The Next Fix

There is so much more you can do to give a stylish finish to walls than cover them with wallpaper or paint. By introducing mouldings to form dado rails and panelled areas, a wider range of decorative treat­ments becomes possible. But the application of mouldings does not stop there. They can also be used to transform plain doors, cupboard doors, shelving, mantelpieces and furniture.

In eighteenth-century Europe, delicate and elab­orately carved mouldings were used to divide walls into a series of panelled areas, which were some­times further divided by dado rails. Doors were also divided into panels, echoing the decoration of the walls. The walls were often painted in two or three tones of colour. In very grand rooms the mouldings were picked out in gold or in a lighter toning shade. A similarly elegant arrangement was favoured in the Neo-classical schemes introduced towards the end of the eighteenth century. All the architectural wall decorations – a cornice or stucco-work frieze at the top of the wall, panelling and dado rail – were gener­ally left white against a plain-coloured background. This treatment works just as well in a modern room, particularly if it is rather box-like. By keeping the panels as upright rectangles, the eye is drawn upwards, giving an illusion of height.

Modern mouldings

Modern wooden mouldings can be found in most hardware stores. You may want to buy a plumb-line to help you get the lines absolutely straight. You will also need a mitring block for sawing corners. Paint the areas within the panels either a tone lighter or darker than the main wall colour, and the moulding in a complementary colour.

In the eighteenth century chairs were placed against the wall, so a rail at chair height protected expensive wall decorations from scrapes and bumps. Nowadays, the dado rail is useful along the length of a staircase, which often gets scuffed, with the wall above papered and the area below the rail painted off-white or to tone in with the wallpaper.

Absolutely plain doors are transformed when decorated with mouldings: use them to introduce panels, such as a pair of rectangular panels posi­tioned above two smaller square or rectangular pan­els. Mouldings can also be used on plain cupboard doors to great effect.

It would not be easy to describe a particular toaster oven to be the best. It depends on the need and choice of an individual and if a particular model is fulfilling the requirements then it would not be called as bad. There are many types of toaster ovens available in the market. However here we are going to discuss some steps which could be useful for you at the time of picking your toaster oven.

A best toaster oven can be judged by three things. A first thing would be your requirement. The second thing would be your comfortable level at the time of use. The third thing would be the type of service which a particular company is providing after the sale. It is a well-known fact that toaster oven is beneficial because it gives heat only to that portion which is actually required for cooking purpose. You can choose a number of models available in your area with the help of internet. You should check the features as per your need. Moreover here you can read various toaster oven reviews which could be beneficial for selecting a model. Here you can purchase new toasters also.

Remember that you should go only with the trusted models of the market. You may find various types of scam websites related to toaster. So it would be better to go with the branded model. If you look on to the branded model then you can find some models which could be of life time warranty. If you purchase these types of models then it can be useful for you. Here you can get the surety that if you maintain it properly then it is not going to give you any issue for the entire life period of toaster oven. If you purchase it from a trusted brand of the market then you need not have to worry because if you face any issue then the company will be ready to help you.

It is easy to give shelving a new life using a range of inexpensive edgings and furnishing trims. In the nineteenth century, if you could not afford to finish off the shelves of your private library with turned mahogany moldings (the shelves themselves would have been made of a much cheaper wood], you could choose to have less expensive smart leather edgings stuck on instead. These were made in deep, rich colors such as blues, reds, greens or black and had gilt embossed cutwork – often scallops or invert­ed triangles. You can still commission authentic edg­ings like this from specialist suppliers, but they are expensive and you would be better off using a ready-made molding to edge your shelves.

The cheapest material to edge shelves with is paper. It is also the most flexible. Depending on the paper you choose – anything from wrapping paper to wallpaper – and the design you cut out, the edg­ing can look architectural or lacy, plain or patterned, abstract or figurative. The easiest way to repeat a pattern is to fold the paper concertina-style, draw or trace on the image, then cut it out. Do not try to cut through too many layers of folded paper at once or you may run into trouble keeping clean-cut lines – it is much better to cut out a series of lengths and then discreetly join them together at the back.

