Saturday, 27 September 2014
HOW TO DECORATE YOUR ROOM BY JOS ALUKKAS PROPERTIES
Cover Light Switch Plates and Outlet Covers with Pattern Paper
Thursday, 25 September 2014
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Textured Walls with Yarn around a Paint Roller
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Add an autumnal touch to an open bookcase with silk fall leaves, which you can find at your local craft store. Whether they're pressed inside a picture frame or strategically placed along the shelves, autumn-colored leaves are sure to pump up the fall factor
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- Don't overlook the Internet.
There are so many great deals for every room in your home on places like Craigslist and eBay. After all, one person's trash is another person's treasure.
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- Anchor your room by investing in substantial furniture pieces.
Buying a timeless sofa or kitchen table will save you money as your style changes. It's better to switch out the little things than buy a couch every two years! - Consider simple fixes before you get rid of something.
Inexpensive solutions: Bring life back to leather furniture with a little olive oil; make your kitchen chairs new again with a little spray paint and some fabric; get the scratches out of your wood floor and furniture by rubbing them with an almond
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- Fabric is an easy and inexpensive way to combine all the elements of your room.
Have fun by combining patterns, styles and different textures of fabric in everything from window treatments to accessories and furniture. - Fake architectural detail.
This can be done in a variety of ways. Using painter's tape, you can paint horizontal or vertical lines, which can make the room look bigger. You can also make shapes like rectangles and squares, creating a box on the wall for framing out furniture, sconces or your favorite picture. With molding, you can give the illusion of added depth and dimension to the walls. Like painter's tape, making a small box with molding can create a look that's certainly classic.
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- Focus on your floors.
Just like walls, floors need your attention, too. If you're able to completely change the surface, consider sanding or staining wood floors, or replacing old linoleum or carpet with tile. For a quick fix, add an area rug. There are so many options, making it easy to find the perfect style, shape and color for your space. By making your floors stand out, your walls can only look better. - Storage, storage and more storage.
Living in small spaces presents two options: building up or building under. Consider using tall bookshelves for a more dramatic effect, or take advantage of the space underneath your bed to store things you'd love to keep out of sight.
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- Don't forget about greenery.
Having plants in any room makes you feel more alive. Simple green foliage often lasts longer than flowers, and the overall design of a single leaf can make more of a striking effect. Try a single palm leaf or a slender flax in a giant vase. It has simple yet modern appeal. In your kitchen, add a small herb garden to your windowsill to add life to the room. Plus, they taste great!
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- Lighting can make or break a room.
Invest in lower-wattage bulbs to change a room's mood from restful to romantic. - Check out remnant tables at your local fabric stores.
Remnants are perfect for recovering pillows, banding drapes and other sewing projects around the house. They're usually 1/3 of the price and look just as good.
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And by puttering, I mean just rearranging things.
It’s my favorite thing to do.
It’s how I keep my kitchen clean.
I pick stuff up all the time, dust, and try a new arrangement.
It’s fun.
The thing I love the most about my open shelves is that I can have fun changing things around every season. The shelves are always evolving, although most of the time I start with the same basic elements and add or edit out a few items.
Sometimes I’m in a color mood and sometimes not!
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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And by puttering, I mean just rearranging things.
It’s my favorite thing to do.
It’s how I keep my kitchen clean.
I pick stuff up all the time, dust, and try a new arrangement.
It’s fun.
The thing I love the most about my open shelves is that I can have fun changing things around every season. The shelves are always evolving, although most of the time I start with the same basic elements and add or edit out a few items.
Sometimes I’m in a color mood and sometimes not!
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When the sweet family behind polder's old world market offered to send me these hand carved one-of-a- kind wooden spoons as a gift, I did a little happy jig. I LOVE wood spoons. And honestly these are absolutely AMAZING. They are so beautiful I am certain they will never be hidden in a drawer! Each one is so unique, they are works of art.
I love the simplicity and the added warmth of wood cutting boards, these beautiful wood spoons and wood bowls against the white in my kitchen. And they are fun to use, too!
These spoons are finished only with pure olive oil, leaving the natural color and grain of the wood. They are 100% all-natural and are meant to be used for generations. They would make a lovely gift for someone you love, or maybe you just want to give one to yourself sometime. You deserve it! They have lots of other beautiful products you will love, too.
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It takes time to collect things we really like, but patience goes along with the joy of creating a home we truly love.
I adore anything that serves as both art and function, especially when it is something organic and naturally beautiful. Textures are my FAVORITE way to add warmth and coziness to my kitchen this time of year!
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One of the main principles I’ve always used at home is that I don’t need to decorate as much as I just need to make every day things more beautiful.
I love paying attention to the small details of my home and daily routine, especially during the fall and winter months where I’m spending more time inside nesting and homemaking.
If my coffee mugs are cute enough to be hung on a rack on the counter, and my hand towels are pretty enough to be stacked in a basket by the sink and the cooking utensils I use are attractive enough to be sitting out on the counter or even hanging on a wall, then decorating is as easy as using what I have! Simplicity is beautiful.
That sums up my favorite style and what I love most — less fuss, more simple beauty and appreciation of the things I use and enjoy every day. You all know how much time we spend in the kitchen. We might as well LOVE what we have to work with because it makes everyday tasks a bit more enjoyable!
