• Check your newspaper’s local and real estate sections for traveling home and garden product shows and designer show house tours. Your admission or tour ticket often benefits a hometown charity, and the inexpensive ideas you glean from model room settings and professional interior designers can benefit your decorating sense immeasurably.
• Rearrange the furniture you already own. Evaluate traffic flow from doors inward, then choose a large piece of furniture as the room’s anchor. Balance the remaining furniture around the anchor so it pleases the eye and facilitates movement through the room, and voila—instant makeover…and you haven’t spent a dime! Wait for a few days before you add anything else to the room, including the walls, giving yourself a chance to live in the space for a bit. That way, if something doesn’t feel right you can move things around again without disrupting your more permanent decorating touches.
• Take window treatments down completely, especially the dark, heavy ones. See how much extra light more “naked” windows let in during the day. If you’re feeling too exposed, add blinds, or drape a length of sheer fabric over decorative curtain rods.
• Position a large mirror on a wall across from or cattycorner to a window. It will reflect sunlight, bouncing it around the room, and will also make the space look larger by half.
• In your lamps, use pink-tinted bulbs, or the new ones that simulate natural sunlight, with the maximum wattage allowed for each fixture. For an instant décor lift, add a couple of small buffet or accent lamps to brighten things up in the evening.
Party Under the Stars
With our homes spreading naturally into the beautiful outdoors, the Party on the Patio has become a much anticipated repeat event with each new spring and summer. The kiss of a warm breeze, the feel of a cool drink in your hand, the delicious smell of morsels on the grill, all combine to create the perfect entertaining scenario.
What’s so great about staging your party outside? For one thing, you don't have to worry as much about the state of the rest of the house. Just spruce up the deck with a few flowering containers and set your kids’ boom box out with a few beach music CDs beside it (one of your guests will become the self-appointed DJ—it never fails).
Summer-party table and glassware should be festive to look at and easy to maintain ideally if made from stoneware and acrylics. You can get away with brighter colors and bolder patterns than you would normally use indoors when you’re having fun in the sun. Pull the colorful throw pillows off the sofa and scatter them onto the outdoor chairs and lounges for instant color, or pick up a few all-weather ones at Grand Home Furnishings. Hang some summer-themed lanterns or burn a few tiki torches—also great for keeping bugs at bay. Add a delicious summer salad and you’re all set for a party under the stars.
