Designing Your Great Outdoors

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by melissaoconnor in Guest Posts, Janet Majors, The Great Outdoors

Tags

awning, budget, colors, design, fabrics, gazebo, landscaping, natural sound barrier, outdoor space, outdoors, patio, seating, space, trellis, umbrella, water feature

Whether you live in a house, condo, or an apartment, you probably have some outdoor space. From a lush but boring lawn to a barren balcony, you probably have something. However, knowing how to spruce up that space can be challenging. Especially if you’re limited in terms of actual square footage or money. Here are some tips:

Come up with a plan.
Whenever you simply begin throwing paint around or purchasing furniture and accessories without any thing more than a vague vision in your mind, you run the risk of ending up with a space that embodies the term hodge-podge. This goes for an indoor and an outdoor space. Before you get down to the nitty gritty, take some time to think it through. Come up with a clear image of what you want the space to look like. Do some research into materials, prices, and the like. Having a plan will ensure you get the gorgeous outdoor area you deserve.

When you’re planning, consider what you want to get out of the space.
Do you want your outdoor space to be an area for partying the night away or an outdoor retreat for relaxation? Knowing what you want to get out of the space will help you design it properly. For example, if you want to relax rich, comfortable fabrics and materials will be ideal while if you want to entertain you’ll want to make sure to have plenty of seating.

Photo Credit: Amy Kimball Events

Take into account the elements.
When planning your outdoor space you’ll want to think about how much sun, wind, and water the area is regularly exposed to. If you get a lot of sun you’ll want to make sure all the materials are fade resistant so your space won’t look dull after just a season or two. In addition, you’ll want to find ways to work in shade such as an umbrella, gazebo, awning, or trellis. If you live a rainy area you want to make sure all of the materials you use are mold, mildew, and rust resistant and possibly consider screening in part or all of the space to make it more usable. If you have your fair share of wind you’ll want to make sure your accessories and furniture are weighted down. For example, get cushions that actually tie to the chairs to keep them from blowing around.

Think about the neighborhood.
Another important element to consider when designing your outdoor space is the noise level. Do you live next to a busy road? Do you have noisy neighbors? If noise is a concern there are a couple of things you can do. One, use landscaping to act as a natural sound barrier – trees are great for this. Two, install a water feature because the sound of running water will act as white noise and drown out other (less pleasant) sounds.

Photo Credit: Rocky Mountain Rock and Trucking

Don’t be afraid to get creative.
Your outdoor space is an extension of your indoor space and should express your personal tastes. Use colors and textures that you enjoy. Outdoor materials including furniture and area rugs come in a wide variety of patterns and colors. If you can’t find the exact shade your looking for, many materials (ex. wicker) can be painted or spray painted.

Photo Credit: Houzz

Getting creative is especially important if you’re working on a limited budget, with a small space, or with a rented space. For example, if you rent, you may not have electrical outlets in your outdoor space and because you rent, you may not be permitted to add them. Luckily, there are a variety of lighting fixtures and options that run on batteries alone.

If you are dealing with a small space, you’ll want to get furniture that serves multiple purposes such as an ottoman that can serve as an extra seat or with a lid that flips over to make a coffee table. Furniture pieces with casters are great too because they allow you to move things around to fit different purposes. Casters come in all different styles and colors so don’t worry about them looking too industrial or utilitarian; here are some great caster options. All in all, just remember that when you run into an obstacle, don’t give up – just think outside the box.

Photo Credit: Decoration Trend

Put natural features to good use.
Before you start constructing your outdoor space, take a good look at the natural features the space offers. Sometimes brining in a second (or even third) pair of eyes can help you spot things you’ve overlooked or grown accustomed to. For instance, a hill or raised area can be an excellent place for seating or a gazebo because it offers a good view of the rest of the space. A tree can serve as natural shade or an extended tree branch can be used to hang a chandelier from.

Photo Credit: House Beautiful

Keep your budget in mind.
Know what your budget is from the beginning. There are things you can do to keep your costs down. For example, buy patio furniture in the off season when stores are offering great clearance deals. In addition, you can do some landscaping (ex. mowing the lawn) yourself. Another idea is to build your outdoor space in stages rather than doing it all in once. For instance, maybe the first season you do some major landscaping, the next you purchase one or two pieces of furniture, and the third season you purchase a few more items.

Written by Janet Majors

Guest Post: Affordable Ways to Redesign Your Kitchen

16 Saturday Feb 2013

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

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

backsplash, budget, design, interior design, kitchen, painting, renovation

The proverbial quote that we become what we eat has quite some scientific backing to it. Apart from the obvious physical impact that food has on the body, research has shown that it also subtly influences the mind and psyche of a person too. And it is here that remodeling a kitchen – the place where all cooking takes place – gains significance because a well-modeled kitchen keeps the cook and the diner remain in a happy, positive and good frame of mind and spirit. Contrary to belief, giving your kitchen a customized look need not be an expensive affair. Here are ways and ideas of remodeling your kitchen in a thrifty manner, say within $200.

High-impact areas
High-impact areas are those regions of the kitchen where a slight modification results in a grand overall change! Pick such areas for remodeling. For instance, just painting the trims and the front areas of the cabinets can transform the way the kitchen looks. Changing the colors of walls, curtains and accents by itself brings about an eye-catching transformation. So, spending some time to identify the high-impact areas in your kitchen will pay ‘rich’ dividends.

Photo Credit: SBD Kitchens

The importance of getting the sequence right
In order to ensure that there is no strain on the wallet, the various remodeling projects should be taken up in a logical order. For example, if the decision is to rearrange the various appliances and cabinets, then any kind of flooring work should not be taken up. Also, one work may hinder or undo the other. Similarly, if painting has been decided upon, then the base work of washing the areas with tri-sodium phosphata (TSP) and then applying a proper primer should be done first.

