Modern Etiquette

(ARA) - To infuse your decorating with a note of surprise that will mark your home with individuality, try thinking outside the box. According to Webster, the word, "novelty," means "something new, fresh and unusual."

It means exactly the same thing in a decorating context. Novelty prints on wallpaper, borders and fabric typically consist of themes that are unusual as decorative references. Why? Because they add a unique touch to a room's landscape. They may elicit humor, for example, or even introduce a topic of conversation. Above all, they get noticed and bring pleasure.

Nearly every S.A. Maxwell Co. wall covering collection contains a selection of novelty prints to allow you to infuse your decorating with a lot of distinction and a little bit of fun. Their very unusualness also raises your level of decorating sophistication, showing that you are innovative and willing to stray from the tried and true. Two wallpaper borders from the Ciao Bella! collection are quintessential examples of the novelty print.

In one, mustached Italian chefs and waiters are lined up behind a restaurant serving counter, engrossed in opening wine and assembling dinners. Each face is a caricature of an all-knowing time-wizened professional restaurateur. Placed at the backsplash area of a kitchen, this border provides epicures and other lovers of good food with an ever-ready taste of comic relief, whether you're cooking alone or entertaining.

A row of gossiping women in a beauty parlor, their hair toweled, rolled in curlers, or concealed under a drier, is sure to raise a giggle in a teenager's bedroom or a grown girl's dressing area. And talk about detail! A tiny terrier is peeking out from one of the women's purses. Framed drawings of high-heeled shoes hang above a counter containing jars of creams and beauty potions.

Nowhere is a novelty print more appropriate than in a game room, and the Coordinates collection from S.A. Maxwell contains two novelty print borders that are tailor-made for such an application. One displays playing cards, billiard balls, a dartboard and other familiar game references, while the other -- a narrower band -- carries a succession of colorful billiard balls all in a row. Either of the two prints can stand alone, or they can be used as companions to relate one area to another. The billiard ball border, for example, could introduce the game theme in an entryway leading into the main room, where its larger coordinating print sets an even more explicit the tone. Or one of the two prints could extend the game theme into an adjacent powder room.

By no means are novelty prints just for fun. An authentically replicated trompe l'oeil bookshelf border from Maxwell's First Class Male collection adds a touch of class and adds interest to a formal living room that is otherwise decorated in more subdued pattern.

To locate a retailer in your area that carries the Ciao Bella!, Coordinates, and First Class Male collections from S.A. Maxwell Co., call (847) 932-3700 or visit www.samaxwell.com on the Internet.

Courtesy of ARA Content