Decorating For the Lazy Person

Decorating is important. The environment you live in affects who you are and how you think. If you live in a cluttered, unattractive, mess of a home, your mind will tend to be disorderly and unpredictable. However by creating spaces that are beautiful, and which inspire you each day, you can foster positive qualities in yourself subconsciously.

Even if you’re lazy, there are a few very simple things you can do to vastly improve the look and feel of your home. None of these requires making drastic changes. Mostly you will be sitting and relaxing in various rooms, trying to feel how the nature of the space affects you, and trying to imagine ways to make it more beautiful to you personally.

The first trick is to find one piece of furniture that has a pattern that you really enjoy. The easiest piece to choose is a rug, but it can be a table, a sofa, or anything which is attractive and appeals to your personal tastes, and which has a variety of colors mixed in.

Then you take the various colors found in the pattern, and you fill the room with items that match those shades. You don’t have to go out on a shopping spree. Just bear those colors in mind when making purchases. The trick is that if the pattern is attractive, then it means the colors match. Therefore you can use this as a guide for the entire house. Its no thought color matching.

The simplest way to keep your home looking beautiful is to keep it organized. Clutter is by its very nature unattractive. Just maintaining a tidy atmosphere can go a long way towards helping to improve the nature of a space.

The lazy way to keep a room organized is to keep things simple. The fewer possessions you own, the less mess you have to deal with. What possessions you do own should be largely stored away in boxes, under the bed or in a closet. This allows the living space to remain clutter free, and easy to maintain.

It is better to have a simple, neat, tidy home, which is empty and devoid of character, than it is to have a messy disorganized and chaotic home, which is the result of decay and neglect.

Another trick is to use size to your advantage. It is much easier to select a few large pieces, than it is to pick and choose dozens of smaller pieces. There are certain necessities in the home. Aside from those, you can get away with having just a few focal point pieces that will give each room character. Size is of course relative, and any piece should be chosen to match the existing space comfortably, and not to overwhelm it.

After that, simple touches will go the furthest. You don’t have to worry about hunting elaborate works of art, inspiring sculptures, or exotic designs. A simple vase with a bouquet of fresh flowers can do wonders for the atmosphere of an entire room.

Simple, organic, beautiful, those are the qualities that will help you achieve an attractive home with the least amount of effort possible. Just keep things organized, and decorate with a few focal points and simple touches.

This article was written by Jim Slate on behalf of PebbleZ’s line of natural stone tables. These tables are hand crafted in the United States from real pieces of mountain born slate, limestone, marble, onyx, and travertine.

Frugal Style, Stretching Your Decorating Dollars

When it comes to priorities in life, food, shelter, and clothing are going to come at the top of the list. Interior decorating usually has to come in somewhere further down the line. However just because you don’t have a fortune doesn’t mean you can’t have a home that looks fabulous. The following frugal decorating tips should help you to maximize your decorative spending, making every dollar count more, in order to achieve the most attractive spaces possible.

The first thing you should consider is used items. Just because something is being discarded doesn’t mean that it is ugly, tattered, or ruined. Many times people cycle the style of their homes, discarding, donating, or selling objects which they have owned for a while, but which they no longer have the space for.

Yard sales are a great place to find inexpensive home décor items. Often you can purchase pieces that look brand new, for prices that are a fraction of what the original owner paid. Since decorative items are often only lightly used, they can survive the test of time better than other more functional pieces. One trick is to patrol the neighborhood in search of yard sales early in the morning to find the greatest selection, or to search them out late in the day, when they will be more likely to make a deal just so they can get rid of something.

You should also keep your eye open for flyers or ads in the paper about multi family garage sales. These are much larger events, with a number of different venders converging to offer their new and used wares. The advantage is that you can compare prices, and even play the different vendors off of one another.

EBay is sort of a huge, international yard sale, with literally millions of items listed for auction. While many commercial products are set at retail prices, there is always the possibility of finding a private seller that is just trying to make a few bucks getting rid of some old decorative items. In general, you will want to purchase smaller pieces from eBay, as shipping can end up being a factor. One way to offset this is to do searches by location and narrowing the listing down to items which are within driving distance so that you can go and pick them up.

Craigslist is another online tool that you can use to search out great deals on inexpensive home products. A giant classified ad, you can narrow your searches by item and location. Often you will find people listing very nice pieces of furniture on there for little or no money. However you should always be cautious when entering someone’s home to view a potential product. If possible it is always better to meet in a neutral, public location, to ensure everyone’s safety.

