placed where you can enjoy their hairy beauty.
- Use your furniture creatively. Here, disguised with layers of Oriental fabrics and topped with a natural, woven-reed table runner, an entertainment unit takes on the role of a sofa table.
- A visit to any Chinatown or Asian general store will reveal an abundance of inexpensive ceramics from ginger jar to vases and crockery.
- To the samurai of ancient Japan, the cherry blossom came to represent the perfect warrior. Its flowers did not wither and die on the tree choosing instead to fall to the ground while still fresh and beautiful. And cherry blossoms can add freshness and beauty to any Oriental-style room.