Guest Post: Affordable Ways to Redesign Your Kitchen

16 Saturday Feb 2013

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

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.}

Creative Ways to Decorate a Small Apartment

27 Thursday Dec 2012

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

benches, bright colors, coffee tables, home, interiors, mirrors, ottomans, painting, small spaces, Storage, Vertical Space

Making a smaller space look great is hard enough if you own it. You have to bend over backwards finding creative ways to get things to fit without making it look cluttered. Now imagine having to do this as a renter since when you’re essentially borrowing someone else’s living area. That can place limits on your ability to express yourself.

Ultimately, you have to remember two things when trying to make your small apartment livable: 1) it’s okay to cheat a little, and 2) as much as possible, everything should serve more than one purpose. Here are several great decorating ideas to make your space shine.

Secret storage
It almost seems like a cruel joke, but the smaller an apartment is, the less storage it tends to have. What those people with huge apartments need with all that extra storage space is a mystery (give some of it to us!) but that’s the way it is, and it means that you have to get clever by finding ways to store things in plain sight.

Fashionable ottomans and benches that open up are great places to put your blankets, books, and even things like board games if you have enough room. Stores like IKEA have fantastic-looking hidden storage options, like a coffee table for the living room with large drawers on each end—perfect for hiding away the two dozen remotes, iPods®, and other portable electronics you have.

Photo Credit: Ballard Designs

Photo Credit: Home Decorators

Photo Credit: Ikea

Reflections of you
A big part of successfully decorating a smaller area is tricking you into feeling like it’s bigger than it really is. One easy way to achieve this effect is through a clever use of mirrors. To give the illusion of an open space, larger mirrors in standard shapes are best because they do a good job of sucking you in. Most renters can probably get away with hanging a large mirror or two and simply patching the holes when they leave, but if that idea scares you, it’s not completely out of the question to find tall mirrors that you can carefully prop against the wall.

Photo Credit: West Elm

Photo Credit: Pottery Barn

When painting, go light and bright.
Lighter, brighter colors tend to make a space feel bigger than it really is, so you should always stick with them over darker hues that can create the feeling of being trapped in a cave. But wait a minute; you’re wondering how can you paint the walls as a renter? Who said anything about the walls? If you don’t own the space, redecorate by painting what you do own—your furniture! You’ll be shocked by how different your room looks when you repaint that black entertainment center an electric blue, or change your bed frame from oak to white. Just make sure you do a little bit of research on the best ways to paint furniture before you jump into the project.

Photo Credit: Better Homes and Gardens

Think tall
When your square footage is limited, the best way to get the most use out of it is to look up and try to find furnishings that do a good job of taking up the vertical space. Not only will this help you to store more while making your living areas feel more open, designers say that big furniture often serves to create the sense that a room is larger than it really is. Nice!

Photo Credit: What is Home Improvement

Photo Credit: Remodel

Photo Credit: Free Home Decorating Ideas

Robert Mansions writes for Apartments Management Group. When Robert is not writing or reviewing apartment rentals, you can find him at home working on his garden and landscaping.

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

Guest Post: Staircase Designs & Decorations

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

banisters, carpentry, Dark woods, glass, modern home, painting, Railings, recessed lighting, Richard Tucker, slide-out drawer, stacked books, staircase, Staircase Designs, Storage, Victorian banisters, wood

The stairs are often neglected when we remodel because we just do not think about them. However, our staircases have the potential to be a major focal point in our homes. Since the stairs are such a small area, we can go a little wacky and still make it work with our other decorative features and schemes. The key is to choose something that you will love for a long time because redecorating a staircase can become tedious.

Turn Your Stairs into Storage
Each step can be transformed into a slide-out drawer. This is a place where you can store a number of smaller items. This also provides an immense amount of storage space because most home staircases are 10 to 12 stairs. This would be 10 to 12 storage drawers. This is a task you do not want to take on if you are unaware of what is under your stairs and not very handy. But if you are handy, some paint, drawer track kits and some power tools could transform your staircase into storage space while still preserving your ability to use the stairs to get up and down to different floors in your home.

Photo Credit: Fresh Home

Be Book Smart
If you are a book lover, you can decorate your staircase to look like stacked books. You will just need some paint and some drawing talent. Then, paint the face of each stair to look like the spine side of your favorite books. If you are not the best at art, you can find letter and number stencils at craft stores to help you along in painting the book titles. This is a more subtle change, but it will give your home some personality.

Photo Credit: Apartment Therapy

Light Them Up
If you have open space under each of your steps, you can use this space to light up your staircase. There are simple options like stick up lights that can easily be placed under each step with special adhesive strips. These just click on and off by you tapping on the lights. You can go more sophisticated and get recessed lighting put underneath each step. This would require a lot of carpentry and electrical knowledge, so do not attempt it on your own unless you have the required skills.

Photo Credit: Aldea

Update Your Railings
If you are going for a more modern home, those Victorian banisters are not doing your home justice. Glass and metal are very popular in modern homes and these can be installed in a day either by you if you have the skills or a professional contractor. You can also mix modern, straight line wood with glass, or just the wood. Wood can still be used in modern homes if it is stained the right color and is straight lines.

Photo Credit: Seven Home Ideas

Go Dark
Dark woods are really popular right now and work well with most design schemes. Changing the color of the wood is something that you can do with some time and elbow grease. First, you will need to strip your stairs down to their natural wood. This will require stripping chemicals, so take all necessary precautions and do this safely. Once everything is safely stripped and dry, you will need to take a dark wood stain and simply stain the stairs with the new color. Staining is something that can be tricky, so be sure to get some help if necessary.

Once you have stained everything, you should apply a finishing wax or clear top coat to protect the wood. These will also make the stairs resistant to drink, dirt and food stains, and will make the stairs easier to clean.

Photo Credit: Decor Pad

{Richard Tucker has been writing about home design solutions for nearly a decade. When he’s not writing, you can find him working as an engineer, designing energy efficient elevator parts.}