5 Ways To Add New Life To Your Room

Taking down Christmas decorations is not nearly as fun as it was to put them up. The color, texture, and the lights are all gone, and the room seems dull  and lifeless compared to how it looked.

Try Something NEW!!!

This year when you take down you decor use this emptiness as an opportunity to give your room a new look.

Once the Christmas decor is down take out ALL accessories. Step back and take a look at your empty room.

Rearrange the Furniture:

Now think of how you can rearrange the furniture, or if you love your arrangement you are ready to do the next step.

There are plenty of websites that have programs where you can arrange your room on paper before you actually start to cozy up your room.

When rearranging keep in mind it is winter so it is nice to have a nice cozy conversation area.

You can go HERE or HERE to these sites to arrange your rooms.

Let There Be Light!:

The next step is to bring in lighting. Most rooms are lighting poor, and you will be amazed at how much better your room will look with the proper amount of lighting.

Here is a little formula to figure out how much lighting you will need......

find your square footage (example 12ft X 16ft = 192sq.ft)

Then multiply your square footage by 1.5 .

(192 sq.ft. X 1.5 =288 watts) so that means your room will need 288 watts of lighting sources.

An average room should have approx. 4-5 lamps.

Look around your home and maybe you can switch out lamps from other rooms to give your main living area a new look.

Bringing Life To Your Room:
The next element to add will give your room some life. Look around at your corners, do you have any dead corners? By dead, I mean, no light or life? If you do try a floor lamp or a plant. You can even use a floor plant with an uplight at it's base to bring life to that corner.

Add Personality To Your Room:
There is nothing like color and accessories to give your room personality. Personally I like to add color and pattern with my pillows and artwork.

Look around and see where you can bring in some new artwork, or a piece you have in another room.

Remember NOT every wall needs to have artwork on it. Choose the main focal wall and decide which piece of art  you want to highlight. This is the wall that you should place your favorite piece.

When hanging artwork make sure it is not hung too high. If hanging a grouping make sure they are not hung too far apart, you want them to be viewed as a unit.....

Here is a good illustration that gives you some measurements as guidelines....

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These are good guidelines, however you need to use your own judgement when hanging your personal artwork for it to work in your own home.

ACCESSORIZE: 

This is the one area that is really subjective, and there are two camps, more is more, or less is more.

I fall into the less is more camp, but I also love for the owner's personality to shine through, so you will have to decide if you need less, or more to accomplish that in your room.

Look around your room, and see which areas you need to add color, or texture. Varied textures will give your room interest. 

Think if you need shine or rough textures in your room and add accordingly. 

For instance if you have all shiny objects, and/or metals you will need to add some rough textures such as woods, baskets, or fabrics.

When bringing back your accessories it is a good idea to bring in the largest pieces first and build from that point.

All of the above suggestions are only suggestions, but if you are wanting a new fresh look they are good guidelines to help you get started, and this is the perfect time of year to do it!

"Enjoy The Process!" Of:

Giving New Life To Your Room!

  

 

 

Our New Home's First Christmas Picture Album!

 

Our first Christmas in our new home is something I dreamed about and I can't believe it is HERE!!

I wanted to share with you how we chose to decorate our home this year. I chose a color scheme of black, white and green with just touches of red.

My wrapping papers set the mood this year. I used varied patterns that were combinations of black and white and green. Of course my signature black and white striped paper was at the base of it all.

  

We actually had to move our tree this past Monday because our plantation shutters were installed, so we moved the tree and dismantled the mantel.

So we got to do a Christmas do-over!! 

 We are beyond delighted with our shutters. My hand dandy hubby is going to add a top treatment to the shutters. That is on the list for January!

 We did something a bit different this year by adding a swag over the large opening into our great room.

  

I kept the mantle simple this year and I like the way it compliments the tree and doesn't take away the focus from the tree or the rest of the room.

 Since our TV resides next to the fireplace I also kept my decorations minimal under the TV.

 I am enjoying the simplicity of it all.

From our new home to your home we are wishing you JOY for this Christmas and the upcoming New Year!!

