Art is an excellent way to put the finishing touch on any interior design.  John Elliott Interiors features an ever-growing collection of art at the Lake of the Ozarks. When you browse our showroom, you will see hundreds of pieces of original artwork, among which you are bound to find many pieces to love. Today we have some helpful tips that will allow you to choose the right art for your home.


Buy What You Love
Surround yourself with art that you personally love and appreciate. After all, you are the one that has to look at it most often. Plus, if you like it, then there is a very good chance that guests in your home will be impressed with it too. Art is meant to evoke feelings, and those feelings can be different for each person that views a particular piece. When you find one that seems to speak to you in a way that you like, then you've found the art for you.


Build Your Gallery Over Time
Building a great art collection is something that should be done over time, not during a one-visit shopping trip. Our Lake of the Ozarks luxury home interiors store is continuously adding to our massive collection so the perfect piece you are looking for may not have yet arrived. If you let us know what you're desiring, our interior designers can keep an eye out for it and let you know when something matching that description comes in.   


Expect Your Collection to Grow
Sometimes you may buy art to fill a space on the wall, not necessarily because it profoundly spoke to you and you simply had to have it. If it fits into the interior design nicely and you like the look of it, that art will work perfectly for now.

Over time you will come across new pieces of art that you love and your tastes may even change. When that happens, you can replace old art with the new or, better yet, store those old pieces away and periodically change out the art in your home for a fresh look. Galleries do it all the time and once you have a collection started, you can too.   


See Art as an Investment
Some of the very best pieces of art come with a bit of a price tag. Quality art is a true investment and well worth spending money on. Don't be afraid to buy an expensive piece if you believe that its value will go up or if you simply fall in love with it. In the case of the latter, that makes the art worth the price tag to you.  


All of the art inside our luxury furniture store at the Lake of the Ozarks is original and hand-selected for its beauty and quality. A wide variety of styles are represented so that there truly is something for everyone, no matter what your personal tastes may be. The right art makes a space feel complete. Once you place your new art from John Elliott Interiors in your home, you'll wonder how in the world you ever thought that room was complete without it!

Not everyone lives in a large house with lots of space and plenty of rooms to fill with gorgeous, luxury furnishings. Even if you live in a small house or a condominium with limited space, you can still have a luxurious interior design that won't feel cramped. Our luxury furniture store at the Lake of the Ozarks has the items you need to make that happen, and today's blog has a few tips to make your living space and the pieces you find at John Elliott Interiors work together beautifully.



Large Scale Art & Mirrors
One large statement piece of art alone on a single wall offers a focal point that adds beauty to the room and makes a big impact. Also, a few cleverly placed mirrors will make a room seem larger than it actually is. The mirror will amplify light in the room and break up visual clutter in small spaces. When placed behind furniture or across from a window, mirrors will create the illusion that the room is much larger.



Less is More
Keep your styling simple in a small space because too many decorations can overwhelm the room and make it appear cluttered. Scale your collections down to a few favorite pieces and store extra items out of sight until you are ready to switch them out for a fresh look or with the season. When there is less to look at, the items that you do have on display will take center stage and get the attention they deserve. You can also furnish the room with cabinets that have doors that can be closed to hide things that don't always need to be seen, such as a television or a small bar setup.

Intrigue the Eye
You want to have interesting elements that draw a person's eye and add personal touches to the space. The addition of moldings bring dimension to your walls and give them an upscale look, traditional and elegant. One bold side chair with a unique pattern or textile makes a very grand statement. Don't me afraid to mix patterns too with pillows and throws. A very large rug in a small room makes it feel bigger, and an interesting pattern can bring in some of the texture we are talking about. 



Lengthen the Drapes
A wonderful trick for making a small space both seem larger and much more luxurious is to hang drapes that reach all the way to the floor. It will make the ceiling seem higher adding to the illusion that the space is larger than it truly is. Choosing drapes made with a rich fabric is an easy way to add luxury too. 

Add Sculptured Items
If you have a room with lots of straight lines from the furniture and the decorations on your walls, add luxurious pieces that have unique shapes and stand out among the flatter elements of the room. You could choose a sofa with a curved back or seat shape, a coffee table made from a tree, or actual sculptures. These artistic touches will bring depth and interest to the entire room. 


Those are just a few simple tips and tricks that can make a small, boring space seem larger and more luxurious. Our interior designers at the Lake of the Ozarks are always here to give advice and share their expertise for making any room the most beautiful space you have ever set eyes on. Let John Elliott Interiors help you create an interior that you are excited to show off and delighted to call home.

It's not difficult to bring luxury to any room in your home, especially when you have a little help from the best interior designers at the Lake of the Ozarks. When designing a living room that is elegant, sophisticated, and comfortable, the main goal of John Elliott Interiors is to satisfy your needs and desires for the particular space you are wanting to create. 


