I decided to take the plunge and revamp my office after a rep for Dutch Boy paints contacted me a few weeks ago about trying out a sample of their Refresh paint line – woohoo!!  That was just the kick in the pants I needed to get me going!  I’m extra excited to be trying this paint line because it’s zero-VOC so I won’t be hurting my body or the environment when I use it {big props to Dutch Boy for that!}.

I’ve decided to go with gray walls {see this post}, but now the hard part – what shade??  After much deliberation I narrowed it down to four choices, and I think I finally picked a winner.

Route 66 in a flat finish – it’s a gray with a fair bit of brown in it so it should look dynamite next to the beige carpet and wood desk that I already have in the room.

I can’t wait to start the transformation!  Seriously, my office is in such a state that I can’t even bring myself to show you a pic right now – no joking.  I’m excited to take the first step into turning it into an office that I truly love to spend time in.  Hopefully I’ll have my new paint in a few weeks!

Do you have any room revamps on the horizon?  Or maybe you’ve just finished one!!  Fill us in on the details, or maybe send it in to Show Off Your Space!

Anyhoo, that sucker needs to be gussied up.  A new paint job is definitely in the works, and I’m contemplating some new hardware.  I’ll probably just wind up spray painting the existing hardware {knobs get expensive!}, but in the meantime I’m enjoying dreaming of gorgeous, luxurious knobs like these from Anthropologie:

Maybe I’ll switch out the knobs on the nightstands with one of these – I can stomach buying 2 knobs much better than buying 6!  Which one of them strikes your fancy?

I thought I’d do a quick countdown of my favorite projects in case any of you are feeling the urge to get your DIY on this weekend.  Are you in?  Here we go!

10.  Pimping Piping. Revamp tired upholstery with a little fabric paint.

9.  Spicing Up Antique Chairs. Recovering chair cushions to take them from ick to chic.

8.  Paying Homage To Our Cats. A pet-friendly twist on the silhouette trend.

7.  Making Pillows Out Of Napkins & Placemats. Pretty self-explanatory.  And cheap.  :)

6.  Spray Painting Hardware. Yup – I’m a big fan of using spray paint to unify hardware in different finishes.

5.  Personalized Totes. I think this project is why doilies were created.

4.  Shiny Pumpkins for Display. If you like to use fruits and veggies in centerpieces, you’ll love this idea for keeping them fresh and shiny.  {Note: don’t eat the fruits and veggies after you’ve done this!}

3.  Personalized Engagement Gift. I love the idea of celebrating a friend’s engagement (or a new baby, etc.) with their new initial.

2.  Laying Sod. Increasing the size of a tiny backyard is always a good thing in my book.

1.  Scribble Art. Did you see that one coming?  :)

Did you favorite project make the list?  Got any projects lined up for the weekend?  Let’s hear about it!

P.S.  You can check out even more projects here and here.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that staging sells houses – and never is that more true than in the case of a vacant home.  Staging is a quick and easy way to help the home buyer imagine the house full of life and potential – and it’s not as expensive or hard to do as you might think.

I know what you’re probably thinking – “Um, I live in my home – this post has nothing to do with me because I’ll never be selling a vacant house.”  That may be true, but there are a number of scenarios that could leave you with a vacant home to sell – you were relocated, you’re selling the home from your parents’ estate, you bought a new home before you sold this one, etc.  So, if you’re ever caught in that situation here are some tips to help your home fly off the market {and you can also use a few of these hints to help you sell a home that you’re still living in}.

1.  Just stage the first room(s) that you see when you walk in the door. With real estate, it’s all about first impressions.  If a buyer walks into your home and feels warm and cozy, your chances of actually selling the home go through the roof.  See the pictures of “unstaged v. staged” above?  Those are pictures from a house that we recently sold.  Before we came along, the homeowners had the house on the market, sitting vacant and looking sad, and they didn’t get any offers.  Once we were hired, we suggested that they stage the room that greets potential buyers – with their open floor plan, that meant staging the living room and the adjoining dining room.  They took our advice and had 3 offers on their home within 2 weeks, including a full price offer.  You can see for yourself the difference that staging can make!  {FYI – in addition to the staging, we suggested a small price drop.  That combo did the trick!}

Yes, it would be nice to stage the entire house – but in the real world that gets really expensive, really fast.  Staging just the first room works for a few reasons: (1) buyers get that warm and fuzzy feeling right off the bat, and it will follow them through the rest of the house, (2) the first room is typically the living room where it can be tricky to visualize furniture arrangement, and (3) living rooms are where families spend most of their time so if they can envision themselves in this important space then they can envision themselves in the house as a whole.  Basically, it gives you the biggest bang for your buck – make sense?

