Home Decorating for Beginners

Major home decorating improvements such as new flooring or a deck can require a significant amount of money. However, you don’t have to go to those measures to make simple improvements to your home.

In this article, you will learn 3 easy secrets to improving your home decorating. It’s something many of the top experts already know – and that every beginner should learn. And it has the power to skyrocket your home decorating success – guaranteed.

It seems everyone is applying for loans so that they can make improvements to their home. Some individuals will burn through thousands of dollars to improve the look if their home. But it’s just not necessary!

There are three key areas of your home that can make the most difference in the appearance of your home – the entrance, kitchen and bathroom. Just doing one of the ideas listed below can make a huge difference in your home. But why not do all three when it can be done for less than $100?

Spruce Up the Entrance to Your Home

The old saying that, “First impressions are usually the last”, can easily apply to the way people react when they enter your home. Has your welcome mat lost its welcome appeal? It’s time to spice up your entrance so what you hear are “oohs” and “ahhs” when people cross your threshold. If you have a spacious porch, a potted plant in a metal planter can create a pleasant atmosphere. Contemporary planters are about $10.

If you’re really adventurous, a coat of brightly-colored paint on your front door can create a splash. If you take on this challenge, it’s a good idea to make sure that the paint complements your home. For example, if your home is mostly red brick, a red door would make a dynamic look. A gallon of interior/exterior gloss enamel in red or any other bright color will set you back no more than $20.

Give Your Kitchen Cabinets a Facelift

When you look in your kitchen, what catches your eye first? Probably all those nifty cabinets that discreetly tuck away your dishes, right? After a number of years you might crave a different look.

For starters, you might want to give them a good cleaning. This one step alone can make a huge difference. You would be surprised the amount of dust and grease that can accumulate on cabinets. Depending on the material that your cabinets are made of, simply removing the cabinets from their hinges and wiping them down with a damp cloth may be all that’s needed. There are chemicals on the market, but you need to make sure that the chemicals are made for your cabinet material.

Once your cabinets are shining again, you can then add or replace knobs. Knobs range from simple unfinished versions that cost as little as $.50 each to decorative insert pulls that cost around $3. With the average kitchen containing about 12 cabinets, your cost won’t go over $36.

Sidenote: Are you finding this information on quick, cheap, and easy home decorating ideas to be useful? I have always been curious about this, and when I found very little quality information online about it, I decided to share a part of what I’ve learned through my research – which is how this article came to be written. Read on…

A Little TLC for Your Bathroom

Guest bathrooms are usually confined to a small space. Why not give this room a lift? You undoubtedly have a nice set of guest towels and matching accessories. These items are not necessarily cheap, so unless you want to go over your $100 spending limit, you can leave those items as they are for now.

What you can add are wallpaper trim, artwork, and color. There are numerous styles of wallpaper trim that you can your bathroom a quick new look. You can go as conservative and as creative as you want.

To complement the wallpaper trim, you can add artwork. You don’t have to go out and purchase expensive artwork. You can use your imagination to come up with some ideas. For example, a few seashells, colorful fabric, and an empty picture frame are all you need to become your own favorite artist.

If you have any leftover paint from your door, you can use this to paint a wall in your bathroom, as long as the color doesn’t clash with the other elements of your bathroom.

See how easy it can be to boost your home decorating for next to nothing? Now that you’ve read this article, don’t stop learning all you can about cheap home decorating ideas. Look up a few more resources on the topic. Soon you’ll discover you have all you ever need to know and have a “like new” home to boot!

Finally, the First Complete, Step-By-Step Resource for Creating Beautiful and Inspiring Rooms, Even if Your Time and Budget are Limited…100% Guaranteed!

Hello…

Do you ever throw up your hands in frustration because you can’t figure out how or where to get started when decorating your home? Or, do you lose confidence because you’re not sure if you’re on the right track?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The truth is I’ve found more people confused, perplexed and just plain baffled about colors, patterns, styles and more. And who wouldn’t be when there are so many options and combinations available?

