Article Surfing Archive

When you get started on your own you want your place to be unique, to represent your life and sense of style. A mixture of borrowed furniture and household items that don*t match doesn*t create a sense of style. This is the dilemma that faced our daughter when she moved into her first apartment. She was fortunate to be living with one of her friends, but they needed to furnish their home with style on a budget.

After they had settled in we were invited to their place for dinner. We were faced with the problem of what to get as a house-warming gift. We wanted our present to complement whatever style had already created. To decide on the best item we had to figure out what looks good, is practical for many uses and is cheap to buy. We came up with the idea of bamboo baskets after some thought. Our daughter had always liked bamboo and baskets like these could be incorporated into many d*cor styles.

When we arrived with the gift our daughter greeted us with laughter. We weren*t sure whether this was a good sign or not. Once we had moved into the living room we could see then why our present was amusing. There were several other bamboo baskets set around the room. Along with the bamboo baskets they had also purchased grass mats to use as area rugs on the floors and bamboo placemats for the dining room table. Quite obviously they had decided to follow an oriental theme because the items needed to set this up were cheap, lightweight and easy to come across.

A tour around the apartment revealed that the theme had been used in all the other rooms. In her bedroom there were large bamboo baskets used as lamp stands and another used to place an alarm clock. They were also used in the closet for clothes storage and for use as a hamper.

The bathroom was the only area that still needed to be decorated. The gift basket we had brought was the first decorative item in the room. Like all the other rooms there would be many uses for a bamboo basket in this room. Our daughter mentioned that she would probably purchase more bamboo baskets like the one we got to set on the floor with extra towels.

The great idea about using bamboo for decoration is that she can use the material for almost any effect or purpose. It doesn*t have to be limited to baskets. There is an assortment of furniture and accessories made from cane and bamboo, none of which will look out of place in an oriental themed residence.