 

 

 

Adding Drama To Your Christmas Decor for Under $50

 

With a new home we have some new opportunities to use some different design elements, and at Christmas time it seems to be the perfect time to try some things out.

One design element I actually wanted to do at my other home for several years, and never got around to doing was to use some sheer fabric, and swag it over the door way into the dining room.

Our new home has a nice large opening from the kitchen area to the great room. It measures 10 ft. wide by 9 ft. high. 

   My hubby got up on the ladder and the swagging began.

I decided to use green wreaths to contrast nicely with the white walls, and the white sheer voile fabric.

Once the wreaths were placed in the right position we were both surprised at how quickly it all came together.

I ordered a total of 12 yards. I needed almost 10 yds just to cover the opening so I allowed two more yards for the drape, and a slight puddling on the floor. 

A friend of mine suggested I look at Fabric Wholesale Direct.  I am sure glad she suggested it because the sheer voile fabric at 118 in. wide was only $2.79 a yard. So for under $45  I got a fabulous new addition to my Christmas decor.

It frames the great room perfectly and adds an elegance and it looks a bit ethereal to me.

Sometimes the simplest decor can be the most dramatic!!

 

 

 

A Great Idea For Your Christmas Mantel

With a new home there are some new and exciting ways I can decorate.

 I am finding that it is a little harder for me to come up with ideas this year. I attribute it to not being that familiar with my new home. Once I came up with a design plan I felt more comfortable moving forward.

In our previous home we had an unusually large mantel to decorate every year. Our mantel spanned the entire width of the room. It was 17ft long. Our new mantel is about a third of that, measuring 65in.

Since our new home’s family room is smaller with a smaller mantel I won’t be doing anything quite as elaborate as I did in our previous home.

The fireplace and the TV share the same wall so this is also something I have to keep in mind because visually your eye will be taking them in at the same time they need to marry well together.

This picture shows how they are connected, it was taken the day we moved in. The TV now resides on the wall and I have artwork over the mantel.

My inspiration picture for my mantel is elegant and simple……

As with all inspiration images I will do my own interpretation  of this beautiful image. I would love to have the large urns, but I don’t! 

Always remember you can tweak things and make it your own. When I look at images of rooms I always look with an open mind and I  never, ever think, “ I can never do that because I will never have those beautiful pieces or that beautiful home!” That is a defeatist attitude. 

Instead I look at it thinking about the colors, the textures, the composition and then I change it up to work with what I have and with my own home and most importantly within my own budget constraints. 

My tip for you is simple…….

Study good design, and what you love, and try to apply it to your room within your own environment, and within your own budget!!

GREAT IDEA:

Since our home is new I want to make sure I protect our mantel from any damage from the greenery I will be using. I use a faux pine greenery for my mantel and I also will add some live greenery that I can remove when it gets dry and somewhat dead looking. By combining the two I get the scent of the pine and it also makes the faux greenery look more real.

The faux greenery has wires that can damage the finish on my mantel so when I read about this next idea I pinned it so I could show my husband, and I want to share this with you because I think it is such a great idea.

via

A mantel nailing board. You take a 3/4in. piece of plywood the same size as your mantel. Add felt furniture glides under the board so it won’t scratch your mantel and this will be where you attach your greenery, stockings, etc. After Christmas is over you can store it with the garland still attached, if you have room or remove the garland and store the board. When Christmas rolls around next year, you are all set!

Today is Christmas mantel day at our home. My handy hubby will be cutting the piece of wood to fit our mantel and I will begin my decorating for this year. Our mantel is 8 in. deep and we found a board at Lowes that is  8in. deep and primed white so that will save us another step of having to paint the whole board.

I will show you the final results in an upcoming post, I promise!

Yesterday we did a fun, easy project.

Here is my inspiration picture for that project…….

Here is a picture of my hubby helping create the look I am going for…..

He is a very handy guy, plus he has patience and understands when I say, “ Move it just a smidge!” he knows just how far a smidge is!

Once I take some pictures of the final results I will do a blog post to show you the results. I am delighted in how it turned out. Simple and elegant!!!

I hope you are enjoying decking your halls as much as I am!!!!

Remember To Always…….