Bathroom Redo

Bathroom Redo

When my husband and I were house hunting we had a list of things that we wanted our home to have.  We wanted a fairly open living floor plan where the kitchen, dining, and living areas had a good flow between them.  Hardwoods were also pretty important to us, and we needed closet space and storage.  Aside from those things we were pretty open.  It would have been nice to have had beautiful updated bathrooms too, but our dream home did not have that at all.  The house we picked was built in the 1950s, and the second we walked in we feel in love.  For a house of that age it was really open and the hardwood floors throughout made it even better.  The lighting and the molding was all new to the home and it gave it a more current feel, but you still got the charm from the farmhouse that you would want. Continue reading

Outdoor Kitchens

Outdoor kitchens, and indeed any outdoor living spaces, are among the most popular and valuable home improvements people can make.  Not only do they contribute to the attractiveness of a home that will soon be placed on the market, but they also make living in the home on a daily basis for the long term vastly more satisfying.  There is nothing like having a beautiful outdoor space with simple and functional, yet lovely, furniture for entertaining guests.  Today, we will be focusing on the outdoor kitchen, one of the easiest ways to open up some space for getting together with friends and loved ones while preparing delicious meals. Continue reading

Minimalism in Home Decor

If you want to make home decorating elegant and simple, it’s always more important to have a few quality items than a ton of cluttering junk objects assembled for the sake of taking up space. Whenever you are seeking to overhaul the look of your living space, try to go for quality instead of quantity.  This can be very hard to learn, but once you have developed a knack for it, it will make your life much easier and your home more beautiful.  There is great elegance in simplicity. Continue reading

Disasters by Design

Natural and man-made disasters can ruin your creative efforts and completely destroy all the hard work you have put into your interior designs for the rooms of your house as well as the exterior work like painting, siding, shingles, and even the landscaping.  The last thing you want to hear when you switch on the radio or television is that a flood, fire, blizzard,earthquake, tsunami, tornado, or hurricane is headed your way — but sometimes that is the way things happen. Continue reading

Designing the Outdoor Pizza Oven

For many homeowners, the idea of having their own wood burning outdoor pizza oven is very appealing, but few people know where to begin.  Everyone likes the taste of an authentic Italian style pizza cooked in a brick oven over the coals of burning wood at a super high temperature, resulting in perfect crust that is crispy outside, and chewy but well done throughout, yet the same people often fail to consider designing and building their own perfect outdoor pizza oven.  As it turns out, this is surprisingly easy to do.  As a project, it could be finished in two partial weekends, or one very concentrated and devoted one.

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Top Home Improvement Trends 2011

Homeowners are proud people, an as such, they are often busy dreaming up new ways to decorate their digs from a fresh coat of paint on the walls, to a whole new interior design format.  Today, there are computer programs you can use to help redesign your interior.  They guide you through the process of mapping the house out, identifying supporting walls and studs, and recommending where to knock walls out or add them in.  Other software is free to use via the Internet, and it can really help you apply your imagination to your design efforts. Continue reading

Designing Kids Bedrooms

Creating an amazing bedroom that you will love it hard enough, creating something young, fun, and safe for your children is a whole other challenge. Everyone that see’s my kids rooms can’t help but say how cool they are, so I decided to share some of my decorating tips with you on how to design a kids bedroom. Continue reading

Closet Deisgn

Are you one of those people who are always looking for a new way to design your closet? I know that I am! I have searched everywhere to find some of the best closet design ideas and I have finally found them!  Continue reading

Graffiti Couture

What if the most beautiful piece of artwork you’ve ever seen was on the side of a dumpster behind a local restaurant? Or covering the back of an abandoned warehouse on 6th and Madison?  There are some incredibly talented artists and designers out there who may have never taken a class in their lives but can compose beautiful scenes and depict some truly deep emotions.  I often find myself gravitating towards this type of free speech art and searching for ways to incorporate it into the décor of my own home as well as those clients of mine who desire a modern design and aren’t afraid of some powerful color.  Continue reading