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For my lamp shade, since I didn’t use a harp to attach it, I found that the ring style lampshades they sell at Target worked great. You can see what it looks like from under the shade, it just sets right down over the spout of the jug. You could use a little sticky tack if it wobbles or if you use a different sized jug you may need a washer or may need to use a harp (think that through before you start, because I think you’ll want to put the cord through the harp before you attach it to the socket.).
PHEW. So many words for such an easy DIY. But for those of you (like my husband) that say “Just simplify this for me, get to the point — what do I need to know?” haha, I will simplify it into easy bite-sized steps…
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I actually thought seeing the cord dangle out the back like this would bother me but it really doesn’t at all since it is a clear cord. I guess I don’t really look at it from the side anyway, and it is a glass water jug lamp so it just adds to the funky unexpected nature of the lamp. No biggie to me.
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If you want the cord to go inside the glass, you would need a special drill bit to cut glass so the cord would go out the side near the bottom or even through the bottom if you wanted to cut the bottom out. But in this case, I didn’t care that it was outside the jug. Because the cord is clear and the lamp is against a wall, it isn’t that conspicuous from most angles.
If you are looking at the lamp from the side, this is what you would see (photo above and below). If that would bug you, you might want to try cutting the glass and making the cord go inside and out the bottom. But either way, with glass, you see a cord or stem or something in the glass.
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Because I’m not an electrician and have no qualifications, I won’t tell you exactly how to attach the wires from the cord to the socket in case my misinformation causes you permanent injury or death. Nobody’s got time for that.
You can google it or better yet, ask someone at the hardware store or an electrician. My husband happened to know how, so we did it ourselves. It was easy and no one died. High fives all around for that.
Once the socket and cord were connected, I just stuck the socket into the spout of the jug, with the cord sticking out and put a little hot glue around the metal to adhere it to the glass. Easy peasy. Maybe there is a better adhesive so you can research that, but the hot glue gun worked fine for me. So far, so good!
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If you look at a lamp you already have, basically all a lamp is the container, a socket and a cord. Sometimes there are stems or lampshades too. “I should be able to handle that,” I thought to myself! So armed with my vast un-tested knowledge of lamp making, I headed off to find a socket and a cord that would work for this jug!
There are actual lamp kits at Lowe’s that come with corks to hold the socket in place specifically for making a lamp from a bottle, or you can buy a set that has the cord and socket attached and ready to go (easy peasy), or you can do what I did which was to buy individual lamp sockets and lamp cords. The reason I went with the individual pieces was because I wanted a clear cord. And, I didn’t need the cork because the spout on the bottle and the socket were so close in size and I wasn’t going to use any stem or harp that needed stabilization.
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I will give a disclaimer — I’m not a skilled DIY’er nor am I an electrician. Anything I say should be confirmed with professionals as I am not responsible for any DIY mishaps you might have in attempting this at home. Proceed at your own risk.
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Because my lamp started out its life as a glass water jug, notice how the words are upside down since they are designed to be used with the spout down. That is part of the character of the lamp, right? Right.
This lamp was VERY easy to make. So easy in fact I wondered why I had never tried to make a lamp before and my wheels started spinning with all sorts of DIY lamp ideas. I didn’t really find a tutorial I used for this I just made it up myself according to what I thought would work with this jug, although I know many people have made bottle lamps and might have their own way of doing it.
And of course, every jar or vessel you use for a lamp will be different so you will have to assess your own particular container to decide what would work best.
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Basically you could make an lamp from just about anything. That’s great news for those of us who love unique lamps and lighting with character but don’t always like the price tags. I also love BIG lamps (well, and tiny ones) but they are not that easy to find at an affordable price.
My lamp is obviously the size of a water jug. Have you ever noticed when you take pictures of things in your house that accessories and items often appear smaller than they really are? Or sometimes they appear larger, it all depends.
But in real life, the scale of this lamp was a big deal to me because of the high ceilings in the entry. I didn’t want a tiny lamp on this table. I like big lamps, I cannot lie. In fact, truth be told, I’d rather have a few bolder accessories than a thousand little things teetering on a table or mantel. But that’s just me. Less is more.
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I made a lamp. Never thought those words would come out of my mouth (nor did you, I’m sure HAHAH!) but sometimes you do things because you know exactly what you want and you can’t find it anywhere. And when you do find something similar, it costs a million dollars. And you don’t have a million dollars. Or you have to wait weeks to order something and you want it RIGHT NOW. I’m SO impatient. Usually I can compromise and find something else that would work, but this time, I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to settle.
I wanted a BIG GLASS LAMP, and I found just what I was looking for at a local flea market. I found a big beautiful blue glass water jug!
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
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Obviously, you would not want to install this product in your shower. Eh hem. But as a backsplash or on a wall or ceiling, yes. I was even thinking of using it in my cabinet doors as an insert! I also thought about painting my counter with a coordinating metal paint and sealing it well, but that will have to be for another day.
And here it is, the faux tin tile is still in the bathroom several years later! It has stood the test of time in a boy’s bathroom :-)! See the current update to the bathroom, here.
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