Once the areas to be worked upon have been selected and working order determined, you can begin remodeling the kitchen. Here are some thrifty ideas to proceed with your work.

Painting
This is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to remodel the kitchen. A semi-gloss paint ensures that all the food splatters and splashes can be easily mopped and cleaned up. The colors chosen are important here. Remember that dark colors make the space appear smaller than it actually easy and so are recommended to cozy up a place. In case the kitchen is already small, consider using lighter colors.

Photo Credit: This Old House

Photo Credit: This Old House

Fabrics
Custom drapes for the kitchen can be made quite economical if done intelligently. For instance, one could choose the drapes that one wants and then sew up one’s own designs. This will definitely be half the price of a pre-packaged drapes set. In case you are not very sure of your sewing abilities, it would still be a cheaper option to select your drapes and either rent a sewing machine or get the drapes stitched.

Photo Credit: St. Louis Renewable Energy

Photo Credit: The Inspired Room

Lighting
Light has a magical effect in creating lines, contours and character for a kitchen. Replacing dim lamps with halogens will surely bring in a lot of positivity and energy into the kitchen. To go green and prevent power-wastage, install a dimmer switch so that the halogen can be dimmed as per need. Installing CFL lighting under the cabinetry gives the counter-tops a completely new look and feel. Similarly, you could stock up a few varieties of decorative lights over the kitchen tables.

Photo Credit: Mommy 2 Cents

Photo Credit: House AE

Steel plating
Stainless steel is durable and also has great looks. However, it is often pricey. You can have the cake and eat it too by choosing to plate the exteriors of the appliances with stainless steel. In this manner, one would also be able to match the different appliances which would otherwise have looked incoherent. Stainless steel could also be used as a substitute for other expensive accents like granite counter-tops and backsplash tiles.

Photo Credit: BS2H

Photo Credit: HGTV

Intelligent use of backsplash tiles and other accents
Backsplash tiles are expensive though they give a great facelift to the kitchen. Instead of covering an entire wall with such backsplash tiles, one could use them as accent pieces, filling the rest of the area with normal, inexpensive tiles. Adding other accents like a clock, a flower vase or a mantelpiece could go a long way in making the kitchen look refreshing. In fact, flowers are a simple yet elegant way of keeping the kitchen ever-new in its looks. A welcome mat at the entrance and a simple curtain adds to the cozy quotient of the place.

Photo Credit: Hooked on Houses

Photo Credit: Home Edit

Photo Credit: Kitchen Furniture Info

Variety definitely brings spice to the looks of the kitchen. It is a good idea to have a look at the photos of well-designed kitchens to get a feel of how remodeling is done. It is a science as much as it is an art.

{Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing, reading, and traveling. She contributes for Bornrich.}

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.}

Bedroom Makeover on a Budget

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Sarah Atkinson, The Home

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bedroom, beds, budget, curtains, design, designing, furniture, interior design, painting, redecorate, redesign, shabby chic, wood

It is that time of the year when everyone needs to be tightening the purse strings as Christmas well and truly hits and January is spent recuperating from it. But that shouldn’t mean you have to put off doing something you want or need to do. The word ‘budget’ doesn’t necessarily mean having to sacrifice quality and style, it’s all about knowing where to look for things and how to create an expensive look for a fraction of the designer price tag!

Don’t redecorate, work with what you’ve got
Redecorating can be the most expensive part of making over a room, but what many people don’t realize is, you don’t have to change the wallpaper or paint to change how it look. If you have neutral colors and patterns on the walls then you are in luck, as you can change the style of the room to just about anything you like. If you went for something a bit more bold and bright at the time of decorating, don’t start stripping the walls yet! Look into what the current trends are. Maybe when you first decorated it was in fashion to have every single item in the room in one color, but now the trend may be to mix and match, the more colors the better!

Photo Credit: Digs Digs

Give your furniture new life
Kitting a bedroom out with a new bed, wardrobes, chest of draws, cabinets and more is another expensive part of redecorating a room. And there is probably nothing wrong with the furniture you have, you just got bored of it and fancy a change. So change it!

If its wood you can do so much with it. Sand it down and give it a new varnish or paint it a completely new color altogether. Shabby chic is very on trend at the moment, so painting it white and then distressing the paint would look great and isn’t hard to do at home. The best part is, it looks expensive and has a designer look. For other surfaces you could get some stencils and spray some fab new designs or purchase some appliqués (readymade designs) and stick them on to the boring old furniture surfaces.

Photo Credit: Painted Cottages

Photo Credit: Thrifty Inspirations

For beds, divans allow you to change the headboard easily so you could get a new one or jazz up your old tired looking one. For complete metal or wood bed frames don’t despair! You can bring new life to those by weaving colorful fabrics such as ribbon or scarves through their framework and hang decorations on their ends.

Photo Credit: Signature Homes

Curtains and bedding on a budget
Bedding and curtains are one of the main focal points of a bedroom and if done right they can make a room look modern with very little damage to your wallet. Satin is the material of luxury so it makes sense to assume satin bedding and curtains would be expensive? Not at all. You can find quality satin bedding and curtains for a fraction of the designer price tag. Don’t fancy sleeping in satin bedding or even want to change your bed covers at all? You don’t have to. You could simply purchase a satin bedspread which will cover the entire bed when you aren’t sleeping in it and throw on some bed cushions to make your bed look like it is straight out of a showroom.

Photo Credit: Furniture 4 World

There is so much more you can do with your bedroom no matter what your budget, it just takes a little creativity and imagination and you could have a whole new bedroom whenever you like!

Written by Sarah Atkinson