Decorate now! The How To Guide for Making Your Space Beautiful

How to find creative and budget ways to decorate your space now

Hi, this Lens is made to share with you my love of interior design and find the cheap beautiful things that can transform any room of your house. Tired of not having money to decorate? Come on the journey of digging for budget ways to transform your spaces to bring you joy, love and happiness and make your home the best place to stay! .
PS - Please rate my lense and leave a comment! Thanks!

Creating a Scheme for your Room

10 Easy Ways to Find Decoration Inspiration

1. Build on your starting point by amassing as many fabric swatched, paint cards, surface samples, flooring ideas, and furniture shapes as you can.
2. Tear out inspirational pictures from magazines
3. Phone, write or request online for catalogs and samples
4. Haunt appropriate shops and take photographs of furniture and accessories that you like
5. Dedicate a special space to pulling them all together, whether a table, scrapbook or display board.
6. Experiment with the different pieces that you have gathered, try different and unexpected color choices together and lay textures next to one another
7. Visit a fabric ship and bring home samples to play with or order sample fabrics online. You can often have mailed to you for free.
8. Focus on the furniture that you already have, what you need to keep and acquire and styles for furniture
9. Decorating is never just about color but how you can weave them around the bare bones of a room and create the entire feel, mood and the whole picture together
10. As you create the environment, pay attention to accessories also just as you would when picking out an outfit. the details make a huge difference - some flowers added, piece of sculpture, drapery. Add the vital finishes to your space.

All About Spring Decorating

Fun Articles on Centerpieces, Color, and Fresh Ideas

Great Links to open your imagination to all the fun with bright bold colors to use decorating for Spring.

Spring Decorating About.com: Links to Spring Decorating
Lighten Up for Spring: Article about how to lighten up your rooms
How to Stretch your Dollars for Spring: Creative budget ideas to makeover for Spring
Spring Decorating Trends: Check out the latest trends for Spring

Make it a Tropical Getaway

5 Ways to add Tropical Style to your Room

1. Flooring - Use wood floors, tile, rugs that are grasscloth or woven

2. Add jungle prints. This can be in accents with pillows, blankets, a chair with leopard or zebra prints. Also you can use art to bring in a monkey, zebra print

3. Bring in big plants. Big leaved tropical style plants bring live and good energy into the room. Palms can work well too.

4. Use large scale furniture. It should be comfortable above all else. Use soft luxurious feeling fabrics. You can also bring bamboo, iron and rattan can bring more texture to the room

5. Color is often many neutral and brown tones, muted greens and blues can be added as well. Be bold with your accents and personalize the space for you.

Tropical Style Resources

How to escape to that tropical place in your own home

Here are some fun resources to make a tropical space in your home. Give it warmth, style, feeling so you have your own getaway. Have fun with it!

Tropical Style: Contemporary Dream Houses in Malaysia

by: Gillian Beal, Jacob Termansen, Pia Marie Molbech

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

Tropical Modern

by: Raul A. Barreneche

Amazon Price: $26.37 (as of 12/11/2009)

Tropical Interiors

by: Elizabeth V. Reyes, A. Chester Ong

Amazon Price: $23.07 (as of 12/11/2009)

Landscaping with Tropical Plants: Design Ideas, Creative Garden Plans, Cold-Climate Solutions

by: Editors of Sunset Books

Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/11/2009)

Its Spring! Time to break out with Color in your Home

How to Liven up your rooms with color

The sun is out and I have spring fever. I am thinking about how to use more color to liven up those rooms! Here are some low budget ideas.

