I love this pretty porcelain owl sugar shaker from West Elm. Owls are still a making an appearance on everything from pillows and tea towels to umbrella stands and mobiles, but I think this one is my favorite because it’s not super in-your-face.
While it’s listed as a sugar shaker, I don’t see why you couldn’t fill it with salt or cinnamon sugar or something else.
What do you think of owls – cute or super overrated?
Seems like you can’t have a problem these days without someone telling you ‘There’s an app for that.” Because, you know, there probably is. And if the problem you have happens to be not being able to test drive furniture from Pier 1, CB2, Stacks & Stacks, CSN Stores, Crate & Barrel and other stores, there definitely is.
The free SnapShop Showroom app for the iPhone lets you virtually redecorate with stuff from tons of online stores. All you need is a snapshot of the space you’re looking to fill, and you can test drive the furniture and accessories that are gorgeous in theory, but not always as gorgeous in practice.
What are your favorite apps for decorating and design?
Whenever the topic of home staging comes up, I like to tell the story of my mother-in-law. She was trying to sell her house… a beautiful house, full of beautiful antiques and fine furniture. Prospective buyers would walk through, oohing and ahing, but no one put in an offer. Why? Because all the buyers spent all their time in the house entranced by all the nice stuff.
When did the house finally sell? After my mother-in-law put the majority of her nice things into storage.
Home staging, in case you haven’t maxed out on it watching the home and lifestyle channels, is the art of creating neutral, inoffensive environments that appeal to the majority of people (or at least don’t offend anyone) and don’t distract from the space on display. There are plenty of people making a living staging homes, but with a little trial and error, most people are capable of DIYing it.
Here are 10 home staging basics to help the noobs out there who are looking to sell a house or apartment:
1. Clean EVERYTHING. When The Beard and I were looking for homes, it was hard to see the “good bones” in the dirty ones. After viewing one home, all I could remember was the big pot of nasty… something… on the kitchen counter and the gnarly smell. In another house, the grime everywhere distracted from the house itself. When there’s no dirt to look at, people will look at the space for sale.
2. Nix the CLUTTER. Your stuff is almost as distracting as dirt. Not everyone can afford to put their stuff in storage like my mother-in-law, but put away what can be put away, and maybe start packing whatever isn’t necessary for daily living a little early. Boxes in the basement are less distracting than books stacked in corners.
The home office can be an afterthought for a lot of people – that is, if you have the space to devote an entire room to working. This is especially the case among those who don’t work at home and would honestly rather not feel compelled to give up precious square footage to work-related gear. But since I work from home, I tend to empathize with those who do, too, and would probably like somewhere sweet to sit as they endure the daily grind. I used to have a nice home office, until I gave it up during the renovations, and now I fear that I’ll never again work from anywhere but the kitchen table. I’d prefer to be working in here, though:
Seeing this oh-so-inviting space designed by Turquoise makes me long for my old office. Oh, we’ll have another home office someday, but it will be shared and that means it will be at least halfway to messy most of the time. But a girl can dream, right? I’d love to know what your home office sitch is. Do you have one? Is it grand? Would you love to have one, but the space just isn’t there? Or are you content to leave work at work where it belongs so that extra room can stay a den/guest room/nursery/gaming space?
Image: Turquoise
As mentioned in a post earlier this week, I’m devoting a lot of my excess brainpower – what little there is – to putting together my future bedroom. When it comes to furniture, the only matching stuff we have in terms of furniture is the bed and two matching bedside tables. Which, frankly, is fine with me because I’m not a big fan of coordinating bedroom sets. And since I much prefer the look of rooms with lots of different kinds of furniture and accessories, I’m leaning toward using the existing bedside tables elsewhere in the house and pulling two other tables from who knows where to use as bedside tables, bringing me to the question I posed in the headline. What do you think of mismatched bedside tables?
