Best 11 decorating tips for your new home
Professional
home stagers know how to play up your house's strengths, hide its flaws, and
make it appealing to just about everyone. We talked to several pros across the
country to get their tips for freshening up your home's interior—without
breaking the bank.
1. Set
The Tone at The Front Door
If you
want your house to make a great first impression, paint the front door a fun,
glossy hue. "Red is a lucky color in many cultures," says Lara
Allen-Brett, a New Jersey-based stager. A red door meant "welcome" to
weary travelers in early America, and on churches it represents a safe haven.
Two other hues gaining favor: orange and yellow, according to San
Francisco-based stager Christopher Breining. Both colors are associated with
joy and warmth. One thing that should go: an outdated screen door. Get rid of
it or replace it with a storm door with full-length glass that you can switch
out for a screened panel.
Related Articles : https://www.justdiydecor.com
2. Keep Wall Colors Light and Neutral
Stick to
colors like beige or gray, especially on the first floor, where flow is
important. "You want to minimize jarring transitions," says Breining.
Neutral walls give you the greatest decorating flexibility, allowing you to
easily switch up your accessories. And if you have two small rooms next to each
other, painting them the same neutral color helps them feel larger. Look at a
paint strip and move up or down a shade or two for a subtle variation from room
to room, suggests Allen-Brett.
3. Make Sure Your Sofa Talks to Your Chairs
Think of
a nice hotel lobby: The furniture is arranged in groupings that invite
conversation. When you place the furniture in your living room, aim for a
similar sense of balance and intimacy. "A conversation area that has a
U-shape, with a sofa and two chairs facing each other at each end of the coffee
table, or an H-shape, with a sofa directly across from two chairs and a coffee
table in the middle, is ideal," says Michelle Lynne, a Dallas-based
stager. One common mistake to avoid: Pushing all the furniture against the
walls. "People do that because they think it will make their room look
bigger, but in reality, floating the furniture away from the walls makes the
room feel larger," she says.
4. Let The Sun Shine In
"When
it comes to heavy, outdated drapes, a naked bank of windows is better than an
ugly one," says Lynne. Ideally, window dressings should be functional and
elegant: Think sheers paired with full-length panels. If your room gets a lot
of sun, opt for light colors that won't fade. The most recommended lightweight
fabrics for panels are cotton, linen, and silk blends because they tend to hang
well.
5. Hang at Least One Mirror in Every Room
"Mirrors
can make a space feel brighter because they bounce the light around the
room," says Breining. But placing one in the wrong spot can be almost as
bad as not having one at all. Put mirrors on walls perpendicular to windows,
not directly across from them. Hanging a mirror directly opposite a window can
actually bounce the light right back out the window.
6. Scale Artwork to Your Wall
"There
are few things more ridiculous-looking than hanging dinky little art too high
on the wall," says Breining. The middle of a picture should hang at eye
level. If one person is short and the other tall, average their heights. Also
take scale into account; for a large wall, go big with one oversize piece or
group smaller pieces gallery-style. For the latter, don't space the pictures
too far apart; 2 to 4 inches between items usually looks best.
7. Layer Your Lighting
Every
room should have three kinds of lighting: ambient, which provides overall illumination
and often comes from ceiling fixtures; task, which is often found over a
kitchen island or a reading nook; and accent, which is more decorative,
highlighting, say, artwork. For a living room, you should have at least 3 watts
(42 lumens) per square foot. One visual trick Breining swears by: using
uplights. "Placing a canister uplight or a torchiere in the corner will
cast a glow on the ceiling, making a room seem bigger," he says.
8. Anchor Rugs under Furniture Feet
Follow
these basic rules for an area rug: "In a living room, all four legs of the
sofa and chairs in a furniture grouping should fit on it; the rug should define
the seating area," says Breining. "At the very least, the front two
legs of the sofa and chairs should rest on it," he adds. Even living rooms
with less than generous proportions usually require an 8-by-10-foot or a
9-by-12-foot rug to properly accommodate a seating area. Go too small with the
rug size and everything looks out of scale.
9. Call in a Pro to Declutter
The
longer you live in a house, the less you see the mess over time. Sometimes you
need a fresh pair of eyes. You can hire an organizer for a few hours (expect to
pay $35 to $150 an hour, depending on where you live) to tackle bookshelves and
closets, which stagers say are often packed with twice the amount of stuff they
should hold. Breining suggests whittling down what's on your shelves by 50
percent. Then mix horizontal stacks of books among the vertical rows and
intersperse decorative objects, such as bowls or vases, among them.
10. Use Visual Tricks to Raise The Ceiling
If your
ceilings are on the low side, paint them white to make the room feel less
claustrophobic. Hang curtains higher than the windows, suggests Allen-Brett, to
trick your eye into thinking the room is taller. Most standard curtain panels
measure 84 or 96 inches, allowing you to go about 3 inches above the window
casing before the length gets too short. If you want to hang them higher,
you'll have to order custom drapes. Love patterned panels? Try vertical
stripes; the lines visually elongate your walls. Leaning a large mirror against
a wall can also make a room seem taller.
11. Give Outdated Finishes The Cinderella Treatment
Got dated
fixtures? Reinvent them with spray paint and inexpensive refinishing kits.
"A 1980s brass chandelier can get a new lease on life with a quick coat of
hammered-bronze or satin-nickel spray paint," says Breining. Even outdated
kitchen cabinets benefit from a few coats of white paint and new hardware. And
if you thought there was no hope for Formica countertops, think again. Breining
swears by Rust-Oleum Countertop Transformations, a DIY counter-coating product
that mimics stone, making even the ugliest 1970s counter look fresh. What's
left to do: Swap out cracked and mismatched switch plates and outlet covers for
updated matching ones. Says Lynne: "Nothing drags down a refreshed space
like a dingy, almond-colored switch plate."
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