1. Clear the clutter. Remove it all! Remember those pictures and model homes. Is anything laying around? Find a home and organize. Be ruthless about giving away to bless others so you do not live in CHAOS.
2. Spring clean the room from top to bottom. If its outside, its team to clear the leaves, dead plants, clean the patio as you will be using it more that the sun is shining.
3. Add Fragrance. Use the home scents like bath& body works, Glade or something similar. There is linen, spring rain, flowers that bring wonderful smells inside.
4. Rearrange the furniture. It is a great opportunity to pull everything away from the wall. Try angling furniture in the room. Make more intimate seating area. Try removing a piece of furniture to storage to open up the room for those times you entertain.
5. Use Decorative Pillows. These are low cost and a fun way to bring great texture and color into your room. They come in all sizes and shapes so let your creativity go and bring home that pillow that will pop a bright bold color this spring.
6. Add Plants and flowers. Live plants are the best but I am out of town a lot more in summer so try to stick with low maintenance plants. Another option is silk flowers that can look fabulous also. There are even easy cleaners now to spray that dissipate the dreaded dust from sticking to them. Those outside flower boxes will bring a smile when they are brimming with new spring colors on the porch.
7. Add Paint. This can be to one wall or to the entire room. For hot trendy colors, look to all those free paint swatches you can bring home to play with. There are also some great color guides that can be downloaded on line. I spent time with boring walls and love the rooms I went for the bold color. Its only paint and for a few dollars you can change it again.
8. Rotate accessories from other rooms. This is something fun to do. I pull something out of bathroom or change artwork between rooms to create variety and surprise when someone comes in the house.
9. Add a Rug. Just think about what a great red rug on the floor can change those bare floors or break up expansive carpet. Now there are a multitude of great colors that you can buy for outdoors also. It changes the feel of patio concrete to feel like an outside room.
10. Add Photographs. Find your favorite pictures and make a collage, poster or frame and small grouping to put on a mantel, table or wall. These personal touches are what make your home yours.

Redesign Master Bedroom with Glamour

Easy How to Video for Decorating your bedroom

Great ideas on how to use paint, fabric, mix glamour features of mirrors and texture in the room

Angelo Surmelis 24 Hour Design "Glamorous Romantic Bedroom"

Michelle and Albert Lemus have a master bedroom that is not very adult-friendly. After years of having nursery furniture and baby toys as their décor, they are ready to reclaim their space. Designer Angelo Surmelis and the rest of the 24 Hour Design team set out freshen up their bedroom with a glamorous romantic style.

curated content from YouTube

Makeover room to feel like you are in Italy

How to transform space to feel like an Italian Villa

This is a very cool video showing how to paint carpet, paint the walls with plaster, make it look like bricks, paint a ceiling and build a trellis. It is low cost and the transformation is incredible!

HGTV Look What I Did!

http://www.CarisaInteriorDesign.com - Carisa Dami wanted to help her Italian-born in-laws feel at home, so she created an Italian Villa-themed room and patio.

curated content from YouTube

Make it a Fabulous Bathroom

- Where to find those delectable ideas

Great Sources for your Bathroom Decor...

HGTV Color Schemes: These are some fabulous examples of hip colors to use in a bathroom or even bedroom. Don't limit yourself to examples of the room you are working on but look at others to bring those bright colors into small spaces.
Rate my Space: If you haven't checked this out, you need to. It is full of many amazing spaces that people post, get ideas, rate others spaces and post your own for input. Be careful to take pictures with no clutter as people are brutal. Its worth it for the great collaboration of ideas. You can search by color, style, room and will be sure to find some unique ideas you can immediately use!
The Bed and Bath Store: After much searching through web store fronts, I had good luck and decent prices at this store. (I even found a low price on a custom order bed) There is huge selection to browse through for those towels, rugs, accessories.
Expo Design - You can order it all here!: Well, there are so many choices today in the bathroom. The options are overwhelming. Having navigated the brick and mortar store and the online stores. I can say that I did take the easy way and few times and go to Expo to just order what was needed. Everything but a small tile order came in promptly and with no hassle. The store is beautiful showcase to see things laid out and installed so when you are trying to design that custom tile install you can use your creativity!

Make over your Kitchen with Parisian Style

Budget Kitchen Makerover - from new to fabulous Paris Chic!

Do it yourself techniques for your Kitchen makeover. Video will show you how to transform cabinets, countertops, walls with easy to do methods. It is amazing result!

HGTV Parisian Kitchen Make-Over with Faux Finishes

This was my segment on HGTV's "Look What I Did!" that aired on June 15th, 2007. I transformed my entire kitchen with just paint! Projects include: Formica counter tops to look like granite, ceramic tiles back-splash to look like tumbled stone and dichroic glass, faux stained glass window, murals on walls and right on cabinetry and a break away wall revealing a faux brick wall.

