Guest Post: How to Choose Furniture for Your New Home

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by melissaoconnor in Ella Andrews, Everyday Design, Guest Posts, The Home

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accessories, decorating, furniture, homeowners, interior design, minimalistic, modern, new home, shopping, sofa, style, traditional

Choosing the right furniture for your new home is important for many reasons. Not only are you are creating a cozy and safe area for you are your family, you are setting the tone for how your home will look like for years ahead as well. The fun part is experimenting with colors, materials, and styles. How do you pick the right furniture and where do you start?

Look and Feel
Before you buy anything, you need to get an idea of the feel that exact piece will bring to your home. It depends on the style you want to create. Whether you are single, married, have children, divorced, or a young professional, your own status should lead you to the right choice. Modern furniture these days is decorative and minimalistic, the focus is on edgier furniture, bright colors, and functionality. If you want a beautiful and comfortable home, you need to spot the right furniture.
Guest Post: How to Choose Furniture for Your New Home

Buy the Right Sofa
Along with the kitchen, the living room is a main area of the home. The room’s appeal depends on the style and size of your sofa, so choose wisely. Sit on the sofa and move around to get an idea of its fit. You will spend most of your time on it, watching TV, eating, reading, or working on the computer, so you need a sofa that is the right material, the right height and size. It is one of the priciest pieces, but it’s worth the investment. A great sofa of a quality material will serve you well for years to come. A sofa made of real suede/leather will have a longer life, but suede and cloth get easily stained and are harder to clean, so think of the top leather conditioner before you buy.

Photo Credit: Houzz

Maintain the Theme
In order to have a well-arranged home where all the furniture pieces come together, you need to choose them in a way that they complement each other. Have some consistency and a main theme and your new home will be perfect.
Guest Post: How to Choose Furniture for Your New Home

Guest Post: How to Choose Furniture for Your New Home

Compare and Shop Around
The furniture in the SW12 house you’ve moved in is above all, a long-term commitment, so don’t buy the first piece you see, unless you are completely in love with it. Go to multiple furniture stores, check websites to read what people say about those pieces you like – for example, Palliser furniture reviews, – and compare prices. You could even negotiate your own price for a set of individual furniture pieces. It’s important to be a smart shopper at all times.

A few more things to think about:
– Choose the furniture after you’ve painted the walls or at least after you’ve determined the colors.
– Select the room accessories after the furniture pieces arrive and finish the look with wall décor and artwork.
– Classic, Mediterranean, minimalist or traditional – the theme of your home has to be in line with the furniture.
– Don’t put too many pieces in the areas of high traffic, so it doesn’t get impossible to move around the house.
– Remember, to extend the theme to the outside of your home since its the first thing people see.
Guest Post: How to Choose Furniture for Your New Home

Hopefully, with these few tips of advice, you can move forward in creating the home of your dreams. Don’t forget to have fun in the process!

{Written by Ella Andrews}

Guest Post: Spring Inspiration

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts, The Home

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accessories, blinds, color, curtains, decorating, design, emerald green, interior design, interior goods direct, mint, rugs, shades, spring, spring colors, window treatments

With winter slowly leaving us and the hope of a bright and cheerful spring, it seems only appropriate to begin to decorate our homes for the long awaited sunny season. There are so many gorgeous colors for us to choose from, and we don’t always know what style and theme we are looking for. So this is why I have created a list of this season’s top spring colors, along with a few simple but effective design features to make your home look and feel like a happy haven.

Spring Colors We Love
My unpredicted favorite color, which has decided to grace us with its presence this year, is green. Emerald green has been given loads of attention over the past year. However, it’s time to put a new spin on green and opt for a new shade for this season, Mint. This beautiful color, which doesn’t require a lot to stand out, has solely become our new favorite color for this spring.

Photo Credit: HGTV

Considering my love for anything neutral, my passion for cream is rapidly disappearing, and in its place are bright pops of color like green, blue, and yellow.

Photo Credit: Station of Interior and Eksterior Ideas

Now this doesn’t mean I will paint my whole house in this shade. Why not try a statement wall with one of these three colors or opt for bright accessories. This will provide just enough to make your home stand out, but not so much you feel like you’ve taken a step back into the 70s.