We have everything that you need to design a magnificent room from floor to ceiling with high-quality furniture and accessories, plus the interior design knowledge and experience to make it all happen beautifully. Whether your style is modern, classic, or traditional, we've got something to fit your tastes perfectly. Our showroom contains over 400 pieces of original artwork from artists both local and worldwide, unique accessories of every style, and exquisite furniture that will bring a luxe look to any room 

Furniture
Our Lake of the Ozarks furniture store is filled with name-brand pieces to fill every room in your home. You can see some of the work we have done by visiting the gallery pages on our website. When you visit our showroom in Lake Ozark, you will see a variety of different possibilities of designs for living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and more. We even carry wonderful furniture pieces that will transform your office into an inviting and beautiful workspace. Our displays change often as we acquire new products, so you may want to make a trip to John Elliott Interiors a regular stop to see what new and exciting things we have in store. 


Rugs & Drapery
From the floor and up the wall to the ceiling, properly chosen rugs and curtains make a big impact in a room. They may seem like background pieces of your interior design, but they do a lot for creating the overall look. Our designers are here to share advice and help you narrow down the options so that you can achieve the style you are going for.   


Mirrors
Mirrors are functional in some cases, and in others, they are a wonderful design tool for opening up a small room. Either way that you use them, they need to lend to room's overall design so that they don't look out of place. We offer a wide variety of shapes, styles, and sizes when it comes to mirrors, so you should have no trouble finding exactly what your rooms need. 


Artwork
Everyone has their own taste when it comes to art, and with the large variety of different types of paintings we have covering all of the walls at John Elliott Interiors, you should have no trouble finding something you absolutely love. The biggest problem may be narrowing down your favorites! The beautiful art pieces that we have to decorate your home are not limited to just wall art. You will also find an excellent selection of statues and more in our store, allowing you to personalize every room in your home with the art that you enjoy most. 


For all of your home interiors at the Lake of the Ozarks, you can trust the John Elliott Interiors team. We are qualified to help you create magnificent looks for brand new rooms or even redesign an existing room with some elegant updates. With over 24,000 square feet of home furnishings and accessories plus years of experience, John Elliott Interiors is able to help you bring luxury to any room. Your guests will be raving about your interior design, even long after they've left. Be sure to let them know that we would be honored to bring a little beauty into their lives too!

A coffee table often becomes a piece of furniture that quickly gathers the clutter of everyone living in the home. Not only is this displeasing to the eye, it also hides that gorgeous table you found at our Lake of the Ozarks home interiors store. 


If you take the time to stage a small scene with decorative accessories on the top of your coffee table, this could help to discourage people from leaving random items laying around, and it will give your home a more pleasant and inviting overall look. John Elliott Interiors has a few ideas for the accessories you may want to use. They can be purely decorative, possibly showing off a part of a collection or providing an interesting conversation piece, they can be functional items that come in handy in the room, or even better, a mixture of both. 

Stacks of Books
Using accessories of different heights can help to guide a person's eye and add interest to the overall decor on your coffee table. Stacks of books used as bases to hold other display items lets you do this, plus it keeps interesting reading material close at hand. It's also easy to switch out the books with others from your collection whenever you feel like it without changing the overall display too much.  

Trays
A wonderful way to contain a portion of your coffee table display is to use trays to hold the accessories. They can help to give your room a less cluttered look. This also allows items to quickly and easily be removed from the table if you need more open space, and the tray can come in handy if you are serving refreshments to guests.  


Pops of Color
Coffee table displays are the perfect place to add interesting pops of color that can be switched out easily whenever your mood or the season changes. It's best to stick to a unified color palette so that all of the items used appear as if they were meant to be displayed together. For smaller rooms, white accessories offer a clean, bright palette that can help to open up the room, plus they will always work well with any pops of color you choose to add.  

Natural Elements   
In addition to color, texture is an excellent tool to use to bring interest to your interior design. Natural elements are perfect for this. Accessories made of wood, glass jars holding collections of stones or seashells, or even a tabletop fountain will work well for this. Potted plants and freshly cut floral arrangements fall into this category too.    

Candles
Another excellent way to incorporate accessories of different heights is to add a cluster of candles of various sizes. They allow you to add color, and when lit, give an inviting and warm glow to the room. Using scented candles also gives you the chance to affect the overall ambiance. 


Ultimately, you want to create a look on your coffee table that stands alone as a beautiful area in the room, yet still works cohesively with the overall interior design. The first step is to pick out the perfect coffee table from our vast collection at John Elliott Interiors. Once that's done, our talented interior designers at the Lake of the Ozarks can help you find the gorgeous accessories that will decorate that table to reflect your personal style. 

