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Flowers are emerging as the essential accessory for creating a warm, inviting home. Contemporary or antique, relaxed or vibrant, adding fresh cut flowers and floral arrangements brings exquisite individuality and charm to any home decor. Don't worry if you're not a professional interior designer. Anyone can decorate with flowers to create a personal and picture perfect home interior.
Matching Flowers to Your Home Style
Just as people have their own personalities, so do their homes. According to the Society of American Florists, popular home decorating personalities tend to fall into five categories. The guide below shows how flowers can complement and enhance these styles.
Classic Traditional
This home has formal architecture with impressive front doors, foyers and individually decorated rooms. Design elements include classic furnishings and antiques with elegant fabrics of brocade, silk and tapestry. Classic arrangements call for a mixture of flowers (roses, gladiola, iris, carnations, lilies or snapdragons, to name a few) and accents such as dried fruit and foliage. Crystal, brass, silver or porcelain containers are ideal for the classic floral centerpiece.
 This classic geometric floral arrangement of deep, warm colors in an antique vase complements a classic traditional home decor.
Flowers Featured: Roses, gerbera daisies, mini callas, snapdragons, freesia, lilies, tulips and ranunculus.
Modern Contemporary
Sleek and chic, the modern home calls for clean lines, smooth surfaces and form. Elegant fabrics, colorful silks, gauze or leather accent steel, glass and other man-made materials. Bold, exotic flowers (anthuriums, heliconia, callas, orchids) with strong lines work well to complement this home's clean, open spaces. To complete the dramatic look, flowers are best displayed in frosted glass vases, decorative pottery and metallic containers with pewter or stainless steel finishes.
Victorian  Velvets, satins, chintz, lace and organza create a feeling of softness and romance in the Victorian home. Pastel colors or soft tone-on-tone prints are used to delight the senses. Fragrant flowers (roses, spray roses, peonies, lavender, gardenias, freesia) in pale peach, lavender, pink, yellow and cream conjure images of romance and sensuality. All of these delicious colors glow in lovely, romantic vases of clear glass, crystal and silver.
Casual Easy Living
Casual living lifestyles focus on the simple pleasures of life. The decor includes furniture of light pine, natural woods, bleached oak or a white-washed painted finish with fabrics of linen and cotton in neutral tones. Because these homes are designed for "stress busting," flowers provide nature's balancing formula. The right match might include flowering and green plants (like cyclamen, kalanchoe, pothos or ivy) casually grouped in a basket, or flowers (such as sunflowers, daisies, hydrangea, delphinium or tulips) placed in a clear glass vase, pitcher or piece of pottery.
 Whether sitting in a kitchen, family room or guest bedroom, a basket of flowering plants enhances the uncomplicated casual easy living home decor.
Plants Featured: Cyclamen, azaleas and ivy.
American Country
Recognized as a style all it's own, American country has become a phenomenon. Motifs include artifacts from the past - such as quilts, galvanized metal bowls and wooden crates. The result is comfort that is easy and inviting. Woven baskets or simple vases of mixed spring flowers (yarrow, wild roses, scabiosa, heather) fit perfectly on a coffee table or kitchen counter. Cut flowers, blooming plants, herbs, wreaths and swags with that farm-fresh look are a natural extension of this homespun decor.
For more advice on incorporating floral elements into your home, talk with your local florist. He or she will be able to capture just the style you're looking for - with flowers.
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