Shabby chic style

Shabby Chic is a comfortable, casual decorating style with a look that uses vintage accessories, pastels and comfortable furniture. While people have been living with old lace tablecloths, dreamy soft floral fabrics, light painted furniture, wrought iron curtain rods with filmy sheer curtains, and colorful fresh flowers for a long time.

Shabby Chic is no particular style, but rather balances elegant things with old and worn, shiny silver accessories with painted wooden tables, soft throw rugs with rough old lace

Here are some of the ways you can use a Shabby Chic decorating style in your home:

Florals

Florals are an important part of Shabby Chic style - primarily cabbage roses. Fabric remnants, old sheets, old curtain, and other fabrics can be used to create your style. Use them for pillows, upholstered seats, and braided rugs - just a few of the budget-friendly possibilities available

Overstuffed Upholstery
including large "sink-in" chairs and sofas are a Shabby Chic  staple. Comfortable, slipcovered, rumpled, ruffled, and rounded, with chairs almost big enough for two. Upholstery should look sat-in, well used, and definitely not pressed. Note that it is not "messy", just comfortably "used" and "lived-in". Mismatched tableware, pillows, lighting, and furniture pieces add to the shabby Chic lo
Architectural Details
Seek out everything from glass doorknobs, iron corner brackets, concrete column bases, old mantles, and more. They will bring authenticity, style, and interesting detail to a space.

Tea Stained Fabrics
Collect fabrics from around the house or buy vintage-looking fabrics even if they're new. To give the illusion of age, fabric can be made to look old, worn, faded, and soft by staining them with a brew of tea. Be sure to test a piece of fabric first to get just the right shade. You can change something that's stark white to a soft creamy white-- just right for the look

Combine Patterns and Colors
Combine stripes, checks, and floral fabrics to achieve a warm and inviting look. Gather yardage or fabrics from yard sales and flea markets. You don't have to follow traditional rules of combining prints, but for easiest mixing keep the background color the same (white or ivory, etc.). Then choose one color to repeat in almost every fabric, such as a soft green or pale pink.
White Painted Furniture
Almost any piece of wooden furniture will fit into a Shabby Chic interior if it's painted white. Collect pieces from flea markets, garage sales, and the attic. Once dark and heavy pieces magically turn light, fresh, and summery, and a roomful of mismatched items is transformed to instant harmony. Spray with white paint, sand off the corners and rough it up a little, and instantantly you have Shabby Chic furniture. You'd be surprised how a coat of paint transforms a dark dingy chair or table  

Metal
Even metal has a place in Shabby Chic interiors. Metal furniture, headboards, and decorative iron accessories are another successful addition to the Shabby Chic look. Peeling paint, rusted sections, and vintage looks are all the better
Flowers and Candles
Fresh flowers are a natural for a Shabby Chic  room. Big handfuls of pink or cream roses plopped into a china vase, floral fabrics and needlework pillows, books on flowers and gardening. Candles bring a romantic mood and interesting lighting. 
Think Outside the Box
Not every chair has to be sat on. How about using a sturdy, painted straight chair as a table at the side of a bed or sofa or in a corner to hold a vase of flowers? An old picnic bench or trunk can serve as a coffee table. Stack wooden boxes at the side of a chair for books and flowers. Look at thrift stores for old rugs. The soft, faded look of old rugs will anchor your room. Be creative and use what you have
If you are looking for a decorating style that will make a comfortable and family friendly home with a bare bones budget, there is no better style to use than Shabby Chic®. All the wear and tear of family life which lessens the appeal of other decoration styles only makes Shabby Chic more appealing. It's perfect!

• Rachel Ashwell, founder of the popular Shabby Chic ® style, began her decorating quest in the late 80's, searching garage sales and flea markets for furniture with "good bones" and nice lines. Then she took it home and painted it all white. Upholstered pieces were dressed up in loose washable slipcovers, and vintage accessories were collected to complete the look. She started doing it to furnish a home for her young family, but has since expanded from these humble beginnings into designing her own custom furniture and fabric lines, opening a network of Shabby Chic(r) stores, writing style books, and becoming a TV how-to expert on E network's style channel. She is also a featured designer in Victoria Magazine's book, Designers In Residence . Shabby Chic(r) is a look that's easy to live with and remarkably versatile. It's a study in contrasts between casual and elegant, fresh and traditional, simple and ornate, plain and patterned, rumpled and tidy. And it is a style that easily merges a variety of objects into one harmonious whole through the liberal use of white and pastels.  If you love to collect mismatiched teacups, vintage lacy linens, soft floral fabrics, painted furniture, crystal chandeliers, and lots of white accessories, this may be the style for you.

Click here to see Rachel's official Shabby Chic blogspot
http://rachelashwellshabbychic.blogspot.com.au/