Following trends can be a fun way to decorate your space, but if you follow them too strongly, you may look back in a few years and wish for an update. However, there are ways that you can take the trends of today and make the timeless for your home and style, which is exactly what the team at John Elliott Interiors intends to do. 2018 is filled with bold colors, luxurious textures, romantic accents, and natural materials. This is truly a timeless style, so with a little bit of tweaking to make it yours, you can find something that you will LOVE - at least until the next trend that sparks your interest hits the market!

Dramatic Colors

While white, gray, and beige walls have been all of the rage for many years now, you may start to notice “moody” wall colors in homes now. From dark grays to black and navy blends, you may start to notice that wall colors are getting darker. If you’ve always dreamt of using a dark color in your Lake of the Ozarks home, now is the time to be brave and do it! You’ll want to try it in a room that is flooded with light or maybe just on an accent wall. If you aren’t sure what shade would be perfect for your space, come speak with our decorators, they can help you choose the best and most dramatic shade.

Heart of Stone

The kitchen is the heart of the home, so they say, and if you pay attention to rising trends, you’ll notice that stone textures are making a grand entrance in this well-used room! One of the most unique ways you may see stone appear in a kitchen is on the sink. While stainless steel and ceramic sinks have been the most wanted, soapstone is starting to make a grand appearance. Plus, it also stands up well to most cleaners.

Geometric Shapes

You’ll be seeing the geometric shapes all over the home, from the tile in the bathroom to ceiling paper in fun colors. This is a very trendy design style, and something that you may want to change in the future, BUT, if you love it now, tear are ways you can incorporate it without doing an overhaul on your space. You can look for rugs with geometric shapes, pillow, or even tableware. If you still want to incorporate the shapes in a more permanent way, you can get the wallpaper to accent a wall. It’s not permanent but can still add a fun texture.

Luxurious Materials

While you may see more rustic materials on the market like concrete or sun bleached wood, you will also notice that velvet furniture and fringe accents are making an appearance in homes. While these may not be for everyone, you can also make use of the luxurious materials by adding more vintage brass accents and lighting fixtures can’t add the impeccable style.

Bold Colors

In an age where white and gray ruled the color palette, we are seeing BOLD color schemes hit the stage. If you’ve always dreamt of including a bright mustard yellow into your home, or a romantic blush pink, or bright, fiery red - you will be seeing a LOT of options now. These colors go from the furniture to the accents, and even wall colors, so don’t be afraid to let your favorite colors shine brightly.

Did you know that red furniture is all the rage this year??

Create Your Space

Your space is as unique as you are - that’s why we love to help you make it everything that it can be. Our decorators can help you narrow down your style, find pieces that match (while also using pieces you already have), to create a space that is as eclectic, elegant, unique, and luxurious as you are. Visit our newly remodeled website to learn more about what we can do to each of your spaces, and don’t forget to swing into our Lake of the Ozarks furniture showroom to see what we have available.

Imagine your home with candles lit, a beautiful setting on your dining room table, soft music playing - and all of your lights turned on high. Lighting can make or break the tone you set for your home, and nobody knows that better than your local interior designers at the Lake of the Ozarks. What better time to talk about mood lighting than around Valentine's Day? Here at John Elliott Interiors, we have a few ideas to help you set the mood with your lighting.
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At John Elliott Interiors, we love using art in our interior designs, and we enjoy adding to our ever-growing collection of over 400 pieces of original artwork. We are inspired by, and appreciate the unique styles, techniques and expressions of the artists whom we collect. Using art to enhance your personal space is never a bad idea, and we want to share some strategies for buying and displaying art from John Elliott Interiors.

Buy What You Love

You want to surround yourself with art you love and appreciate. When choosing pieces for your home, remember that you want your artwork to provide you with great pleasure on a daily basis - make your selection based on the feeling(s) that are evoked when viewing.

Hang Your Art Properly

You want yourself and your guests to enjoy the artwork at a natural level. A good rule of thumb is to hang prints and portraits at approximately the eye level of a person standing between 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall. 

Build Your Gallery Over Time

Whether you're displaying art in your primary residence or second home, building a collection over time is - okay! Depending on time constraints, if possible, begin by displaying a few pieces and gradually filling in the wall space as your collection grows. At John Elliott Interiors, new works of art are continuously coming in. Our designers are happy to help you find the perfect pieces as they are delivered. 

Choose Art To Reflect Emotion

The color and interpretation of artwork can affect they way you feel. Some art can make you feel relaxed while other art may make you feel energetic. It's important to reflect on the space you plan to hang your piece before purchasing. 

Mix Frame Styles

When displaying several pieces of art, remember, most frame styles and finishes can coexist beautifully. When you showcase different art varieties near each other, you can create a one-of-a-kind display that perfectly fit your style.

Deciding what kind of artwork to display in your home can be made easier when you visit and discuss your style with the interior designers at John Elliott Interiors. By describing the feel and design look you're hoping to achieve in your home or business, we can help define options you may enjoy. There are many different types of art that can be used in your home. From wall sculptures, oil paintings, prints and so much more, you can find it at John Elliott Interiors. 