Of course, if you can afford to do more than one room then do it.  When prioritizing between rooms, choose to stage the ones that are the trickiest – choose living rooms, family rooms and awkward spaces over rooms that are pretty straightforward like bedrooms and traditional dining spaces.  In an open floor plan, it can be particularly important to delineate between different areas.

2. Keep it neutral. I know, people get tired of hearing this, but it’s true!  Neutral carpet and neutral walls are something that every home buyer on the planet can work with – you don’t want them thinking about climbing ladders to paint trim, dripping paint on the floor, and spending their weekends rolling paint over brightly colored walls.  People don’t like to spend money to take on chores and they can easily be overwhelmed by color.

I’m not saying that your home should be devoid of color – to the contrary, in fact.  Color is essential in making a home feel inviting, but you’d be best-served to try to limit bold colors to accent pillows, curtains, accessories and other things that you can take with you.  Try to keep the big pieces of furniture in neutral, solid colors as well.  Apartment Therapy said it well – “With bursts of color dotting the interior landscape, it’s nice to have a neutral backdrop to keep the whole room from shouting.”

Here are a few excellent neutral paint choices from Benjamin Moore:

And of course there’s always Pittsburgh Paint’s Toasted Almond, which we used in our home and in the flip.

3.  Decide whether to rent, buy or use what you have on hand. Chances are that you’ll have a few pieces of furniture already on hand that you can use to partially furnish that front room.  If the pieces work together, go ahead and use them to save yourself some money.  Once you’ve laid out everything that you already own, make a list of pieces that you need and then decide on your budget for filling in the bare spots.  Then hit up garage sales, Ikea, Target, Rent-A-Center, and friends’ basements to complete the room.  Remember to keep things simple and minimize the amount of furniture – you’re not going to be living there, so do you really need to add a La-Z-Boy recliner?  Just add enough furniture to show how the room should be laid out and then call it a day – a minimal room shows off square footage while a cluttered room feels smaller and makes some buyers feel uncomfortable.

4.  Accessorize. Just like when you’re living in a home, a vacant home will come to life with accessories.  Keep decoration minimal, but be sure to have a piece of art above the sofa, a few accent pillows and maybe a vase or two.  And of course, the artwork doesn’t have to be anything fancy – framed fabric or an inexpensive print will be just perfect.  But please – no personal photos!  Your house is on the market so that someone else can move in and make memories – your personal snapshots will only distract the buyer and remind them that it’s really someone else’s home.

Did I cover it all?  Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you think I missed anything, and throw in some of your own tips as well!

My sister-in-law is moving into her very first apartment and she asked me to come along to help her furnish and decorate her new space – how lucky am I?!?  Since she’s starting from scratch, we hit up bunches of stores around town but we hit the motherlode at Ikea.

{ Kim’s holding what I believe to be the longest receipt in history. }

We’ll be fixing everything up today and probably Saturday – hopefully I’ll have a finished {or somewhat finished} space to show you guys next week!  Until then, I’ll be playing around with bits of wood and screws trying to figure out how to put together a dresser, and a bed, and a sofa, and a nightstand . . . wish me luck!

Idea #1: Use happy tape {or something similar} as a frame to hang artwork, gorgeous fabric, wallpaper, etc.  It comes in such fun and happy colors and patterns that you won’t even miss the traditional frame.

Idea #2: Cut happy tape into the shape of leaves, flowers and birds and use the tape to arrange your cords into a branch or vine-like pattern – suddenly unsightly cords aren’t quite so unsightly anymore!

Here are a few other fun and easy home-decor uses for tape that I’ve found:

Idea #3: Add color and pizazz to white picture mats.

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Idea #4: Make boring white vases fun and interesting – you could even switch up the tape for different occasions.

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Idea #5: Instead of wallpaper or paint, create a graphic pattern on your walls with tape.

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Idea #6: Dress up a plain headboard.

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Idea #7: Yup, it’s the same project as Idea #5 but it’s so darn great I had to show you another pic.  :)

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P.S.  Feeling inspired by what you saw?  You can check out more DIY projects here and here, and find even more pics of gorgeous interiors here.

1.  Grow your own herbs in a cute etched glass container.

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2.  Start your spring cleaning by setting up a wrapping station.

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3.  Make a whimsical butterfly tree.

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4.  Add color to clear bottles with glass enamel.

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5.  Add color to a bare fence with paint can planters.

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6.  Wrap twine around old bottles for a Ballard Designs-inspired look.

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7.  Transform your leftover Christmas ornaments into spring-inspired centerpieces.

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8.  Whip up an airy blossom mobile.