curated content from YouTube

Style from the Aisle

Salon Style: the cheap chic way

Salon Style

Curtains - The windows in a salon may be best heavily draped, darkness is desireable to highlight features like sculpture or art. Windows can detract
Use fabrics - Dress your home with layers of fabric. It is a lot like dressing yourself in winter. The bones of the room can be colored in a basic fabric, and use layers of linen, luxury fabrics, velvet, scarfs, that you love.
Mediterranean - Furnishings from Italy, France fit the bill. Its the look that counts, look for demuline, new curves, louis look-alike has royal influence in the room. For example, you can achieve an old world dining room with toile, satin over an iron table and iron chair.
Create Drama - Use things you like pictures, paintings, books, travel souvenirs to make the space yours.
Gather a warm palette of colors, use golds, reds, browns. Go the home store and find paint chips, wood stain samples, and snippets plain colored fabrics.
Practice patterns and texture - snip patterns from magazines, pictures, prints, fabric stores. Balance your colors, fabrics and textures.
Lighting - Look for candles, crystal chandeliers, floor and table lamps with curved shades and wrought iron or metal candle chandeliers

Make your Kitchen Welcoming

A splash of color!

The Kitchen is the heart of every home. When you have a party, where do people congregate? When family tend to gather, where does that occure? For most of you it is in the kitchen.

For many years, the kitchen has been white. Knowing how white takes away the color in a room, we embarked to do a budget makeover. The low cost way is primarily paint. The cabinets are in good shape a and a light oak color. Stripping the walls of all art, there is less wall space in the kitchen then most rooms, so it should not be a daunting task to complete. It is important to remove everything from countertops and have a clean space. Then tape of everything so no paint lands on the countertops or cabinets. We decided on a tuscan gold and wow has it made a difference! The cabinets look better, the wall hangings look better, and I look better against a colorful backdrop.

Tips for Kitchen Decor
1. Paint a beautiful color that complements the room.

2. The other low cost items to do are add/ change cabinet hardware

3. Look for low cost art, stone hanging, quotes at discount stores, overstock to hang on the wall. I chose small shop vignettes on stone to hang on between countertop and upper cabinets. It bring more color and ambience in the room.

4. Kitchens tend to get cluttered, so simplest way to make a change is to clear that clutter. If you haven't used it in a few months get rid of it so your kitchen is full of items you love to use.

5. Consider adding greenery, flowers or pottery in corners or high upper spaces above cabinets.

Cool Home Office Decor

Fun ideas for decorating your home office

Living in your office too much, is it it dull and cluttered? Having a highly organized and inspiring environment pays back big time! Working in a an place that supports your work and energizes you is critical for success. Explore these links for fun ideas to transform your office!

Fun spring office decor: Bold green walls with black and white. I love the rug that brings splash of color into the room. I usually have a lot more "stuff" in my office but the use of seating area and desk is great use of room.
Neutral Contemporary Brown: Clean Contemporary Style office with neutral walls, dark furniture can be style that doesn't go out of style. You can always add splashy seasonal color too.
Comfy Corner: This is a corner with comfort chair that makes you want to kick back. Also use shelving to add storage overhead or you can change out display. The throw pillows can mix or match to change up the ambience.

Tuscan colors

Using the color and style of Italy

Private Tuscany

by: Elizabeth Helman

Amazon Price: $33.75 (as of 12/11/2009)

Tuscan Elements (Decor Best-Sellers)

by: Alexandra Black

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

Tuscany Interiors (Interiors (Taschen))

by: Paolo Rinaldi

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy

by: Frances Mayes, Edward Mayes

Amazon Price: $19.77 (as of 12/11/2009)

Living in Tuscany

by: Leonardo Castellucci

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

How to navigate the maze to find a great contractor

Key decor success strategies

Well, as I have written I am trying to get some projects done. I love doing what I can but also have learned the hard way not to start more than I can finish. For my latest project, I have researched and designed what I want but now need some strong men to come do the work! Easier said than done. I don't hire fly by night contractors that will show up, has no insurance and does terrible work. While some may be great they are few and far between and without some good personal references not the way to go. For the small cost, I want the company to get a permit so I don't need to worry later or disclose work was not permitted.

Now for the update, for three companies one does not show up, one shows up on time with a portfolio and then tries to sell me on having his relatives do some of the work rather than through the company but I get a quote, and the other shows up late but has a great presentation, examples, testemonials, and really consults in identifying other ideas that will work and price is higher. He was a polished salesman. At this point, I am almost ready to pay the price. One of the big criteria I have is people showing up on time!!! Can I trust someone to do the work when they say that doesn't come on time? Or do I endure the agony of more estimators coming by and sitting through the routine. What is your advice? Is the process always like this? It is really annoying to want to get job done but find high quality companies to give me pricing and service so I can assess fairly their estimates. I am good at decorating, but stepping up to needing contractors makes everything take longer. Enough of my dilemma, I would appreciate your tips!