At John Elliott Interiors, we know that establishing trust between our clients and our design team is an integral part of designing and decorating homes. That's why we enjoy learning about our clients' lifestyles, and allow our customers to get to know us in return. John Elliott Interiors is more than meets the eye and we invite you to find out why. Today, get to know a bit more about the man who started it all -  Owner, John Elliott!

Q: What brought you to the Lake of the Ozarks?

A: I came to the Lake of the Ozarks in summer of 1970 (for the first time) as the keyboard player on the LARRY DON...we played 100 sold out cruises in a row.

My brother Bruce Elliott and his wife Judy got married (1969) and moved here (to the Lake) in 1970. So for the next couple of decades, I came to visit my brother and sister-in-law at The Lake. Later, I bought a couple different condos & boats.

I moved to The Lake full time in 2005 to prepare our billboard company for sale to a J.P. Morgan company, Olympus Media (sold in 2006). 

Q: How did you get started in the interior decorating business?

A: My undergrad and graduate degrees are in design. I taught design at Penn Valley Community College, Virginia State University and Stephens College. Later, I was a partner in an ad agency (Muller & Co.) in Kansas City and designed hundreds of publications, ad campaigns, posters and displays.

I left KC in 1995 after 15 years in [the] design/printing business and moved to Columbia, Mo to become a partner in ELLIOTT/McDONALD OUTDOOR, a new billboard company (with Bruce Elliott and Mark McDonald). We built 925 Billboard faces and sold in 2006...then we retired (sort of). 

During my retirement 2006-2009, my brother and I designed/built 3 large spec houses in The Villages and 5 spec homes on the golf course at Osage National Golf Resort (about $14,000,000 in three years).

*  The real answer is my mom, Ruthie, told me I should have an interior design business a log time ago...and repeated herself many times thereafter. She never got to see it happen...but, she was right, I do enjoy this the most. 

Q: What do you enjoy most about owning John Elliott Interiors?

A: The people.  We get to meet all kinds of people from all across the Midwest. City folk from St. Louis, KC, Chicago, Des Monies, Omaha. Lots of small town people and farmers from Central Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and of course, Missouri. Everybody has a unique story. The one thing they all have in common is their love of the Lake of the Ozarks. Although we design & decorate homes in all Midwestern states and Florida's southwest Gulf Coast, it all starts at Lake of the Ozarks. 

The inside people...my design team are all the best! My two sons, Bob & Luke, Alex Wilhelm and Sally Herrin have all been with me for years. Service, integrity, quality, detail, class - they all work hard daily to create elegant rooms and happy clients. 

Q: What do you enjoy outside of work?

A: I like a lot of different things...

1. Relaxing at home with my wife Connie, a cocktail and good music.
2. GOLF (I live at Osage National #5 on links) usually 9 holes is enough for me and about all I can fit in (duffer).
3. Boating...I've had a Bennington Tritoon for 12 years. Still looks like new and runs great. We like to cove out and swim, [going] "Pool Hopping" and visiting my customer/friends, and going to dock parties. Connie and I have 5 mid-30s sons with wives and 6 grandchildren who all enjoy to boat.
4. Happy Hour at JB Hook's (I'm a regular)!
5. Travel - I enjoy going to our jobs. Driving the Midwest is beautiful and relaxing. We fly down to the jobs in Ft. Myers / Naples / Marco Island.  Went on a Viking River Cruise last year through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia - which was unbelievable! I was shocked by the magnificence of Budapest.   

* We have a lot of close family at the Lake which I do all of the above with!  

Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go?

A: New Zealand - The landscape seems like a bit of everything. Mountains, Waterfalls, Ocean, Beaches, Rainforests...mystical, unlike most places I've been. I've seen all but three of four states in the U.S. I've also been on trips to France, Italy and Northern Europe. Lots of Mexico trips, and cruises in the Caribbean, Panama & Costa Rica!

Q: Is there a favorite line you carry at John Elliott Interiors? 

A: Marge Carson. It is some of the best designed, highest quality, best fabrics, unique upholstery, and has the "WOW" factor I like to put into our jobs. Check it out! www.MargeCarson.com   

Q: Do you have a favorite room to decorate?

A: The next one I'm creating!

I don't really have a "favorite room" to design. After traveling to Italy it becomes apparent that new ideas are hard to come by and almost everything has already been done. For example, the shops at Pompeii had sliding glass doors and granite counter-tops before Christ. 

I try to incorporate a pleasing and elegant selection of elements into a new combination to create a room that will not go, "out of style" in a couple of years. Most of the rooms I create include art, plants and lighting [to make] that "Wow" in the room. 

Q: Share a meaningful piece of advice someone gave you.