The humble daybed was my dream bed as a girl, which is why I’d like my daughter’s first big-girl bed to be a daybed. I’m sure she’ll despise it because the grass is always greener, meaning she’ll dream of a lovely wooden platform bed or a sleigh bed or perhaps even a round hanging bed if she peruses the Manolo for the Home archives. A daybed can be thought of as a cross between chaise lounge, couch, and a bed, and may come with a trundle bed that stows away underneath so two can find a night’s rest.

I still love them, I’ll readily admit, which is why I went looking for pictorial daybed inspiration. Here are five daybeds done five ways…

For the sunroom, where guests can sit on it year round or sleep on it in the summertime:

For the home office, where one can lounge between frantic sessions of productivity:

For the living room, where it doubles as the couch:

For kids’ rooms, whether it is a seating space or a bed for sleepovers or both:

For a cozy, out-of-the-way guest bedroom (otherwise known as the room your dog thinks of as his own):

Regardless of how you feel about the legitimacy of the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, I think we can all agree that this is a pretty sweet chair.

This take one the iconic Egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 is being produced in a limited run of, you guessed it, just 42 numbered chairs. The design pays homage to the Hitchhikers Guide series with a beautifully rendered hand-finished embroidered exploding earth on the back. The front of the chair features optical white hide with a cowhide seat cushion (which frankly, I could do without, but I suppose one could remove it).

Sweet hip printed cotton canvases by DuffyLondon take the place of actual lighting fixtures when tiny houses and apartments simply cannot handle the introduction of something as impressive and imposing as a full-size chandelier. All the glamour without the threat of banging one’s head or snagging delicate glass!

Some of the DuffyLondon prints even glow — the images are digitally printed onto cotton canvas and stretched over wooden frames that installed with low energy strip lights that illuminate the prints from within. Interesting, but sounds kind of ghetto, a la the glowing crucifixion scenes one can purchase at the Dollar Tree.

Or you could just opt for a straight-up crystal chandelier poster, like this one from ElectricPopSpot on Zazzle:

It’s not quite as chic and cheeky, but the colors are fantastic and with the right frame it could be a lot of fun!

When you’ve just bought a house, especially if it’s your first and the house itself could use a little fixing up, it’s hard not to want to start knocking down walls and building additions. Yet as strong as the urge to remodel right away can be, I’d council you to wait. At least a year. Maybe two if you’re planning on doing anything drastic like starting your own business, becoming a telecommuter, or having a baby.

“What?” you say, both incredulous and impatient to get those renovations underway.

But hear me out. Unless you have solid, unchangeable life plan that will guide your every action for the next decade or you have enough spare cash to re-remodel whenever you like, you may find that one or two years from now what you need from your home is quite different than what you needed from it when you closed. It’d be shame to build a dormer and turn two bedrooms into a single master bedroom just to discover that the bedroom you sacrificed would have made the perfect home office or crafting room or nursery. It’d be even worse to renovate without thinking very carefully and end up with a mishmash like this:

So consider letting a year (or more) go by before you nail down your remodeling plans. I guarantee you that in a year or two, your house will tell *you* whether you need to expand your kitchen or build a front porch or install a bay window. The Beard and I have been in our little house just over two years, and only now have we come to realize what we need to do with the upstairs, which is add a landing with a banister and divide one of the two bedrooms into a home office for each of us. I’m glad we waited until the house told us what we should do because if we hadn’t, we would have ended up with two bedrooms upstairs. It would have been nice, but not what we needed.

I’ll take one of these:

And four of these:

And while you’re at it, I may as well have you send me one of these:

Love,
Never teh Bride (who is redoing her kitchen)

Walk around any town with more than a few triple-decker apartments long enough and you’re bound to see at least one or two faded armchairs or loveseats that have obviously been exposed to their fair share of rain, sun, and, here in Massachusetts’ North Shore, snow.

I personally have always maintained that there is indoor furniture and outdoor furniture, and never should they meet. No plastic chairs in the living room and no couches on the deck, in other words. Not everyone shares my opinion, however. Just out of curiosity, I thought I’d post a poll to find out just how many people do or don’t. Have at it, please:

Do note that so far as I can tell, this pretty upholstered plum settee from The Quill Pen was only let out of doors for a few moments for a unique furniture photo shoot. Otherwise it dwells inside where it is protected from the elements awaiting its forever home. If you’re interested, the price is listed at $850.

If you’re strapped for cash but desperate to update your living room, you can always start small, with something like new throw pillows or throw pillow covers like these from Ruby+Stella Home.

Twenty bucks or so won’t break the bank, and a burst of color where you park your butt might be just the thing to brighten a dark mood brought on by the American economy. Then again, why spend even that much if you happen to own a sewing machine and have easy access to fabric you like, whether already in your collection or at your local sewing shop? Personally, I’m partial to the Eames tribute fabric I found in the LA Times, but any fabric will do.

Slipcovering a couch may be too difficult / time-intensive / annoying to contemplate at this point in your life, but it takes hardly any time at all to whip up covers for square or rectangular throw pillows!

Here’s the DIY skinny: Choose your favorite fabric. Measure the pillow you want to cover, up and down and from side to side. Add a bit to both measurements since you need to account for a seam allowance, but don’t add too much since you want the end result to fit rather tightly on your pillow. Cut one piece of fabric that matches your measurements-plus-a-little-more, then two pieces that are as tall as your measurements-plus-a-little-more but only about 3/4 as wide.

You can probably see where I’m going with this… Finish one up-and-down edge on each 3/4 piece. Then, with right sides together sew your single side piece to your two pieces with those two pieces overlapping. Turn inside out and, voila! You have sewn your very own custom (and customizable) throw pillow cover. Once you have the hang of the basic cover, you can add embellishments like borders or buttons or whatever else strikes your fancy.

Every been tempted to cutesy up your powder room by replacing all your bathroom accessories with a matching set featuring, oh, a fancy hat and feathered pumps?

Or flowers or little pink poodles? When I moved into my house, the sickly yellow bathroom walls were painted with badly-stenciled ivy, and the combo was supposed to match the white and lilac tiles (including accent tiles with sad little groupings of flowers). The only reason I can think of for stenciling in ivy was to try to make the bathroom a little more cute.

We’ve done what we can to tone down the cute by painting the walls white and pairing the purple with a soft green, keeping our bathroom accessories subdued, and avoiding signs that advertising things like “We aim to please. You aim, too, please.” Seriously, what is up with those?

Looking to refresh your bathroom or hate the bathroom you inherited when you bought your house? You’re better off skipping the cutesy accessories that are going to grate on your nerves in six months or a year and saving your pennies and springing for a gallon of paint, some new towels, and a pretty mirror. Maybe a pedestal sink if you’re otherwise set where bathroom storage is concerned.

Trust me — think long-term when you’re updating a room and you’ll save money in the long run.