Even if you prefer to do your shopping for new, in store items, you should always be certain to compare prices. If you have a web enabled phone a quick search should be able to tell you if the same item is available online at a better price. If not, a pad and a pen will allow you to record prices and do competitive searches later on. Having a beautiful home doesn’t have to cost a fortune. There are a variety of tricks that you can use to save a couple of bucks. The key is to have a discerning eye, and to understand the value of the products you are looking at. You don’t want to just leap on the first cheep piece of junk that you see. Instead you should wait and browse and take your time making only the finest selections.

This article was brought to you courtesy of PebbleZ.com, the manufacturers of a line of inexpensive drink coasters made from natural sandstone, slate, marble, onyx, and fossil stone. The actual text was written by style philosopher Joey Pebble.

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Decorating Ideas for Tiny Kitchens

Space is crucial in the kitchen; the chef has to have enough room for stirring, chopping, mixing, marinating, and just setting out the ingredients for everything they are preparing. The larger the meal, the more room you need. Unfortunately if your kitchen is inherently tiny, you are going to run into some problems finding space for everything. The following organizational tips should help you to find and make some extra room in even the smallest kitchen.

The first thing you should do is eliminate all clutter from the kitchen. Sometimes it isn’t always easy to recognize what clutter is in this space. There are so many fancy kitchen gadgets available that promise to revolutionize the future of cooking. However the truth is that many of these items get used just once or twice, and then are left taking up space and collecting dust.

You should make a sweep of the kitchen and place everything that isn’t used on a weekly basis into a box. Clearly label the box, and then put it away into storage, either in a closet, under a bed, or somewhere where it won’t be taking up valuable floor or counter space. Then, when an occasion arises where you need to use one of those tools, the clearly marked box will be right there waiting for you.

Next you should develop a formal organizational strategy within the space. Every accessory, every utensil, every bowl, ladle, and cup should have a home where they are constantly kept. If possible, use the tiny size of the kitchen to your advantage, hanging and storing everything you might need just an arms length away. In this way you can wrap the space around you like a cozy glove, which allows you to work faster and more efficiently.

There are many space saving accessories which you can also purchase to increase storage facilities and make the room more organized. If you have a free wall, a kitchen island can be a way to add portable storage and counter space to the room. Shelving is another good use of extra space, allowing you to further segment and organize your utensils.

Overhead racks are also great space saving devices. Installed on either walls or the ceiling, these can turn empty air above your head into a functional place to hang your spoons, ladles, bowels, whisks and other culinary tools.

While a small kitchen can be a bit of a challenge, it is one which you can overcome using organization and creativity. You want to know exactly where every tool you need is, and you don’t need any useless clutter getting in your way. In this manner, you can bring even the tiniest kitchen up to optimal efficiency.

This article is sponsored by PebbleZ, makers of over 40 styles of natural stone mosaic kitchen tables. These attractive tables are hand crafted from real pieces of slate, limestone, marble, travertine, and onyx. The article itself was written by Joey Pebble, an artist and designer that works with the company.

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Ten Tips To Chase The "Boring" Out of Your Bedroom

There are things that can be done to chase the boring out of your bedroom. With today's consumer in mind, it can also be done without breaking the bank.

When considering your bedroom never choose dark colors for the walls and ceilings. Dark colors make the room, gloomy and appear small. Choose lighter colors, white beige, off-white, light blue, yellow; these colors will make your bedroom appear larger and given a light and airy feeling to the room. And whatever you do, make sure your color selection is in harmony.

Here are 10 tips that you can use to bring life back to an otherwise boring bedroom. Following these tips you can have a calm and serene atmosphere where the tranquility will never bore you.

1. Clear The Clutter. Take a look at your bedroom and get rid of anything that isn't conducive to relaxation or romance. This includes getting rid of the TV. (Research shows that the TV in the bedroom can hinder sleep.)


2. Shake It Up. Shifting or moving around your bedroom furniture can add new life to your familiar quarters. And hey, while you're at it rotate and flip your mattress to minimize uneven wear.


3. Trim It Up. You'd be amazed how adding a simple rickrack, ribbon or trim borders can add a little spice to an otherwise boring bedroom.


4. You Can't Handle The Truth. This is a low effort method that adds unique personality and style to otherwise boring furniture. Replace old drawer handles and drawer pulls, with new decorative ones.


5. Window Wow. Add some personality, and even some unique color with a valance. You can complement solid color curtains with a patterned valance - or flip-flop the look. You could even go with an upholstered look, by learning how to build a cornice and covering it with coordinating fabric.