Bathroom Makeover

Design on a budget

I am pursueing a makeover to the master bathroom. It has been quite educational perusing the stores for varieties of countertop, tile, shower. My goals for the room are luxurious, relaxing, elegant space. I found a beautiful chandelier that is antique silver that will hang over the bathtub. The walls are just waiting for transformation to a rich color from the glowing white they are now. Some good resources I found are in magazines and the Better Homes & Garden special edition. To bring together the look, I will install marble countertops with undermount sinks, replace the bathtub and tile around with a stone looking tile the bath and shower. I am still debating what to do with the flooring but may tile it. Keys to planning

1. Draw a layout of the room. Will you leave the location of items the same or is it screaming for a move. Anytime you move plumbing it will add up quick so think hard about it.

2. How much can you spend? With the various types of materials, they also come at many different price points.

3. The style of cabinets, fixtures and lights. Look at catalogs, visit the local showrooms and peruse what they have. Look at the details of tile, colors, pattern to identify what you love.

4. Pick the colors. There are beautiful choices in bath towels and paints you can select to complement. Also if you change toilets and sink, decide if you will use white or cream colors.

5. Select the tile, countertops, lights, fixtures, flooring, shower, bath that is required for the room.

6. Find a contractor. Get estimates. Ask what they can purchase and what you will need to purchase. Always get 3 quotes as prices can vary based on your work. Sign a contract and do not give full payment until the job is complete. You can check on status of contractors license as well to make sure it is current.

7. Plan the timeline for completing work. I am getting ready to begin and am very excited about the change.

8. Take pictures and send to me so I can share in the results of your amazing new design and space.

To Beautiful Rooms!

Bathroom Design Books

Design Ideas for Bathrooms

by: Susan Boyle Hillstrom

Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 12/11/2009)

Ultimate Bathroom Design

Amazon Price: $29.16 (as of 12/11/2009)

Complete Bathroom Design: 30 Floor Plans, Plus Fixtures, Surfaces, and Storage Ideas

by: Holly Harrison, Sarah Lynch

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

New Bathroom Idea Book (Idea Books)

by: Andrew Wormer

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

Pottery Barn Bathrooms (Pottery Barn Design Library)

by: Judith Nasatir, Clay Ide

Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)

Scavenging for the perfect item

How to be persistent

Do you have a vision of your perfect room? Have you gone through the local stores and just not found that item? It is frustrating and depending on where you live sometimes impossible. Some tips that have helped me are

- Find pictures of what it is or sketch it. Use these to ask at design stores as they can often order for you
- Search online, if you have a picture and even a manufacturer it makes it easy. Some places only sell wholesale so ask them who a distributor is.
- If its a large priced item, research prices online as they vary broadly. By paying shipping charges to a company in Kentucky, I saved about 40% from the local store that sold the exact same item
- Search websites like Overstock, Spiegel, Home stores that have websites, mega furniture stores, even discount stores like Ross, Ikea and Marshalls can have great decor finds as well at an affordable price
- Be persistent! That means checking local stores that turn merchandise often as the best items disappear quickly. Find out the days new material arrives. Get to know people and they will be looking for you as well.

Planning your Room Makeover

How not to waste money

Select a color scheme. Look at your likes and dislikes and your families. Limit the number of colors in a room from two to four. Use one dominant color. Repeat colors more than once in a room.
Assess the size of the room - Measure the room. Draw a layout of the space you have, and make it to scale if possible. Light colors will make your room feel larger. Dark colors will make your room feel smaller. In a small room, blend draperies with the wall colors. If you use large patterns in a small room, it will make it feel even smaller.
Look at your possessions. What furniture, pictures, items do you want to fit into the room.
Function of the room - How will the space be used? What is its relation to adjoining rooms? Is there a door or will it be open? What is the color scheme in adjoining rooms?
Coordinating Color - Use the same color on the walls or the same flooring color in adjoining rooms. Use the same color scheme in several rooms but vay choice for the most important colors. Repeat one color thoughout the house but emphasize a different color in each room. Keep rugs and draperies is similar color families in adjoining rooms similar.
Emphasize desireable architectural details like fireplaces or windows with strong colors. You can hide defects with neutral paint colors that blend feature into the wall.

