Like freshly washed laundry dancing on the line on a sunny day, this season’s white decor is a welcome sight. Just when we’re ready to fling open the windows and scrub the memory of a rainy winter away, stores are responding by stocking tabletop accessories, throw pillows and furniture in crisp whites and soothing creams.
A few white accents make an enormous difference, so you don’t have to spend a lot on this update. Change out dark lamp shades. Replace jewel-toned throws for nubby vanilla ones. Store away the heavy window treatments, and put up snowy voile curtains or sleek white blinds. Give the room trim a coat of bright white. Pull off the heavier slipcovers and rugs, and substitute white canvas and cotton.
You’ll see your rooms “open up” as the light values change. Plus everything just looks cleaner, and isn’t that what spring is all about?
Inexpensive vessels, serve-ware and baskets are a great way to add some white touches; use them as countertop fruit and snack containers, key and wallet holders, magazine drops.
HomeGoods has a pretty laser-cut side table. White ceramics include a cutout, deco-style lamp and an elegant textured vase, and there are several painted wooden candlesticks that would look great with sleek white or pastel tapers. Gift retailer Two’s Company offers the Victoria collection of lacy, pierced-edge porcelain plates threaded with sage ribbon. La Vie en Blanc artichoke sculptures are elegant, as are ceramic tabletop nautilus shells and reef coral, all rendered in milky white.
Update a room’s furniture for the season with Cost Plus World Market’s new Luxe upholstered club chair. The chair and a tight-fitting, ivory cotton, machine-washable slipcover are each under $150. A couple of these replacing darker chairs in a sitting room or master bedroom would brighten things up quite effectively.
Comfy-underfoot white shag rugs made of washable cotton jersey can be found at Crate and Barrel in various sizes. Pair with a fluffy Lupe pillow and either the Coral or Sea Urchin lamp for white-on-white texture that makes a room pop. And if you live the kind of life that can handle it, consider the retailer’s Ian collection of boutique-hotel-inspired pieces in a luscious white leather as soft as whipped cream.
West Elm has little cutwork porcelain tea-light holders, and larger perforated hurricanes — all would look wonderful lit from within on a warm spring evening. The company also carries a whimsical chandelier crafted of wire and creamy coconut straps; resembling a little hula skirt, this could be just the right hint of the coming summer.