6. Turn Down The Highbeams. Bedroom lighting should be subdued and indirect. Use a nightstand lamp or properly positioned wall scones for light to read by. But when you do that use three-way bulbs so you can control the lighting.


7. Bring Life To Your Room. An element that is sometimes overlooked in the bedroom is adding a houseplant or two. Houseplants generate oxygen and remove toxins from the air. So it is like adding "new life" to your bedroom by adding a houseplant.


8. Don't Get Caught With Matches. It may be tempting to get a bed in a bag that comes with everything. Remember you're trying to add life and variety to your bedroom - so it's not boring. There is nothing more boring than having everything match.


9. What Is In A Headboard? Any bed can take on a lush and sleek look with even the simplest headboard. There are even some headboard versions that are painted on or stencils that go right on the wall to give the appearance of a headboard without the expense.


10. Liven Up The Covering. Consider adding a new duvet or a new comforter. A new duvet cover or a new comforter (with matching shams) can create a whole new look almost instantly. You can move from dull and boring to snappy graphic, a modern to a classic look. All these can be accomplished in a snap by simply changing or adding a new duvet or a new comforter.

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The Subtle Power of Color in the Bedroom

Color is a very powerful yet often overlooked part of our lives. It creates the backdrop of our existence. In an environment, the various colors all work together to form a mood. This mood can alter the way people think and act in a space. In the bedroom, where you let down your emotional and cognitive defenses each night, color is particularly important, because it will influence your mind, and actually have an effect, over the long term, on the kind of person you are.

The bedroom is a place where several very particular activities take place. At night you get undressed, climb into bed, turn off your mind, and go to sleep. Then you dream, and your unconscious mind gets to have its way with reality for a while. Then in the morning, the bedroom is where you wake up.

As far as sleep and dreaming, the colors in your bedroom are going to be the last things you see when you close your eyes. You had better believe that they will have an influence on what goes on in your mind, while you sleep. Then when you wake up, that is the first moment of consciousness that you have, and it can set the tone for the entire day.

It is important to note that different colors have different meanings. While the meaning of a certain tone may vary from person to person based on their personal experiences, there are colors which have a generally universal meaning, and which cause the same sort of reaction in most people.

For instance, in general red is a very passionate and inflammatory color. It symbolizes blood, war, and conflict, but also love, romance and passion. In the bedroom the color red is most often used to create energy. This can be romantic energy, or it can simply be the kind of energy that will help wake you up and invigorate you in the morning. The flip side of this is that these tones may also make it harder to fall asleep
at night.

Blue and green are considered soothing colors, and are a favorite choice for many bedrooms. Blue tends to elicit thoughts of the ocean, or a cloudless sky, both things which have a quiet air to them. Green is the color of life and nature, and it will make the space seem relaxed, yet lively, like being in the folds of a deep enchanted forest.

Earth tones tend to make a space feel cozier. Throughout history most building materials have been earthen in color and even further back or ancestors lived in caves. Browns, grays, soft oranges, and adobe colors all make us feel like we are inside, somewhere safe and warm. Earth tones are also the color of family, and so using these in a bedroom will simply make the space feel more comfortable and homey.

Of course the most important reference for how colors affect a person is how the tones actually make you feel. Everyone is different. You have to understand how you react to these different shades. This is especially important in a bedroom, where you are going to be one of the very few people affected. The colors choices you make in this space are very personal, and should be based largely on your own taste and reactions.

This article provided on behalf of PebbleZ.com’s line of decorative stone candle holders and natural gemstone and onyx home décor accessories. The actual article was written by Joey pebble, a style philosopher and stone artist.

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Finding Inspiration in Your Home and Life

What are the consequences of a boring home? You step inside and everything is bland. There is nothing to catch the eye, nothing to make you think, nothing to inspire passion or love of life. The space is empty and emotionless, a void of thought and word.

Now imagine living in this home. All around you everything is the same. Every room is decorated simply, in the most boring and unassuming manner possible. If your home is the incubator of the soul, what would happen to your spirit, living day in and day out in such a space? What would happen to your personality if you had to go to sleep each night in that home and then wake up bleary eyed in the morning to an environment that didn’t have any life?

You have to understand the home as more than just a place where you keep your possessions. It is a living-breathing environment, and the personality of your home will have a definite impact on the personality that you yourself have. If the space is filled with powerful art, images that move you, colors that excite you, then you will have a more active mind, and will be quicker and more capable of dealing with the world.

Another thing to consider is what your home says about you as a person. The environment is an artistic expression of whoever decorated it. If there is passion and fury and beauty and art everywhere, than that is an expression of your soul. It’s like the clothes you wear, or the haircut you choose, or even the car you drive, it says something about you, about your life, and who you are. As such you should strive to put off the best impression that you can.

