My Home Redux

Decorating with Wine Corks

The popularity of wine goes into home decor. While wall hangings and art have included wine bottles from some time, now the actual corks are getting into the decorating act.

Drink up and save your corks. Use them to make wreathes or just put them into a vase or large snifter.

You can also buy candles that look like corks. Recycle your favorite wine bottles for a trendy, casual look that's not just for Italian restaurants.

Wine ... so versatile!

Decorating with Vintage Mirrors

Mirrors are a wonderful decorating accent or focal piece. Vintage gilt mirrors can be used in any decor. Check out this article and other lovely pictures here.

[Photo credit: Kip Dawkins as seen on Elle Decor.]

Kitchen Makeover for Less than $1200

Here's a great example of how you can completely transform your kitchen on a tiny budget. Paint, hardware, and flooring can go a long way if you're willing to do some work yourself.

See how this kitchen was transformed for only $1200.

[Editor Note: Photo from www.freshhomeideas.com]

187 Teen Room Designs

If you have tweens or teens and need bedroom ideas, check out this article with LOADS of photos.

Custom area rug at a low, low price

Area rugs can be pricey. Especially for large or odd-sized ones. Getting a carpet bound is expensive.

But now you can get custom, bound carpets rugs at a fraction of the price.

First, get a carpet remnant at a local carpet store or a dealer that resells remnants. (Search online for retailers in your area.)  Find what you want. Bring it home. Cut it to size using a carpet knife for a clean edge.

Then use Instabind, a pair of scissors, and a hot glue gun to finish it.

See Instabind.com here and watch their videos. Easy, inexpensive, beautiful as seen in photo above.

Top Decorating Colors for 2011

The overall top color for this year is Vintage Wine, confirmed by Benjamin Moore and shown here in this photo.

Benjamin Moore also presents their 2011 color palette which offers bright earth tones.

Another color featured this year is a rich yellowish green which ICI Dulux celebrates here.

Finally, Pantone offers it's color of the year. First it is shown in fashion, but decor follows fashion so you're likely to see this bright Honeysuckle appearing in accents, linens, draperies and more soon.

These colors are certainly showing a transition from the deeper golds and red earth tones of a few years back, adding more clarity to the colors and more vivid shades.

How to Make Your Refrigerator Look Like an Old-Fashioned Ice Box

The key is in the hardware which you can order online from specialty hardware sites like this one specializing in ice boxes. The hardware on top of custom cabinetry panels completely transform this refrigerator into a 20th century ice box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo shows the detail more closely.

How to Combine Different Decorating Styles

This topic was suggested by a reader who wrote:

Dear Julie,

I am trying to blend a old world wine country style and an arts and crafts kind of style in my kitchen and dining room.  My home was decorated in the more Mediterranean look and I inherited the arts and crafts items from a friend.  I have tried to incorporate the two but it looks choppy.  Any ideas? Thanks for any help.

Sincerely,
Shelley

Sounds baffling at first, doesn't it. But not really.

First, you need balance. To avoid one piece in the room sticking out like a sore thumb, you need a balance between the two styles. A weighting close to 50/50 is probably best, but you could also skew it up to 80/20. You just don't want one lonely piece by itself. So mix and match your pieces and furniture.

Second, you need some unifying element. Color is the easiest. You could have a neutral throughout the room and then one or two accent colors. Use these colors with all pieces - on both chairs of mixed styles. Or put a red throw pillow on the Mediterranean chair and red runner or picture frame on the arts and crafts table. Now, the red becomes a unifier bridging the gap between the other two styles.

In this case, if you don't use too ornate Mediterranean pieces but rather a bit rustic with wood and iron, you should be able to blend them. I wouldn't throw in a third style, though, like a modern glass table, for example.

At some time or another in life, we need to blend styles, just remember to balance them and find a unifying element. Might be appropriate to dealing with different types of people too, eh?

Basics of Feng Shui

A reader asked for information on Feng Shui. I must confess I know nothing, absolutely nothing, about this. So I did some research.

Forewarning ... this sounds complicated. I pretty much got lost after the concept of Chi.

But you are probably much wiser than I.

Here are two articles.

The first article gives some basic, practical tips that I understood - at least how to implement them if not necessarily how they affected things.

The second article gives a good background on the basics of Feng Shui.

If anyone really understand this or has some good examples, please leave a comment below for the rest of us. Thanks.

Interview on Fixr.com

This interview was done early this year.  Unfortunately, I forgot to post a link. It gives some background into my start in home remodeling and some of the projects.

Read it here.  Also check out their bidding website, www.fixr.com.