That’s why I’m very excited to introduce a “first of its kind” resource that will not only help you decorate your home according to your personality, lifestyle, and goals…

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After reading the eBooks, I was very impressed and thoroughly convinced that they will help you create warm, inviting spaces…just as you envisioned!

The collection was written by Marney Makridakis and Michael Holland, two people who I trust and entrust to guide you to decorating success…no matter what size home or budget you have.

You follow the comprehensive, step-by-step resource and we guarantee that you’ll create beautiful and inspiring rooms, every time! Their “Tools, Not Rules” philosophy takes the guesswork out of decorating, but leaves you firmly in control.

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Home decorating can be fun, and yet so many people neglect to decorate their home based on claims that it costs too much.

Home decorating doesn’t have to become an expensive endeavor. Even if the look you’re after is on the elaborate end of the spectrum, you can create a look that will make you smile, both when you look at your home and in your pocketbook.

A good idea is to make small changes at a time instead of one huge change. Artwork can make a huge difference in the look of your home and is one decorating idea that you can easily reverse if the look doesn’t work.

What is the first thing you notice when you walk into someone’s home? The walls, right? Walls enclose the home, giving a thematic impression. So, if your walls are empty you’ve got to get to work to populate them.

Wall hangings can be expensive, but that’s only if you purchase something by a famous dead artist. You can create your own artwork without any art instruction whatsoever. First, you have to consider your theme. If it’s the bathroom to which you want to add small artwork, you could consider framing sea shells. You would simply arrange the shells creatively onto either a sheet of colored paper or onto fabric.

Do you have hundreds of pictures and just don’t know what to do with them? Keeping with the personalized artwork idea, you could arrange the photos into a huge wall photo collage. Examples include pictures of exotic places, weddings, and children growing up.

If there is a teenager in your home, their bedroom is probably home to a huge collection of music CDs. They can create their own wall collage using the cover art from their CDs. Although you will have more fun creating your collage yourself, there are companies that will take care of this for you. The cost ranges from about $50 for an 8×10 to $150 for a 20×24 wall collage.

If your home contains foliage, you might want to consider pressing leaves or flowers and framing your work; the best of these are flat. You basically place the leaves or flowers in a book to allow them to dry flat. They are ready for your wall hanging when they become crisp. This shouldn’t take longer than a week or two. After the items are pressed, you will just need to mount the artwork and hang it on your wall.

Or, if you’re “crafty,” what about decorating with the quilts or embroidered pictures you make? There are many crafts that don’t require a lot of art talent or skill. Many craft stores today offer free or inexpensive craft lessons, where you can product a finished product within an hour or two.

When you decorate your home with artwork, you are only limited by your imagination. Don’t be afraid to experiment. As mentioned previously, artwork is easily reversible. So, be imaginative and creative and decorate your home without spending tons of money.

Some homes are darker than others, perhaps from lack of large windows, surrounding trees and shrubbery, or even the placement of the windows in terms of the sun’s daily path across the sky.

But, that doesn’t mean you just have to resign yourself to having a dark house. There are many ways you can bring a little “sunshine” into your home…

By introducing plenty of yellow and orange you can bring sunshine into a dark room. If your house is in a part of the country where the heat is great, a dark room in summer is sometimes a distinct advantage, so keep the colorings subdued in tone, and, therefore, cool looking.

If, on the contrary, the room is in a cool house on the ocean, or a shaded mountainside, and the sun is cut off by broad porches, you will cheer up your room, and immensely improve it, by using sun-producing colors in chintzes and silks; while cut flowers or growing plants, which reproduce the same coloring, will intensify the illusion of sunshine.

The type of window coverings you choose are also crucial. For windows that aren’t getting much light in the first place, try using lightweight sheers or a top valance, rather than heavy drapes or mini-blinds. Or, even forgo window treatments altogether if privacy is not an issue for a window!

Strategically-placed mirrors can also pull light into a room and reflect it as well. Think about adding a mirrored wall or a few smaller framed mirrors around a dark room, especially opposite a window.