Guest Post: Spring Inspiration
Photo Credit: Vertical Blinds Direct

Curtains or blinds? That’s the question
I have always had a love for a gorgeous set of curtains, and in my opinion, there’s nothing better than when they fall to the ground in a beautiful pleat. However, lately my opinions are changing. Despite my love for curtains still being strong, they have been taken over by my passion for a set of bright and cheerful blinds.

Guest Post: Spring Inspiration
Photo Credit: Vertical Blinds Direct

Now that spring in around the corner, we want to embrace the beautiful bright mornings. Blinds are the perfect opportunity to do so. However, if mornings aren’t your thing, you can still opt for a set of black out blinds in your favorite spring shade, but with the effect of a set of lined curtains. I have recently installed a set of gorgeous blue vertical string blinds to my white and blue home. They are just enough to add a pop of color without it looking over the top.

Guest Post: Spring Inspiration
Photo Credit: Vertical Blinds Direct

Everyone Loves Accessories
Accessories are the perfect opportunity to add personality to your home. If you’re not ready to take the step into bright walls and blinds, you can still change the whole look of your home by accessorizing.

Photo Credit: Houzz

Photo Credit: Coodet

Bright cushions, rugs, and table decorations have the ability to change the look of your home with minimal effort, and if you are anything like me, small touches really count. So invest in little trinkets, wicker baskets, and beautiful wall hangings. Just because we don’t live in the Hamptons doesn’t mean we can’t make our homes look like we do.

Photo Credit: GHID

{Written by Alice Lawson on behalf of Interior Goods Direct}

Make an Entrance

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts, Janet Majors, The Home

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accessories, color, entryway, interior design, mirrors, painting, painting stairs, stairwell, wallpaper

Many people invest large amounts of time, energy, and money into decorating the various rooms of their home. The process of decorating allows you to express your creativity, to claim a space as your own, and to show off your personal tastes and style to friends and family. Unfortunately, there is one area of the home that is often overlooked during the decorating process: the entryway.

There are a couple of reasons that entryways tend to be passed over. One, an entryway isn’t really a living space; its just an area people pass through to get to the other rooms of the house. Two, often an entryway is a space that is small, dimly lit, or awkward making it a real challenge for an inexperienced DIY-er or decorator. However, these challenges should not keep you from extending your personal touches to this part of your home. This area serves to introduce your guests to the rest of your home; other than the exterior of the house, the entryway makes the first impression. You don’t want guests to be put off as soon as they enter your home. Here are some budget friendly tips for making an entrance.

Step It Up
If your entryway has stairs, consider adding a pop of color to draw the eye further into the home and to set the stage for the colors used in adjoining rooms. Unfortunately, stair runners can be pricy, so here are some more affordable ideas:

Wallpaper the risers. Since you shouldn’t need a lot of wallpaper you can probably find a discontinued or marked down pattern to use. Since the area being covered is relatively small don’t be afraid of bold designs.
Paint the risers. If you head to the clearance section of your local hardware store, you can probably find marked down paint. There’s nothing wrong with this paint – it simply wasn’t properly mixed to the customer’s color specifications. Again, don’t automatically shy away from bright, bold colors.
Add a stripe of color. As a standalone or in addition to painting the risers, you can paint a stripe that runs parallel to the stairs.

Photo Credit: Design Amour

Photo Credit: Apartment Therapy

Open Your Home
If your entryway is small or not well lit, there are some easy, inexpensive things you can do to open the space up.

Take advantage of any and all natural light. If your entryway has any windows (for example, by the front door), put that natural light to good use. Regularly wash the windows inside and out and keep them unobstructed by furniture and hedges.
Use smoke and mirrors…err, okay, just mirrors. Hang an inexpensive mirror or two to reflect light and make the space appear both larger and lighter. Check secondhand stores, yard sales, and inexpensive stores such as Target and Walmart for fun mirrors with decorative shapes and frames.
If possible, eliminate clutter and get organized. If your entryway is small, clear out anything that isn’t actively being used such as a bench. Make sure that there is a place for everything. For instance, if you require people to remove their shoes when they come in have a little shoe rack for them to pile their shoes on rather than just leaving footwear scattered on the floor.