Inspiration is a rather personal thing. Certain poems, certain images are inspirational across a large swathe of people, but when it comes to beauty and emotions nothing is universal. As such you should start by looking inward. Find objects, colors, and illumination that speak to your own soul.

Of course you have to be a little careful here. Being too self-indulgent can cause you to end up with a “fairy” themed house, or some other far too singular theme. Instead look for things that inspire you, which you can share with others. If you and your friends are all moved by a certain piece, than it’s a sure bet it’s a pretty powerful decorative item. This is where getting opinions from some of the other people in the house might help.

Art is a good place to start looking. Certain images can evoke powerful emotions within the human soul. You should also pay attention to colors and patterns. Certain tones, like crimson reds, can make a space more exciting, but at the same time more volatile. Green and blue hues tend to make a setting feel more relaxing, and subdued.

The important thing to remember is that decorating is a form of art. It involves expressing your tastes, and your own soul, through the choosing and arranging of objects within a space. As long as you are guided by your own emotional needs, you will be certain to create a space that is inspirational for all.

This article has been provided courtesy of PebbleZ.com’s line of rustic home décor accessories made entirely from real, mountain born pieces of natural slate, onyx, gemstone, and marble. Joey Pebble, a philosopher of art and style, penned the article.

Smart Tips on Redecorating

There are many ways to redecorate your home, some simple and inexpensive to more elaborate and costly. Here are some key steps in the redecorating process.

1. Make time: You must allow plenty of time. Assume that everything will take longer than expected. For example, if you are planning a large family get-together for the Christmas holidays, begin your research in the spring. If you plan to order furniture, it can take 6-12 weeks to receive from the time you actually decide to order. And, most of you won't be able to find much southwest furniture in your local furniture store.

2. List Favorites: Many of the pieces you have in your home can be quite functional in your new design. Make a list of "must keep" pieces. Many of those prized paintings or family heirlooms will fit nicely in the finished design. You will be looking for new items that will change the look to southwest without having to throw everything out and start over.

3. Clip Pictures: Start an "I Like" file. Clip pictures from magazines that appeal to you. Order fabric samples to help with color choices. It's much easier to match wall and room accent colors to a fabric you plan to use on a re-upholster job of your existing sofa and chairs.

Here are a couple of great magazines to order for sparking your creativity:
New Mexico Magazine, http://www.nmmagazine.com/
SuCasa Magazine, http://www.sucasamagazine.com/

4. Consider the Function: Design follows function. What do you want your rooms to provide for you? What do you want it to reflect about you? Will your grand room be "entertainment central?" Easy-to-clean upholstery and spill-on-me tile floors may be your best bet. Or do you desire a quiet, cozy nest for just you and your spouse? For example, you could install an Italian marble floor from entryway to dining room that announces the old world European charm found in many old haciendas throughout the southwest.

5. Choose what you love: Leave the approval committee way in the background when you start shopping on the Internet and your local store for what you want. It's fine to solicit input from household members and people with compatible taste, but it doesn't matter if Aunt Maria and your friend Sally like the dining room set you've fallen in love with. Comments from the peanut gallery while you are browsing is distracting at best, dream-dashing at worst.

6. Plan for Accessories: Don't forget the extras. Budget some time to choose all the little extras that personalize a room, and don’t forget to budget the funds to cover the cost of those little extras. That perfect wrought iron mirror for the entryway, bathroom accessories for your counters, a beautiful new comforter ensemble for the bed you have always loved can provide the change of style without breaking the bank.

7. Be flexible: Be open to suggestion from a local decorator. Or, find someone whose decor is always just perfect when you walk into her home. Solicit suggestions about form and colors and lighting to make your design perfect. Even if they don't decorate in southwest, the principles are the same. Then you can choose the designs and patterns that are southwest to you.

8. Be patient: Keep the finished look in mind. You don't have to change the whole house at once. Start with just one room. Try the living/family room or dining room to start. Then proceed to bathrooms or kitchens. Bedrooms are great focal points also and you get to enjoy it even more. Don't hesitate to speak your mind when you are working with a designer. Help them understand your likes and dislikes. Sometimes this takes several times of explaining to them that the idea they just had doesn't work for you. They are trained to take notice and modify until they find the kinds of things and styles you like. This is going to be your new design to live with not theirs.

Whether you know exactly what you want before you start or don't have a clue; whether you are redecorating your home from floor to ceiling or simply refreshing your existing decor, with proper planning and guidance the results can be breathtaking.

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