These are just a few tips to bring light into your room. You can surely think of more!

There are certain “laws” you’ll want to follow religiously if you hope to succeed at home decorating and interior design.

Here they are…

1. Maintain HARMONY in line and color scheme
2. Strive for SIMPLICITY in decoration and number of objects in room
3. Insist upon having SPACES dispersed about the room, which like rests in music, have as much value as the objects .

Treat your rooms like “still life.” See to it that each group, such as a table, sofa, and one or two chairs make a “composition,” suggesting comfort as well as beauty. Never have an isolated chair, unless it is placed against the wall, as part of the decorative scheme.

These laws may seem so simple as to be insignificant, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to be good at home decorating, you MUST pay attention to the ideas of harmony, simplicity, and space.

Interior design and decorating ideas can quickly become grandiose. But grandiose doesn’t work very well in the small confines in most apartments. So, does that mean you must abandon all ideas of decorating attractively if you live in an apartment?

Of course not! Read on, dear friend…

So you have a small apartment. You are possibly wondering, how do I make my small space look comfortable and inviting without looking cluttered? Here is the answer…

Actually several answers! First of all, start with looking around, noticing the placement of windows and which way the light reflects in the rooms during different times of day. Also, look at your current furniture and the colors that it is or is not.

Some colors can make a room look small, clinical and cold. Good warm toned colors also make it more comfortable for you to live there. Browns, reds, yellows, and oranges are great colors to open up space and make the room warm and inviting. Use accent rugs to help with the addition of colors as some landlords do not allow you to paint. Slipcovers are a great way to add color and change, as well as save your furniture from wear and tear.

When choosing a color scheme, please note that you should choose something that is easy to clean, i.e., browns and grays. White is not a good choice, unless you plan on never really living in your place.

Try to look at the big picture; small living rooms mean that you shouldn’t get a sectional sofa. Instead, try a small love seat or futon couch. Not only does the futon couch help with space, but it can be converted to a bed for those single room apartments.

If you are on a budget and don’t want to get rid of your current bed and you are in a studio apartment, try a bed that looks like a bunk bed with out the lower bunk. That way you can store your dresser and other articles under the bunk and enclose it with a curtain and no one can see your unmade bed up top. This is very useful for bachelors.

Try creating rooms with the use of decorative screens. It can make a single room look like two or more rooms are there. Also remember that your curtains should be allowing the light in; the more light you allow in the bigger the space looks.

Use a small bistro table as a dining table. It is intimate and makes for a great coffee talk spot. If you are lucky enough to have someone in your apartment, remember to always hide your laundry. Laundry laying around makes the apartment appear cluttered and small.

Plants are a great way to make your room appear bigger. Try hanging them from the ceiling or by using hooks on the wall. Don’t forget the importance of mirrors. The use of mirrors can make your small apartment look large. Use a focal point and angle your mirror towards it, to give the illusion of depth. Most importantly, make sure you always have a clean space; it will always seem bigger when it is clean.

OK, so now that you have cleaned, you are noticing that the apartment still looks small. Question your storage. You need some ideas for storage, you say? Well I am full of them. Look around and if you notice you have lots of magazines lying around, get yourself a magazine holder. It is a handy little box that is decorative (to your specific likes) and it cleans up your tables of clutter.

Get yourself a footstool that has storage inside of it. It is nice for when the surprise guest comes over and you need to store something quickly. A coffee table with storage underneath it–one of my personal favorites!–is also a wise choice.

The more storage you have that isn’t added clutter makes your life easier. Wall shelves help to eliminate tabletop mess. Put your collectibles on a small wall shelf and look at all the free space you have just created for yourself.

All of the suggestions presented here are easy do it yourself projects. You can get most of these easy to use items at your local all purpose store and hardware store. So, you see beautiful home decorating IS possible… even in small apartments!

Interior design has often been said to be the easiest form of self-expression.

While it is true that many people will hire a professional to decorate their homes, it is certainly not a requirement. You CAN bring your own personal sense of style to your home, so that it is a more accurate reflection of your personality.