Photo Credit: Martha Stewart

Photo Credit: My Design Secrets

Color Outside The Lines
As previously mentioned, if you visit your local hardware store you can probably find clearance paint. You can use that paint to brighten up your entryway and make it look less stark and boring. You can also try painting:

An accent wall
A coat rack
An entryway table
Picture frames

Another way to add color and interest is with art. Thrift stores and garage sales are great places to pick up cheap frames that can be cleaned up or painted to look like new. For inexpensive art you can frame:

Family photographs
Scenic photographs you took
Pictures your children drew
Discontinued wallpaper samples
Shelf lining paper
Scrap fabric pieces
Pieces of gift wrap paper

Photo Credit: An Enchanted Cottage

First impressions are important, and your entryway is the first impression visitors get of the interior of your home. Make an entrance. Don’t neglect this area of your home. If your on a budget, get creative. Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to experiment. Prowl secondhand stores, yard sales, and clearance bins to find those perfect touches.

{Written by Janet Majors}

Guest Post: Common Home Decorating Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by melissaoconnor in Guest Posts, The Home

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

accessories, budget, frames, Home Decorating, interior design, light, money, paint, photographs, rugs

If you’re moving into a new place or lived in your current one for a while, chances are that you’ve felt the urge to redecorate from time to time. After all, why should you have to live with that hideous mural from the last owner or keep the couch at an uncomfortable angle from the TV just to make the fireplace the focal point of the room? These day’s most are not allowed fireplaces due to regulations of smog. For most this problem has been resolved by the wall fireplace Pros that are available for hire. For the rest of the house however, it’s up to us and we can mess up bad!

But be careful before you just randomly start making changes or you might find yourself longing for those bad old days before your DIY instincts took over. Here are several of the most common decorating mistakes that people make.

Lots of trimmings – no patty
When decorating, too many people feel like they can spend whatever they want as long as they don’t make big-ticket purchases. For example, they’ll buy 100 things under $100, but refuse to pay $1,000 for one great sofa or coffee table (which, admittedly, would have to be a pretty fantastic coffee table at that price). Unfortunately, what happens is that these people end up with lots of thatches or mismatched odds and ends – clutter without any use, or (to go back to the heading) a burger with lettuce, tomato, and all the trimmings, but no patty. Before you look for accents, go for the big, important things you need.

Neglecting the test patch
No one should ever paint – ever – without first doing a small test patch to see how the paint really looks in the room once it’s dry. What if the light in the room makes it seem different? Or if it ends up clashing with the furniture? Be safe and paint a small area first so you’re not going in blind or you might regret it.

Photo Credit: Culture Instruments

Hugging your toilet
You wouldn’t want to be seen hugging your toilet, would you? Then why would you want a rug that’s doing it? Instead of buying one of those toilet rugs that is cut to fit around the base of your toilet (to hug it!), opt for a simple rectangular rug that lives on its own island away from the toilet for a classier look.

Photo Credit: Real Peek

Photo Credit: Sweet Home Design Ideas

Bright light! Bright light!
There is a serious lack of lighting in many homes, and this can be frustrating if you keep bumping into your furniture as soon as the sun goes down. Be careful about adding overhead lighting that’s too bright, though, because it can end up feeling like you’re under a spotlight. That’s not to say that you should avoid overhead lighting entirely, but that it helps a lot if it is softened with some sort of diffuser and your lights are on a dimmer.

Photo Credit: House of Decoration

It’s framing men… and, well, everyone
Just because you’re a photo person doesn’t mean that you have to have dozens of loose frames sitting everywhere, because all that creates is a cluttered mess. Buy a photo album or if you have to display your favorite pictures, group them together in an artistic design on the wall instead of having them live all over your tables and mantelpieces.

Photo Credit: My Lot

Ignoring function
Sometimes you have a room that will look better if you arrange the furniture in a particular way… but it keeps you from using the room the way you want. Function should always come before form, so if you plan on entertaining friends, group chairs and couches around tables so that chatting and playing games is easy. Or if you’re designing a TV room, do what you can to arrange things so that it becomes the focal point.

{Patrick O’Houlihan writes about grommet curtains and home décor accessories for Moshells. He enjoys playing board games and reading at home when he’s not writing.}