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9.  If you’re feeling ambitious, turn your wine bottle collection into hanging wall vases.

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10.  Take a walk and make a terrarium from what you’ve found outside.

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Itching for more DIY projects?  Just click here.  Have a great weekend!

Can you believe that it started out looking like this builder’s basic kitchen?

The best part is that this totally new look was achieved without tackling one of the most time-consuming DIY upgrades you can do to a kitchen – painting the cabinets.  Here’s what they did:

1.  Add color.  Before, the kitchen was incredibly bland with white walls and light-colored cabinetry.  By painting the walls red and adding a splash of color on the island {more about that later}, the kitchen is instantly energetic and spicy instead of blah and boring.

2.  Create open shelving.  Obviously, kitchens have lots of cabinets.  It’s always a great idea to break up the monotony of all those cabinet fronts by adding open shelving or floating shelves.  In this kitchen, the doors were removed from one of the upper cabinets, and two shelves were added to the cabinet that was already open – the open shelving on both sides of the kitchen window creates balance and symmetry.  The pop of red on the painted backs of the cabinets keeps the look cohesive and makes the white dishware pop.

3.  Add an island. If you have the space in your kitchen, an island is always a win-win upgrade – who couldn’t use more countertop space and storage?  The best part is that this upgrade doesn’t have to be expensive at all.  In this kitchen, two ready-made, unfinished dressers or base cabinets {like this, this or this} were screwed together back to back, giving the homeowners storage on both sides of the island.  {You could make the dressers look even more seamless by attaching a single sheet of hardboard, beadboard or thin plywood across both of the exposed sides of the dressers.}  The island is finished off with a stained hollow core door as the countertop, kind of like in this project – and the extra overhang leaves room for a bar stool.

4.  Upgrade the backsplash.  In this kitchen, the backsplash was originally bare, white drywall – as a cheaper alternative to tile, the backsplash was painted with graphic stripes in alternating colors and widths.  A stencil in one of today’s trendy patterns like chevron, moorish tile or trellis would be a really fun way to play with the trend without committing to it.

5.  Add pattern and interest with fabric. By slipcovering bar stools, adding a quick and easy roman shade {just a hemmed piece of fabric tied with two ribbons}, and covering a pendant shade in fabric, this kitchen is instantly friendlier and more interesting.  Fabrics are great for breaking up all of the hard surfaces in a kitchen.  Try mixing different patterns and colors for a fun look that’s full of personality.  The pendant light would also be a great look over the table in a breakfast nook to tie the whole kitchen together.

I’ve been thinking about adding a fabric-covered pendant shade in our breakfast nook – what about you guys, are you thinking about trying out any of these ideas?  Or maybe you already have?  We’d love to hear about it, and if you have pictures go ahead and link to them.  Can’t wait to see!

I die.

What’s not to love?  Chevron?  Check.  Flirty skirt?  Check.  Chiang Mai Dragon?  Check.  Peacock?  Check.

Spectacular, I tell you.

If you don’t live near Jamie’s store in Raleigh and want to try something similar in your home, here’s how you could do it:

~ Buy a Craigslist settee like this.

~ Upholster the settee in a chevron fabric like this.  Be sure to include the sassy skirt.

~ Buy or make a lumbar pillow out of Schumacher’s Chiang Mai Dragon fabric in the aquamarine colorway like this.  Etsy and Ebay are great resources.

~ Buy or make two throw pillows in a similar orange and white fabric like this, this, this, or this.  {On a related note, I’m also loving the peacock pillows here and here.}

~ Buy or make two throw pillows out of this cherry blossom fabric.

Done!

He first caught my attention a few weeks ago when I ran across an online tour of his kitchen, but once I dug a little deeper I realized that I’ve seen his work all over the place!  Seriously, you’ve probably seen and loved at least 10 of his interiors without even knowing it. Do these bedrooms look familiar?

{ The bottom two images are from Penney’s own home.  You can tour his entire apartment here. }

I think my very favorite space of Penney’s is this fun and fresh apartment that he created on a serious budget:

Couldn’t you just move right in?

Armed with a little paint, wallpaper and ingenuity, Penney transformed a blank apartment into a swanky space with serious personality.  He included great finds from thrift stores, Craigslist, Ikea and even H&M and the result is so unique – quirky, colorful and full of fun.  I think my favorite feature of his design is the wallpapered plywood that makes a bold impact in both the living room and dining room.

Here are just a few tips to achieve Penney’s cheap but chic style:

Are you feeling as inspired as I am?  Am I the last person on the planet to discover Michael Penney?  Got any budget-friendly design tips that you’re dying to share with us?  Go ahead and spill the design beans in the Comments!

Image courtesy of Canadian House and Home.