Rescue the Home Office - How to gain control

Escaping the buried feeling to that clean slick office highly productive environment

These days the masses are working from a home office whether a remote worker, self employed, sales and they can be more productive. Those hallway conversations, people stopping by, deliveries etc do take your time and focus from your most valuable activities. Working in a mess drains your energy and in Feng Shui called an energy drain. The difference is huge. If you have piles all around, start with clearing the desk or the room and see how the energy in the space is boosted.

So how can you break those habits and boost productivity? It can be easy for some and most difficult for others. The first step is to think deeply about all the activities that room, desk or closet must support you in performing flawlessly, efficiently in your day.

Did you make the list? Good, now you can move on to evaluate what space, supplies, equipment do you need to accomplish the task is most productive manner possible.

Then think about what has not been working - have you thrown out what you already have access electronically too? Are you saving print outs for files on computer? Do you have unopened mail? Documents not filed? No storage space left to file? Too many books, toys, electronic devices? I know this is tough but as more technology is available it is easier to keep adding then give away. At one point, I had 4 computers, two printers + plus a photo printer, 2 mouse pads, charges for cell, PDA, Camara doc, speakers for playing tunes, etc. You get the idea, there are too many items and too many power cords to sort it out. The next problem identified is too many books - I like to keep those nonfiction ones and when I read a lot new ones are frequently acquired. So next solution - empty out that closet and build in shelves. There was a book space but I knew with built in shelves I could fit twice as much. Then with a small investment - I headed to the furniture store to buy shelves that matched my desk and were taller to accomodate another six feet of books and a foot wider. They will be delivering soon. Then back to operation clear the desk, the box came out and everything was removed from the desk. Then came the sort the box and find a home for all. The papers that could be shredded were, magazines discarded, important articles removed and in the to read folder, binders on the book shelves for active projects and windex to shine that pretty desk. Don't forget to clean electronics as they are a dust trap. I also opted to untangle all the cables and used some simple cable ties to get it all organized in the corner. It looks better but there are a lot of cords! One of these days there will be a genious who standardizes power cords across products.

Those are the key steps to getting control of your office space.

The next step is to infuse your personality and style in that newly cleaned space - do you want modern and bright, mood room, black and modern, country and cozy, dark library feel, or bright yellow like the sun. There are so many ways to go and you have to think about time of day you will work in there and what you want to ignite your creativity and productivity.

I used a kitchen decor style that I liked and adapted it to the office with a yellow and blue/ green. All the furniture is scandinavian style light wood, rolled wood blinds and white curtains. The accent colors are red and black since chair and picture frames are that. The art work is flowers, family and travel photos and those school credentials. It is energizing, even when its dark out.

I hope these tips are helpful and incite your creativity in creating that optimum energy producting place in your home. Cheers!

Decorating Books

Helpful guides with great pictures

Inside the Not So Big House: Discovering the Details That Bring a Home to Life (Susanka)

Decorate now! The How To Guide for Making Your Space Beautiful

How to find creative and budget ways to decorate your space now

Creating a Scheme for your Room

10 Easy Ways to Find Decoration Inspiration

All About Spring Decorating

Fun Articles on Centerpieces, Color, and Fresh Ideas

Make it a Tropical Getaway

5 Ways to add Tropical Style to your Room

Tropical Style Resources

How to escape to that tropical place in your own home

Its Spring! Time to break out with Color in your Home

How to Liven up your rooms with color

Redesign Master Bedroom with Glamour

Easy How to Video for Decorating your bedroom

Angelo Surmelis 24 Hour Design "Glamorous Romantic Bedroom"

Makeover room to feel like you are in Italy

How to transform space to feel like an Italian Villa

HGTV Look What I Did!

Make it a Fabulous Bathroom

- Where to find those delectable ideas

Make over your Kitchen with Parisian Style

Budget Kitchen Makerover - from new to fabulous Paris Chic!

HGTV Parisian Kitchen Make-Over with Faux Finishes

Style from the Aisle

Salon Style: the cheap chic way

Make your Kitchen Welcoming

A splash of color!

Cool Home Office Decor

Fun ideas for decorating your home office

Tuscan colors

Using the color and style of Italy

How to navigate the maze to find a great contractor

Key decor success strategies

Bathroom Makeover

Design on a budget

Bathroom Design Books

Scavenging for the perfect item

How to be persistent

Planning your Room Makeover

How not to waste money

Rescue the Home Office - How to gain control

Escaping the buried feeling to that clean slick office highly productive environment

Decorating Books

Helpful guides with great pictures

Fabulous Decorating Links

Free tips

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