Somewhere in every person is an interior designer just waiting to jump out. This may seem unrealistic to some people, but most all forms of design are based in how we want our homes to feel. This brings along with it a picture of what our home is, what function it serves, and how we want to portray ourselves to others. The decorating process remains one of the great mysteries of the average person. How do we create the home we want to invite others into?

Many people have said that interior design is the process by which we connect with people, and connect with the world while staying safely within our own space. It is safe to say that through interior design, we connect with some energy, some force, and some thing that expresses who we are and how we want to live. And it is through this connecting process that we have the opportunity to use our homes to effect change in our lives.

If we choose, we can become more comfortable or more expressive. Through this process, we can show others how we like to live and invite them to share part of our lives. We can focus on comfort, style, and/or art, truthfully anything we want to express.

Here are the five steps to finding your style, as well as some tips to implementing these styles.

Start with a passion for your project and with these five steps and think about who you are. You can show who you are through “your place” as you never thought possible.

Step 1: The decisions
Is your home are filled with trinkets, gadgets, and dust catchers that you don’t need? Or are these things treasured possessions that you cannot part with for all the tea in China? These items end up costing us precious space in our homes. We can free up space otherwise saved for these items or display them as they are meant to show who and what you are to the world!

For example, imagine how much space is tied up in the books we bought but have never read? If you’re not going to read a book, find another home for it. Donate to a library or give it to a friend that may find they will treasure it. A good rule of thumb is if you haven’t used something in a year, you don’t need it or want it. If the book is treasured for its beauty or worth, then displaying it in a room would be much better then letting it collect dust in a box somewhere. We all need to make these decisions, love it or leave it!

Design tip #1: Most likely, it’s on your list of things to do, go through “things”, and has been there for months or even years. Sometimes we don’t realize something isn’t wanted, because we have been putting up with it for so long and have gotten used to it. Like that pile of stuff in a basket by the sofa or a drawer in an old unused desk that you don’t really need anymore. So make sure to take care of the things to do list! A good way to do this is to stand back and think about all the things you own and if you are unsure if you use an item. Place a dot sticker on it with the date. If you use that item within a year, remove the sticker. If you do not use the item within a year, find it a home somewhere that it will be used.

Step 2: Find your style
Create a clear idea of what it is you would like to portray of yourself in your home. Perhaps you are a person into comfort and easy maintenance, or perhaps you are a creative individual who would like to use your home to highlight new projects, new relationships, or a new career.

Whatever your personality, begin now by narrowing down the specific style you will be comfortable living with. Remember, being specific is the key here. Make a list of qualities, draw a picture, cut pictures out of magazines do whatever you can to get as specific a picture as you can. Find things that inspire you.

Step 3: Assistance
The key word here is ASK! Asking where someone got his or her ideas will not kill you! Look for ideas in the world around you. Sometimes we are afraid to ask where someone we admire shops for the beautiful things that fill their home, but if you admire someone’s interior, then let them know it! Other kinds of collaboration can include asking for help to clean out your garage in order to build your new studio, asking friends to come over for a dinner party because you want to get a prospective idea on how your living space will be used and where people gather, or asking someone to look over your drawing and pictures. A new look into what you are trying to achieve can get some great ideas offered. You don’t have to do it alone! I did this once… I asked my mom (who is a great amateur home decorator) for specific ideas on how to make my home decorating more “pulled together.” It made a huge difference!

Step 4: Confidence
The number one attitude you should have about decorating your home is confidence. This can be achieved by realizing that interior design is something you cannot fail at, become you are going to live in it! If you are comfortable, you can be confident and enjoy it. So take a look at the ideas you are coming up with and whether or not you are keeping them to use. Take a look at your ideas, pictures and drawings. They’re full of decisions you have made. Deciding what you really want gives a wonderful feeling. But don’t take my word for it… try it out!

Interior decorating tip #2: Many stores have wallpaper books with great images to go with the wallpapers. And magazines have ideas, too.