Creating calmer interiors – and I’m talking about your home’s interior and your interior – doesn’t have to mean sending the kids to boarding school or firing your SO and moving to a house or apartment that will actually contain the detritus of day-to-day living. Not that those things won’t necessarily help, but I prefer to think of them as last resorts. Steps better taken after trying things like decluttering your living room and creating more space through trickery. Not that there’s anything wrong with a frenetic interior, of course, or a shabby one, if that’s what you’re into. But for some people – particularly people whose lives are filled with stress and chaos – home needs to be an oasis.
1. Choose calming colors for every room in your home, including your home office if you have one. Color affects mood, so stay away from colors that make you feel awake and energized, but don’t make the opposite mistake and go for those that make you feel sluggish or depressed. You could look at a color therapy chart to find the most calming hues, but only you know what colors make you feel serene, relaxed, and happy. For some, that might mean a bright turquoise or lemon, while for others, it could mean a darkish sea foam green. This is where those sample tins of paint come in handy. Put a square of your favorite by your bed – how does seeing it in the morning make you feel? How about at night?
2. Make every room of your home inviting to promote feelings of calm. Ever notice that people at parties will often congregate in the kitchen? It’s because people feel comfortable and nurtured where the food is. How can you make the rest of your home as inviting as the kitchen? First, choose comfortable furniture that looks good but doesn’t put out a ‘no touching’ vibe. Furniture should be touchable – and while it might be unseemly to throw oneself onto a couch or chair, the most calming furniture is the kind you can relax into. Second, give yourself something aesthetically pleasing to admire. Do you have a painting or accessory that you find peaceful? Or an heirloom that brings to mind happy thoughts of your favorite relatives? Display them where you need hard-hitting mood elevators.
3. Go all-natural, with materials and textiles that Mother Nature created – especially in the bathroom and in the bedroom. There’s just something about the real stuff that is conducive to letting go of stress. Things that come to mind are a durable seagrass rug or a rush ottoman, lovely linen curtains or pillows, lots of natural wood or wicker, and hey, maybe even plenty of windows that give you views of actual nature if you’re lucky enough to have some right outside of your front door. In the bathroom, a bamboo bath mat is so much nicer underfoot than your standard fuzzy one.
4. Keep surfaces clutter free, because seeing clutter all around you is guaranteed to interfere with your ability to achieve serenity. That’s not to say you have to keep all of your surfaces free of everything except for lamps and whatever book you’re reading at the moment. Just make sure that everything that’s on top of your night stand, dressers, side tables, coffee table, etc. is either beautiful to look at or something you want easy access to in the immediate future or all the time. In other words, no letting papers build up or dumping the contents of your pockets onto the kitchen counter every day after work (unless you clean it up before bedtime).
5. Think simple! A lot of people are put off by the idea of minimalism, since most of us feel much more comfortable when we’ve built ourselves cocoons of *stuff*. And voluntary simplicity still sounds so fadish, even though it’s completely mainstream by this point. I’m not suggesting that you throw out all your stuff save for your bed and one chair and a desk, but rather that you shouldn’t feel compelled to fill every last inch of your home with furniture and carpets and decorative items just because you feel like it’s the right thing to do. If you love that look – think a controlled chaos of comfort – then fabu. But more people than not find it’s hard to feel calm in a space when there’s just too much going on in it.
Honestly, it has never occurred to me to think much about the differences between a decorator and a designer, or even to consider that these might be two wholly separate professions. But apparently in some circles, using the terms interchangeably could earn one a fat lip or at least no small amount of derision. The only problem? If Brian Patrick Flynn’s* Design Happens post from late last year is any indication, there’s not much in the way of consensus when it comes to how to use the two labels appropriately. Some people in the field strongly prefer one designation while others don’t mind them being used interchangeably.
