FINALLY, I have put away all the decorations for Christmas. I hope you’ve gotten your house back to normal. The holidays are such a huge job. Now we’re all getting a good look at our rooms. For some of you, I'm sure you'd like to start the New Year by improving and refreshing your homes. This is a wonderful gift you can give yourself. After the holidays, our homes might seem dark and bleak. What we need is an emotional lift by making them our sanctuary again. I’ll give you lots of tips. Of course, you don’t have to do all of them. Choose those that you can do given your time, budget, and motivation. When you’re done you’ll feel wonderful and you’ll definitely want to invite others over to admire your work.
I get lots of messages on Facebook and email asking me for help with design questions. Usually people just send me a description of their problem, no pictures. I always try to help. “Debbie” (no last name for the sake of privacy, but she’ll know who she is) is an example. It made me think that my answers for her might work for you as well. Debbie speaks for most of us. She cares about her house, and would like to give it a new twist, spruce it up, add some new things and doesn’t want to spend a lot of money. She shops with me on QVC and asked me to help her make some choices. I’m hoping to convince her that she should also paint. I know she’s a smart shopper because she’s taking advantage of my offer to help. I always tell you that when I’m on live on QVC, I’m your free decorator for the day!
Here are some tricks of the trade to remind you of the things you can do:
- Get rid of the clutter. You can’t argue with the experts. When they get ready to “stage” a house for sale, their first job is to de-clutter. Get things out of your house that don’t belong there. Lots of “stuff” has been there for so long that often you don’t even see it anymore. Clean out, throw out and remove anything from the room that doesn’t belong there.
- Find what you like by collecting pictures in magazines. This is the best way to identify “your look.” When you find things you like, rip them out and put them in a file. After a while, you’ll begin to see a common theme in style, color and proportions.
- Simplify with a point of view. What you probably don’t like about your home is that it doesn’t have a point of view. When you simplify, you can’t make a mistake. Please stick to using only three colors.
- What’s the condition of your furniture? If it’s not in the budget, you certainly don’t have to replace the furniture, but I would suggest re-covering or making slipcovers in a great new fabric and adding throw pillows.
- Choosing color: limit three. Let’s say our friend Debbie has a taupe sofa. If she likes it, she doesn’t have to change the sofa but might want to re-cover or slipcover the chairs in the room. She goes to her local discount fabric store to find colors to give the room a lift and complement the sofa. I’d suggest she look for fabric with the same taupe plus a soft sage green and a soft French blue, hopefully with a touch of soft white. Buy enough to cover the chairs and some pillows. If Debbie’s chairs match, use the same fabric on all of them. If they don’t match, I’d suggest using two different fabrics.
- Buy what you really love. Please don’t choose the fabric only by price. Within your budget, make sure you love the fabric. If not, go to another store. This is going to drive the rest of your redecoration. Have a swatch of this fabric with you whenever you go to the store for paint, floor covering, accessories and even lighting.
- Paint the walls and step back. Whether you paint all the walls the same color or only paint an accent wall, it will dramatically change the look of a room. For our example of Debbie’s house, I’d paint one accent wall taupe and another sage green. I like to use paint with an eggshell finish, it doesn’t have a shine or show mistakes in the walls.
- Add a faux molding or chair railing. I like this touch for added drama. Use blue painter’s tape to measure a strip going around the room with the bottom half a little taller. In our example of French blue and sage walls, I’d make the stripe a warm white. Now that drives us to use white on all the woodwork in the room. Extra hint: You can also put taupe on the top of the stripe and dark brown on the bottom.
- White (or black) as the neutral color. I suggest using white (or black) so that you can easily change things. If you want a different look during the summer, you can switch out your darker pillows to white and the whole room looks lighter. When you use white to tie things together, you don’t have to kill yourself finding the right lamp shade or other accessories. Black is another versatile color, and you can use dark brown or black for the accessories.
- Lighting. My recommendation is to put picture lights on prints and paintings. You don’t have to install electricity behind the picture. You can cover the cord with brass or chrome chord covers or paint the chords to match the wall color.
- I love Up Lights in a room. These are inexpensive lights you can get in the big box stores. They sit on the floor and wash light up on the walls. If you can only find them in black or white and you want them to blend into the room, paint them the color of the wall.
- Even if you have recessed lighting in a room, a floor and/or table lamp gives the room warmth and character. I love a lantern with a faux candle on the table in the dining room. Two lanterns on a table against the wall are also a very dramatic touch. You can always cover the shades with fabric to match other materials in the room.
- Artwork or pictures and more on the walls. Art is a very personal matter, but if chosen carefully, it gives the room a completed look. You can put many different things on the walls, but you should look for a theme that ties them all together. I just love when people do groupings, particularly botanicals. I also love a clock on the wall. (A lot of you have bought my clocks on QVC.) I also love sconces on the wall. Make sure you don’t hang these pieces up too high. Hang them at eye-level. You can put many things on the wall in addition to or instead of pictures. Nothing is more charming than putting your children’s artwork on the walls. It’s adorable, but you have to put them in similar frames. I’ve used pictures of ships on the wall in a room with a nautical theme.
- Floor covering. Even if you have wall-to-wall carpeting, put down a rug. If you have hardwood floors, you really have to use an area rug. It’s like having a suit without a jacket. It doesn’t look finished. As a designer, the hardest thing to find is the right rugs. On QVC I try to bring you lots of choices. I don’t believe that you should just throw any rug down. It has to blend or agree with what you’ve done with your walls. If you inherit a rug, don’t use if it doesn’t go with the rest of the house. Let’s go back to Debbie’s room. If I threw down a black and white checkerboard rug, it would be all wrong.
- Drapes, curtains, shades, blinds and shutters. You must have something on the windows. If you’re doing drapes and only have white ones, glue or sew a wide band of matching fabric around the edge. If all the woodwork is painted white, the blinds, shutters and shades should also be white.
- Accessories have to be personal to some degree. It has to reflect who you are and should have special meaning for you. If you have pictures of family, put them all together in one place. I have a table with a lamp with almost 30 pictures sitting together. It gives them more importance. The frames don’t have to match. Even silver and gold look nice together.
- I love using bookcases because you can display so much in them. I'm a huge collector of old books. I also collect new books. I love luggage, globes, wonderful boxes. Whatever you love should be grouped together.
- It’s a wrap. Think about your home with pride and respect. Don’t do it for others — do these projects for you. This is the one place where you get to call the shots.
—Linda Dano
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I read with interest your latest blog. Some of your things are just to wonderful to put away. About two years ago I bought your set of three sheep. They sit on my mantle every season and I hear intersting remarks about those sheep. I waited all year to purchase your next victorian animals in this size. A collection would make a great nativity and I have a huige mantle. I love your ideas much to my husbands dismay. Please think about it and I will wait patiently
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