Ideas for designs of paper edgings range from the highly intricate to the simple. A geometric design such as a series of small diamonds within larger dia­monds looks pretty and is simple to produce, where­as a figurative design such as a series of strutting cockerels is more difficult but very effective. Remember that the color of the cut-out and the color of the shelves will also contribute to the fin­ished result. If you want an understated effect, go for a subtle combination, such as white on white, cream on cream or tones of the same color – for example, a pale blue paper cut-out on shelves paint­ed a slightly deeper blue. White shelves with pastel-colored edgings look soft and pretty. The deeper and stronger the color of the cut-out compared to that of the shelf, the bolder it will look.

If you want a really soft effect, use a furnishing trim. Open shelves or shelves in a bedroom cup­board would look attractive painted white, then edged with ribbon lace such as a broderie anglaise trim. Tartan ribbon would look very smart with shelves painted dark green or maroon to match.

There are many ideas to choose from when it comes to cupboard doors. One of the most attractive is to replace the centre panel of each door with chicken-wire and hardboard, as shown in this project. An undistinguished cupboard is instantly smartened up, and if the panels are already in poor condition, this may be a cheaper solution than replacing the doors.

Many smaller side cupboards, known as chif­foniers, were constructed along these lines in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Instead of chicken wire, they had brass grilles for panels, and these were sometimes backed with silk gathered into pleats. Glass was expensive in the eighteenth century, so insetting the doors with grilles was probably an economy measure. Chiffonier fronts are now more commonly found covering boxed-in radiators – one way of disguising a very necessary twentieth-century innovation. You may, of course, use brass wire for door panels, but chicken-wire looks just as smart. You can either leave the wire absolutely plain or paint it using an oil-based paint (prime it with a metal primer first). Choose whether or not to add the hardboard backing – some clothes cupboards in English country houses used chicken-wire alone, and to great effect. A gathered fabric backing looks styl­ish: simply gather and pin the fabric to the back of the door, or sew a narrow casing at top and bottom and thread plastic-covered spring wire through, neatly gathering the fabric as you work along. Hook the ends of each spring wire to rings fixed inside either side of the door panel.

Fabric can be used in this way to back functional glass-fronted cupboards. If you add hardboard back­ing, you can paint the panels a plain colour or apply a special paint effect such as dragging or sponging. Alternatively, stick on a decorative paper – wrapping paper is ideal as it is cheap, and comes in a wide range of designs, as does wallpaper. Trompe-l’oeil papers are very effective, particularly those with false books or crockery on them.

There are various methods you can use to decorate plain modern fabric or card lampshades. In the nineteenth century, lampshades were made of fabric trimmed with gathered silk or lace, or hung with fringes around the base. If you like this look, you can add a broderie anglaise or lace trim to a plain fabric lampshade or use a piece of lace to cover the whole shade. Tuck a very small hem of lace over the top of the shade and glue it in place. It looks pretty if you allow the lace to fall below the bottom edge of the shade. Alternatively, you can cover a bare strutted frame with lace lined in a plain fabric, which has been gathered with ribbon at the top and bottom. Secure the covering to the frame by sewing the inner lining fabric to the top and bottom rings.

By the 1920s, lampshades made of parchment or vellum were very popular. These were often hand-painted with landscapes or seascapes, or had a scenic print stuck centrally to the front of the shade. Modern card and card-backed fabric lampshades can be treated in the same way, using either acrylic or oil-based paints. As the project on the right shows, animal-skin markings are easy to simulate – you could also try tiger stripes or leopard spots. Alternatively, ready-cut clear acetate stencils are flexible enough to be used on the curve of a lamp­shade, and there are plenty of good designs around to choose from. An even easier option is to stick cut­outs onto the shade. This could be either a print or images taken from wrapping paper or wallpaper (remember that you can always increase or decrease the size of the image on a black-and-white or color photocopier).

Another easy way to transform a lampshade is to introduce some form of trimming at the top and bottom of the shade, such as a braid, rope or fringe. This can either match the color of the shade or you can use it to provide contrast. For example, if your color scheme is predominantly pale blue and you have chosen an off-white shade, a complementary pale blue trim will provide a good contrast.