Made for Living: How to Design a Welcoming Home

Trend spotters say a welcoming home is the next big trend on the horizon. A welcoming home is one that’s made for living. Beautiful yet family-friendly, pet-friendly and worry free, a welcoming home is one that’s ready for anything from work-at-home to homework, from family movie night to guest gatherings. This includes upholstered furniture that’s comfortable, soft and inviting but still stands up to everyday use. But how do you decide what’s right for you?

Opt for Expertise

Even for design professionals finding the right pieces and customizing them with the perfect mix of fabrics can present challenges. For design enthusiasts without professional training, it pays to get some good advice. Fortunately, that part is simple! You can get design help free of charge at Calico. In business since 1948, Calico is one of the country’s foremost experts in upholstery and reupholstery both for consumers and interior designers.

Design Choices and Solutions

The great thing about Calico is that they offer a complete range of ways to create a welcoming home. At Calico, you can reupholster a favorite piece of furniture that you already own or you can order a new piece from their wide array of choices and they’ll customize it with fabrics that suit your personal style as well as your lifestyle. They also offer custom window treatments, bedding, cushions, pillows and more. Calico Corners offers hundreds of Crypton Home fabrics, so whatever you decide to add to your home decor project, it can have the unparalleled spill repellency and stain and odor resistance for which Crypton is renowned.

Enjoying the Process as Much as the Result

Calico’s website has an amazing inspiration gallery as well as cool tools and tips to help you along. They can assist you with determining what is the right frame and scale of furniture for your room, and they’ll remind you to consider essential details such as whether the furniture you’re looking at will actually fit through all of the doors or up all of the stairs on its way to your room with their handy measuring guides. Noted interior designer John Loecke of Madcap Cottage explains, “There’s just so many things that you can do at Calico. They’re really just like a design center that’s open to the public.”

More Free Tools and Tips at Calico

They also have some fun how-to videos by experts like our friend Eddie Ross, explaining how to mix patterns to create great rooms. Once you’ve narrowed your fabric search, Calico can send you free swatches, so you can judge the colors in the light of your own rooms, feel the various textures and decide on your favorites the same way a design professional would. If you’re still not sure how that fabric will look on the frame you want, you can see a preview by using the online C360 design preview tool on the website.