Step 5: Take the first step
Start arranging and stepping back to see what you have done! Buy something you love and put it in the place of honor, and then work from there. Once you have de-cluttered and arranged, just go for it! Anyone can do interior decoration. If you want to go by a rule, look in books and follow the steps. Many good interior-decorating books will tell you the difference between art deco and Elizabethan, and most have steps you can follow. So you have many options and can get your home to be comfortable for you. So jump in and let your personality shine!

These five steps are designed to help you be more open to your own style and the inspiration that the world holds for you. If you work with these steps, you will be able to find a balance of comfort and design while avoiding some of the stresses and find yourself in a real sense of home that you love. Good luck!

If you like these home decorating tips and the advice you’ve been reading here, you may want to think about subscribing to Home Decorating for Beginners using one of the buttons in the right panel…

We are proud to announce the launching of The Home Decorating Basics Blog for your pleasure and information!

We hope you’ll enjoy reading it and discovering the ins and outs of home decorating and interior design together. In the coming days, weeks, and months, we’ll be posting a number of tips, sage advice, and resources to help you with your home decorating projects.

And now, let’s take a look at the meaning of design, shall we?

The Meaning in Design

Much like the history of art, the history of interior design has had numerous styles, movements and the political and social developments that have informed or challenged its evolution.

Encyclopedias define interior design as: planning and design of man-made spaces, a part of environmental designs and closely related to architecture. Although the desire to create a pleasant environment is as old as civilization itself the field of interior design is relatively new, this seems on target for most home designs.

Since at least the middle of the 20th century, the term interior decorator has been so loosely applied as to be nearly meaningless. Meaningless? Maybe since the word eclectic has become a household word.

Interior designers use their education, creativeness, and experience to help plan the space and furnish the interiors of private homes, public buildings, and business or institutional facilities, such as offices, restaurants, retail establishments, hospitals, hotels, and theaters.

Professional designers can tell you if a chair is a Greece. Rome. Byzantium. Dark Ages. Middle Ages. Gothic. Moorish. Spanish. Anglo-Saxon or Charlemagne’s Chair. Does the average person even know what the colonial period, the revival of Directoire and empire furniture, the Victorian period or the periods of the three Louis?

This may be why a lot of creative people shy away from decorating there own special spaces.

In this modern day and age people can now use their creativity to create beautiful living spaces without caring that they may break a cardinal rule of decorating. Home decorating is a conscious effort to improve the appearance and functionality of one’s living areas, in many homes and living spaces. This means that we can break out of the styles of the past and create our own areas of comfort and style. Really know what you want as a home, want it, and you can work out any scheme, provided you have intelligence, patience and perseverance.

What is eclectic? Eclectic is basically made up of or combining elements from a variety of sources, like mixing a Elizabethan chair next to a Queen Anne stool. As part of the ever-increasing quest for individual expression in decor the eclectic style has emerged as a favorite among homeowners that want to decorate the world around them.

This gives us all freedom to decorate to our own taste and comfort level!

Acknowledging all schemes of interior decoration and insisting that what makes any scheme good or bad, successful, or unsuccessful is the fact that it is planned in reference to the type of person who will live in it. If you are to be living in it then you can do anything you want.

In planning your house after arranging for proper wall space for your various articles of furniture, keep in mind always that balance will be needed and must be at the same time conveniently placed and distinctly decorative; convenient for the individual along with the family.

One is astonished to see how often the careless placing of one piece upsets the actual balance of a room. One chair in the flow of traffic or a tipsy lamp next to a door can really ruin a good-looking design. To help you make smart choices, look thru books on decorating that discuss traits, preferred room dimensions, available options for furniture matching, and other helpful decision-making information. Often ebooks and other online resource can point out good hints and tips to really get you started.

With this in mind and ideas fresh, I suggest lots of thought and some research before starting out on this great endeavor, but with a plan in hand roll up your sleeves and get going!

That’s it for today… please subscribe at the right if you’d like to know whenever we post a new entry to the blog.