It's Great To Be Home

In honor of this bright and shiny Friday, I thought I’d share with you some gorgeous, happy interiors that never fail to make me smile and feel inspired – and I hope they have the same effect on you!

Are you happy now?!?

The common themes among these interiors that give them their cheerful, inspirational quality are themes that you can certainly incorporate into your own home to add a little zip and glamour:

1. Use white liberally. Who said white is boring? You’ll notice that bright white plays a huge factor in each of these interiors. Using white provides a gallery-like effect in your home, showcasing any color that you choose to highlight. White also gives your eye a break from bold colors, which allows you to be daring and play with a variety of colors and patterns.

2. Be bold with color. Since you have a base of white, go for some really saturated, exciting colors like turquoise, sunshine yellow or lime green. These fun punches of color can be brought into your room through artwork, painted furniture, throw pillows, or accessories like vases and flowers. You’ll notice that most of the bold colors used in these interiors aren’t your basic primary colors – each color is a tint of one of the primary colors, which gives it a little more edge and keeps things from looking harsh or cartoony. Think magenta instead of red, lemon instead of yellow, teal instead of blue.

3. Take chances. Now that you have a base of white with colorful accents, it’s time to take it up a notch. Patterns and textures allow you to really give a room personality and make it feel alive. Don’t be afraid to mix floral and animal prints with stripes, leather and silk and chenille, or raw wood against shiny chrome. And be sure to throw in a little bling – glass, mirrors and a touch of sparkle add depth and interest to a room. If mixing patterns and textures makes you nervous, start slow – buy a few inexpensive throw pillows in a funky and fresh pattern and build from there.

4. Go with what you like. The whole point of this approach to decorating is to let your personality shine through, and to have a little fun. Mix and match and experiment with color, patterns and textures until it feels right to you. Does it matter if the end result would never make it into a decorating magazine? Nope. All that matters is that it makes you happy.

What decorating tips and tricks do you have up your sleeve? Which interior is your favorite? And, most importantly, did these gorgeous interiors make you happy??

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Images courtesy of Design*Sponge, desiretoinspire, Canadian House & Home, Apartment Therapy, PointClickHome, decor8 and Domino.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but there are definitely a few (and by a few, I mean a lot) of rooms in our house that have yet to be visited by the decorating fairy. These rooms are bursting with potential, but have been neglected while the hubby and I have been completing various random homeowner tasks such as dealing with leaking pipes, laying sod, and all that other good stuff.

Take the third bedroom, for example. It has great bones – pretty linen-colored paint, crown molding, nice nightstands, etc. – but it’s pretty blah, wouldn’t you agree?

While I love the sage green bedspread, those white and black floral curtains were doing absolutely nothing to give the room any character. All that changed when I decided to whip up some fun, colorful curtains for our sad little bedroom with this gorgeous fabric:

I know what you’re thinking – Huh? I didn’t know this chick could sew??

Well, you’re right. I’m no seamstress. The last time I touched a sewing machine was during a summer in college when my mom taught me how to make some pillows for my dorm room. Lucky for me, it turned out that sewing curtains is just about as easy as it gets!! Here’s how I pulled it off:

1. Decide how long you want the curtains to be. With this particular window, we had already hung a curtain rod with 85 inch long sheers, so I knew that I wanted the curtains to also be 85 inches long. I checked all of my measurements before I ordered the fabric so that I could make sure that I would have enough fabric – patching random pieces together to make the curtains long enough was definitely something that I wanted to avoid. Since I was making two 85 inch curtain panels, that meant that I would need 5 yards of fabric – and I went ahead and ordered an extra yard “just in case.” I can use any extra fabric for another project.

2. Give yourself a little wiggle room. Once I was ready to start making the curtains, I laid out the fabric on the floor and measured 90 inches. I decided to cut each curtain 90 inches long to make sure that I had ample room for hemming and the rod pocket top. If you’re going to hang your curtains from curtain rings, you can give yourself a little less wiggle room.

After I measured out 90 inches, I folded the fabric over itself (with the non-printed side facing up) so that I had two matching 90-inch pieces of fabric, and a little left over. I cut off the extra material and set it aside, and then cut the two pieces of fabric apart right at the fold.

3. To pin or not to pin. Being new to sewing, I decided to pin the hem on the first curtain. Since the fabric was already laying face-down, it was easy to get right down to work. I just folded the fabric over so that the non-finished edge was completely hidden and only the printed fabric would show on the finished curtain. A pin every few inches did the trick.

After I sewed the first curtain, I realized that I could easily skip this step – by just holding the fabric taut while I pulled it through the sewing machine, I was able to maintain a pretty even hem. Once you feel comfortable using the sewing machine, I definitely recommend skipping the pinning step, as it will save you a lot of time on an easy project like this.

4. Sew easy. Now it’s time to hit up the sewing machine!! For me, the most intimidating part of this whole sewing process was setting up the sewing machine (winding the bobbin, threading the needle, etc.) – luckily, my machine came with pretty great instructions and I had the machine up and running in no time. I just used the default stitch (a hem stitch) and pulled the fabric through the machine, taking out pins as I went along. Seriously, that’s about all there is to it!!

5. Make a rod pocket. Once I had the entire curtain hemmed, I folded over the top edge of the curtain to form a pocket for the curtain rod. I measured three inches all the way across the top of the curtain and stuck in a few pins to hold everything in place. Then I ran it through the sewing machine and the pocket was finished in a jiffy!

6. Admire your handiwork. It’s not often that something so simple can make such a transformation and give you a ton of satisfaction. The quick and easy addition of some DIY curtains quickly gave our third bedroom a dash of personality that we can build upon in the future when we finally get around to decorating. In the meantime, it’s a welcoming space that any guest would enjoy.