for your
home
Easy
Accessorizing with pillows, adding
accent pieces and using a rug to tie
a room together are just a few easy
spruce-up tricks.
spruce-
ups
particleboard). Other standards of quality for
your good “investment” furniture include
kiln-dried hardwood frames for upholstered
furniture, eight-way hand-tied coiled springs
for seats and dovetailed drawers for chests or
other storage pieces, Wilson says. “The more
inexpensive stuff is good for livening things
up for the short term,” she says, but be wary
of trying to build the bones of your room
with disposable furniture. You’ll never be
truly happy with it and will probably wind up
ditching it.
Make everything
old new again
By Judi Ketteler
SO THE REAL ESTATE market is in the tank,
thebudgetisbleakandyourhomeissuffer-ing from those post-holiday doldrums. You
don”tneedanewaddresstogetanewlook. In
fact, you”d be surprised what you can do with
yourolddigs whenyoulayfresheyesonyour
space and change out a few key pieces.
Accessorize smartly
First,assessyourcolorscheme.“Lookat
the pieces that can”t change and see what
othercolorscangowiththem,”says Plymouth,
Michigan, interior designer Mary Beth Wilson
of MB Wilson Interior Design. The easiest
(and least expensive) place to start is with
your accessories.
When Costco member Shirley Taur of
Ashburn, Virginia, wants a new look, she
picks a new accent color and slowly changes
the palette of her accessories. “I’ll make a
transition from red to gold, gradually changing out fabric in window treatments, pillows,
accent rugs and other accessories until it looks
like a whole new room,” Taur says. To avoid
spending a lot of money and winding up with
stuff she doesn’t want, she follows two rules:
( 1) no impulse buys, and ( 2) everything has
to feel as if it belongs in the home. “I want it
to look like the house sprouted its own inte-
rior,”shesays. Taurandherhusbandnotonly
have two kids (ages 6 and 11), but Taur’s in-laws also live with them. “Everything I buy
has to suit all of us,” she says.
Creatively rearrange
PHOTODISC
It’s amazing what you can accomplish
when you simply move things around, says
Lauri Ward, founder of Redecorate.com and
author of books such as Downsizing Your
Home with Style and Use What You Have
Decorating. “The lack of balance is a big problem in many rooms,” she says. Ward is a big fan
of arranging things in pairs. “Mates give you a
classical balance,” she says, so if you are buying
things like lamps or end
tables, consider buying two.
Look also at how your
furniture is configured. For
conversation areas, a U-shape
is usually better than an
L-shape, Ward says, because it
pulls people into the
conversation. Rearranging your books in
your bookcase is another
high-impact easy fix: Put hardcovers
on top and paperbacks on the
bottom and pull all books flush
with the shelf. “This gives you
a nice library look and avoids
the shelf being used as a dust
collector,” Ward says.
Another idea: gather all family photos
you want to display and put them into
framesthatareeitheridenticalorvery
similar. “This is an inexpensive way to get
more impact. Plus, instead of being distracted
by a bunch of different frames, you can focus
on the people in the pictures,” she says. Finally,
if you have accessories scattered all over your
coffee table or on top of a console, pull them
together and put them on a tray so that it
looks like a collection, versus random objects.
This anchors your pieces, and helps them better relate to each other.
Build good bones
If you want to create a look that can withstand the trends and blend well with lots of
different accessories, invest in a few neutral-palette, quality pieces of furniture, Wilson
says. When budgeting, allot the most money
for the thing you will most use, whether it is a
sturdy sectional, a beautiful bar or flooring
that needs to hold up to lots of wear.
If you’re buying wood tables, look for
pieces that are made of solid wood (versus
Pull it together
Keep your eyes open for interesting finds
wherever you are—retail shopping, yard sales,
flea markets or even friends’ garages. “There is
no shame in hand-me-downs. I’ve been able
