The first time you rent your very own apartment or house, friends and relatives often either give you hand me down essentials or they go out and buy you some of the basic necessities to get started with. And while this is very nice, welcome, and useful, most of us end up with a variety of home decor items that don’t match. As the years pass and we collect decorating accents and accessories from various sales, flea markets, and other friends or family members though, sometimes it can seem as if nothing we have matches at all.

And the dining room seems to be the worst place this occurs most often at. Since dishes, silverware, and pots and pans are one of the first things we need to live in our own home, these are the items that are given to us most often. So we can find ourselves with a large variety of beautiful kitchen or dining room accessories that don’t quite seem to go together in any way.

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The Beauty (and Pitfalls) of Choosing Wool Carpet for your Home

Wool carpet is very gorgeous, durable, and luxurious and feels great underfoot. It also comes in wonderful, subtle shades as yet unmatched in synthetic fibers simply because wool accepts a wider range of colored dyes better than any other material.

Made from hair shorn from sheep, then spun, woven or twisted into carpet, wool survives longer and looks better than any other carpet material on earth. If you doubt this, just look at the antique Oriental rugs sold by antiques dealers and displayed in museums—some are 200 years old and more!

Because wool is an opaque fiber, it hides soil better than synthetics and stands up better in high-traffic areas; check out the high-end carpeting and wool area rugs in 5-star hotels, shops and restaurants and you’ll invariably find they are made of wool. Wool’s greater absorbency makes it easy to clean with water and steam because moisture causes wool fibers to swell and release dirt.

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Okay, you’ve got this gorgeous fireplace mantel that’s everything you ever wanted a mantel to be. Now how do you plan to decorate it?

Style preferences aside, there is a formula professional decorators use for arranging items on a fireplace mantel that gets great results every time. Known to the trade as “three plus one” the formula calls for placing three related objects of similar size at one end of the mantelpiece.

These objects don’t have to be the exact same height, but shouldn’t be strikingly disparate in size, either. For example, using three silver candlesticks 10, 14 and 16 inches tall will look fine; using one 16-inch candlestick with two four-inch ones will not. Your three objects can vary more from each other in style, however a very ornate, Art Nouveau candlestick and a pair of more Spartan colonial-style ones may not play well together. Don’t line up your three objects in military-fashion, either. Placing them several inches away from the outer edge of the mantel and at angles to each other and to the room will give a much better appearance.

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Easy Fabric Wall Panels: A Great Way to Add Color and Personality to ‘No Paint’ Apartments

If you’re renting an apartment the owner won’t allow you to paint, but the color of the walls just isn’t what you want, don’t give up. You can change the look of “no-paint” walls in a couple of hours using fabric wall panels that are inexpensive, easy-to-make and a snap to install.

Begin by measuring the length of the wall or walls you want to change, and dividing that measurement so that the resulting number of panels are each no wider than about two and a half feet. This size allows you to use material that is 45 or 60 inches wide with the least amount of wastage.

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Making a fabulous headboard from an antique door is a fun, unique, and inexpensive way to add an interesting and unusual element to your bedroom. Whether your bedroom decor is contemporary or shabby chic, a headboard made from an old antique door can really create a focal point and add interest to any bedroom.

You can find antique doors at flea markets, antique stores, auction houses, estate sales, yard sales, or even junk yards. Look for an antique door that has interesting details or unusual accents to it. You can choose a solid door or one that has window panes. Just look for something that appeals to you. It doesn’t really matter what shape it’s in, aside from being broken into pieces, because you’re going to give that old antique door new life as a fabulous headboard.

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One of the first things most of us want to do after moving into a new house, is put something on the walls. When you have large, blank, bare walls staring at you the house just doesn’t feel like a home yet. Unfortunately when the walls are large though, you may find yourself staring at them and wondering just what in the world you can do to decorate them beautifully.

Decorating a wall in your home does not have to be limited to painting it or hanging pictures though. There are actually many quick and creative ways you can decorate bare walls. Let’s look at just a few of these ideas…

1. Create shadow boxes. Creating shadow boxes is a wonderful way to decorate your home uniquely, and it allows you to create a memory wall of relatives who may have passed away, or family history items. You could create shadow boxes devoted to specific people if you’d like, such as your grandparents, or you can simply create shadow boxes filled with collectibles, keepsakes, or pretty things you’ve picked up yard sales and flea markets over the years.

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Space Saving Decorating Ideas for Small Homes and Apartments

You don’t have to live in a 6000-square foot suburban manor to enjoy a spacious feeling in your home. Even the most committed studio apartment dweller can make design changes that enhance the feeling of spaciousness. If you live in a small apartment or house, use the following tips to make it feel bigger.

Don’t be a packrat: Clutter can make any size space seem claustrophobic. Stripping your possessions down to a minimum not only creates more room, it makes you feel freer and lighter as well! Make sure that every possession you have can justify the space it occupies. Get rid of those that don’t. Collect all the stuff you don’t love, use or wear and hold a yard sale or donate it to your local thrift shop.

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Mixing Floral and Plaid Patterns: Obtaining Balance for a Professional Interior Design Look

The mix of floral and plaid is charming and inviting; it is a healthy balance of feminine and masculine; it is a harmonious blend of country and modern all at the same time. Putting these two elements together and achieving balance can be exciting and result in a well put together room and interior decor that looks professionally designed. A successful mix of floral and plaid patterns makes you feel comfortable and cozy, like a warm country home or a tucked-away bed and breakfast.

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I like decorating my kitchen with a cozy, warm, inviting, homey feeling to it. Usually I’m fighting for all the space I can get in my kitchen too. If you’d like to try this style yourself, you need additional space, or if you simply want to create a different look and feel to your current kitchen decorating style: here are a few tips for you to try.

1. Hang your pots and pans on the wall. This works whether you have a matching set of pots and pans, or whether it’s an eclectic collection gathered over the years. Simply put hooks in the wall, then hang the pots by their handles with the bottom facing outwards. This is particularly useful for space saving and organization too. My favorite location to hang the pots and pans is on the wall right above the stove. If you have the room, this puts the pots on display nicely while keeping them right on hand for cooking.

2. Hang your potholders and hotpads on the wall. If your pans are too heavy to hang safely, or you simply don’t want them on display, or you’d like to add other embellishments to your hanging pots arrangement – potholders work quite well as kitchen wall decorations too!

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Creating an elegant centerpiece for your holiday table doesn’t have to be difficult. There are a few basic rules you can use to build a centerpiece for any holiday you want to commemorate; the rest, as they say, depends on you.

First of all, make sure that whatever centerpiece you design isn’t so tall that it will interfere with people seated on opposite sides of your table seeing and speaking with each other. There’s nothing worse than trying to unobtrusively crane your neck to see around a centerpiece that blocks your view! Think low and wide rather than tall and narrow.

Then choose a container to hold the main body of the centerpiece. This can be anything that catches your fancy; perhaps a unique wicker basket, your grandmother’s heirloom fine china compote or a fabulous art pottery bowl. Inside this main container, place another, slightly smaller leak proof plastic or glass “liner” container with a profile sufficiently lower than the main container. If there’s enough space between the two containers to allow the liner to wiggle, stuff the space with foam or wadded up newspaper to keep everything stable.

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