According to interior designer Michael Habachy, “Decorating is a talent — either you have it or you don’t. Design is a skill that can be learned.” Whereas interior designer Betsy Burnham feels the line falls thusly: “A decorator is someone who furnishes a house and a designer is someone who provides interior architectural details, as well as furnishings.” And decorator Nick Olsen had this to say: “I think some designers scoff at the term ‘decorator‘ because it does have a more frivolous connotation — simply picking out paint colors and fabric swatches — but it’s one I’m perfectly comfortable with.”
There are plenty of guides out there that break down the differences between interior designers and interior decorators – here’s one example – but it seems like when you go straight to the source, the people who are actually getting in there are remaking people’s interiors don’t really mind what people call them, as long as those people are willing to pay them good money for their creativity, color savvy, and understanding of what makes a great space really great. In the technical sense, an interior decorator is usually someone with great taste who works to outfit an existing space, while an interior designer is someone with some degree of architectural abilities who will transform the space itself.
I definitely recommend that you take the time to read each of the 10 short interviews because it’s a really cool glimpse into the world of interior… whatever. Just choose the word you like best for now, I suppose. Or not – this was a really interesting read, too, and did a lot to clarify just what a licensed interior designer is.
*Speaking of Mr. Flynn, I am in love with this project!
Okay, okay, I swear this will be my last ceiling post in a while. It’s just, have you even gotten sort of stuck or obsessed with one facet of a room and so it feels like every time you go looking for inspiration you end up focused on that one facet? Maybe it’s painted floors… maybe it’s wainscoting… or copper fixtures. In my case, at this point in time, it’s ceilings. So what ceiling got my mind racing today?
This one, from the Danforth Inn cupola, as taken by Zombie37. Now, I’m usually not much into the whole stars and moon faux nighttime sky thing – except in kids’ rooms – but I really like the look and feel of this one. One thing that appeals to me is that it’s making no effort to look authentic. And another is the beams painted in the somewhat lighter blue. It’s just fun and unpretentious and cute. Sometimes cute is just what’s needed to finish up a space.
Yesterday’s post about patterned ceilings apparently did not satisfy my enthusiasm for interesting ceilings. Why this new obsession? Turns out, our bedroom renovation is done, and now it’s time for me to paint and decorate, and I’m considering all kinds of interesting ceiling stuff. Today, I happened to spot some sweet decorated ceiling fans that prove that your ceiling fan doesn’t have to be boring. (And that having an eye-catching ceiling fan doesn’t have to mean choosing one with blades that look like leaves.)
Aren’t these ceiling fans fun? Most ceiling fans have removable blades, so you can get as creative as you want to with paint and stencils or Mod Podge and craft paper of fabric. And whipping up a DIY project like this is super easy and super fast – maybe even one of the fastest things you can do to spruce up your bedroom!
Images via Dittle Dattle; In My Own Style; The Mother Huddle (all with tutorials or links to tutorials)
Ceilings can be pretty boring. More often than not, they are your basic white, regardless of how colorful the rest of the space may be, and even bold decorators who have no qualms about painting with super bright or extra dark colors fear doing anything to the ceiling outside of putting a funky light fixture thereon. Painted ceilings are, in my experience, something one encounters only now and then, and usually only in pictures. As for decorated ceilings, those are even rarer outside of certain old churches and palaces. And it really is a shame.
Think you can’t rock a patterned ceiling because your house doesn’t feature large soaring ceilings plus lots and lots of space? Think again! Standard height ceilings in smaller rooms actually look better with a pattern than standard height ceilings in very large rooms. For example, how lovely is the room above, designed by David Cafiero and seen in Lonny? And while one’s first instinct – that patterned ceilings look best on high ceilings – a basic pattern like stripes or a dark border can look totally sweet on just about any ceiling when you use the right colors and coordinate with the right decor.
Not that there’s anything wrong with your basic white ceiling. In fact, if you’re planning on moving soon, I’d recommend waiting to experiment with patterned ceilings simply because renters or buyers may not want to tackle the job of painting over your experiment. While is still the most popular ceiling option, and doing the ceiling is the biggest pain in the butt when it comes to painting.