Design is not always limited to planning, the creativity will almost always extend into the practicalities of implementing that design into the home. We’ve recently been working a lot in projects that involve a lot of wooden structures and laminate flooring. That means we need a quick way to slice up lengths of wood accurately, and the best way to do that is by using a mitre saw.

Our chosen tool is Dewalt’s DW777 chop saw which is priced at under £300, a steal for a power tool that’s effectively good enough for trade use – that is being put through its paces every day for hours on end. Learn more about our choice at Mitre Saw Zone or take a look at this video:

The huge benefit of using a power tool over cutting manually is speed, you wouldn’t work as a joiner with a hand saw, so don’t try to cut corners in builds of your designs either, as time is money and you’ll get tired quickly if you’re cutting over and over again. The relatively low price tag on the Dewalt DW777 means that you’ll find it pays for itself in saved time very quickly indeed. That’s one of the reasons that it sells so well on big sites like Amazon, as it’s far more durable than the lower priced models like the Evolutions, and not vastly more expensive.

These projects are almost the polar opposite of the Tuscan theme we’ve talked about previously, where you’re focusing more on textures and colours than physically building units or working on other woodworking projects.

Tuscany lies in central western Italy that is famous for its picturesque hills, wine, food, and Italian décor. The place is reputed as the cradle of the Italian Renaissance, but is more known for its distinctive architecture that makes every Tuscan home timelessly appealing. The traditional decorating style influences even non-Italian homeowners to adopt the traditional interior design ideas to create their very own modern Tuscan home.

A Tuscan home always evokes warmth. This inviting feeling is created by all the textures and bright colours splashed all over the place. Colours that abound with nature such as yellow for sunlight, green for vegetation and brown for the earth are the colours that dominate every Tuscan home. Nevertheless, it cannot be difficult infusing all these traditional design concepts when working on a modern Tuscan home because there are many places to start from.

How to Begin in Designing a Modern Tuscan Home

• The walls are a good place to start from. All painting jobs can make a big difference to any design work, but when designing a modern-day Tuscan home, the traditional colors of nature are still the best ones to use. Choose hues that you can picture as you imagine yourself standing on the hillsides of Tuscany: golden sun, olive green, brown soil, red flowers, and blue sky. Tuscany natives bring these same colours into their homes.
• To cover a bare wall, commission a good artist to paint the whole Tuscany landscape right into the living room. It is like living in the middle of the fields surrounded by wheat grass, olive trees and grape vines. Another design idea is to plaster the walls with fresco. Fresco is an Italian style of wall painting, which involves plastering the wall and painting it while still damp.
• Choose furniture with rustic or aged look. Tuscan furniture is usually made of hardwood or marble stone thus the chairs, tables, benches, counters and cabinets must be of wood or stone materials. When decorating the kitchen, paint the cabinets by choosing the same colours of nature. These colours must also be found in fabrics that drape the windows, tables, and chairs.
• Add in the modern touch by placing focal furniture or accessories that may not necessarily match the traditional rural look. Put a few bits and pieces like ceramic vases or earthenware jars. Line up Tuscan-inspired dinnerwares in glass cabinets. A dried wreath of grapevine can also be hung on the wall to lend that bucolic atmosphere.
• Hang a tapestry in some void places. Tapestries are good enough to become a long-term family heirloom to last for many generations especially if skilled weavers punctuated Tuscany’s hillside landscape and bathed the artwork with rich colours that vibrantly gives life to this Italian town.
• Other accessories that can provide the rustic feel are those simple, ordinary items that are often ignored in the house. Wine bottles, wicker baskets, candleholders are good as well in bringing out that provincial air.
• Drape the windows with Italian fabrics or choose materials with vibrant prints of fruits, vegetables over stripes of different widths.
• To complete the look, bring in pots of green plants that are known to flourish in Mediterranean soil such as lavender and chamomile shrubs.

Tuscan decorating ideas involve bringing out the outdoors indoors and the past into the present. By using the right accessories, colours and fabrics, all these can be achieved if the desire is to create a modern Tuscan home. One can never be wrong when putting all the elements of Tuscan home designs. The provincial feel of authentic Tuscany is let loose regardless of how modern the structure is because nature is indeed timeless.