Almost-Instant Updates
Just one small change can completely refresh the feel of a room. So try these quick, easy and fun ways to bring some sparkle back into your space.
1. Rev Up Your Rearranging
Sometimes all it takes to give a room a fresh look is a quick shuffle of your current furniture and accessories. Try moving things from one room to another or mixing and matching old things with new. And experiment with different heights, textures and proportions until you find something that looks right to your eye.
2. Play With Knots
When combing local flea markets or garage or tag sales, keep your eyes peeled for old tablecloths and silk scarves. Simply tie the corners around basic pillows to instantly update a sofa or chair. Use any leftover material to make a pretty bow or an interestingly twisted knot.
3. Consider New Uses
A child’s tin bucket makes a delightful holder for rolled-up towels in a bathroom. And a small table lamp with a shade on your kitchen counter will quickly create a warm, homey mood.
4. Make It Multisensory
Is it just your eye that’s craving change, or is your nose bored too? Place a Glade® Wisp® Flameless Candle on a coffee table, windowsill or shelf. The warm, flickering glow and continuous puffs of fragrance will create a fresh, inviting experience for your senses of sight and smell.
5. Kick Up the Contrast
Instead of towels that match your bathroom walls, go for a contrast. Try rich chocolate brown towels if you have pale lilac or pink walls. Or play up vivid lime green walls with equally bold turquoise towels.
6. Add a Lush Touch
Plants thrive in a bathroom’s humid atmosphere and can quickly create a fresh look. If you don’t have a green thumb, try adding a vase of fragrant cut flowers, like tea roses or freesia.
7. Feature It With a Frame
If you love a particular wallpaper pattern, but it’s either too vivid or too expensive for a whole room, buy a swatch and frame it. Do you have a large mirror over your bathroom vanity? Frame that too! Paint the frame a contrasting color for a renewed look in a jiffy.
8. Accessorize the Cabinetry
Switch out the hardware on your bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Glass, wood or ceramic can add a country charm, while brushed-metal hinges and pulls can give even basic cabinets a modern look. Bring home several samples to play with before you make your final decision.
See the Light
Quick updates to lamps or fixtures can change the way you see everything in a room.
9. Consider Three Levels
In most rooms you’ll have overhead, table-height and low lighting. A can light set on the floor and tucked behind a plant, with the beam focused upward, can create instant drama. An inexpensive picture light can make your child’s finger painting look like a museum-worthy masterpiece. Put a lamp on a stack of books or a hatbox to change its proportions or to make mismatched lamps on either side of a couch the same height. And do consider whether you’re using the right type of light for the task.
10. Think Pink
Switch out harsh white lights for soft pink bulbs that flatter the skin. Everyone will look so much nicer!
11. Decorate the Shades
Tracy Porter, author of Tracy Porter’s Home Style, suggests hanging crystals on the bottom edge of a lampshade. You can also use a hot glue gun to add a cord or ribbon trim to a simple shade for a custom look — it’s a great way to make mismatched lamps look like a pair.
For an elegant shimmer, Porter lightly spritzes a plain shade with spray adhesive and dusts it with fine glitter. You can also paint the inside of a lampshade to give it a new glow. Or you might simply try switching the shades around.
12. Set the Mood
Put dimmer switches in your rooms. They’re a great way to instantly change the mood of a room. And even the plainest of bathrooms becomes a spa-like retreat with soft, low lights.
13. Liven It Up With Color
Your lights don’t have to be all one color, or still and unchanging. Set out a Glade® PlugIns® Scented Oil Light Show and enjoy the combination of soothing color, changing lights and fragrance.
Perk Up With Paint
There’s no need to paint an entire room to create a big impact.
14. Outline With White
Crisp white trim and white doors can brighten up a room and create great graphic interest.
15. Fool the Eye
Paint the inside of built-in bookcases a deeper shade than the wall or bookcase exterior, and your books and objects will appear to float. To highlight a fireplace, choose an accent color or a metallic paint.
16. Introduce Drama
Paint the wall area below a chair rail a deeper or more vibrant color than the area above and you can liven up a room without making it seem smaller or overwhelmed with color.
17. Add an Accent
While a dramatic color painted throughout a room might overpower it, an accent wall can add warmth and excitement. If your room is already painted a color, consider using a deeper shade of the same color on just one wall.
18. Look Beyond the Walls
Consider painting a ceiling a soft blue or a lighter shade of the color of the wall. You could also whitewash or ebonize wood floors instead of refinishing them.
19. Flaunt the “Flaws”
Awkward angles or sloping ceilings? Instead of trying to disguise them, play them up. Paint stripes in a contrasting or coordinating color to turn a potential eyesore into a focal point.
20. Accentuate the Edges
It’s surprising where the eye can come to rest. Bring it to attention and spiff up the room by playing with lines and outlines in exciting ways.
21. Create Your Own Detailing
In Decorating on a Dime: Trade Secrets from a Style Maker, author Christy Ferer shows how to create architectural detailing by gluing cord or yarn, in contrasting colors, onto existing ceiling grooves and chair and floor moldings.
With its closely woven and corded texture, grosgrain ribbon can also add a decorator touch. Highlight it with brass or colored tacks spaced evenly, every six inches or so.
22. Add Chair Rails
It’s simple to add chair-rail moldings to a room. Placed low, they can make the ceilings in small rooms look higher. Placed at 36 inches or slightly higher, they can give rooms with very high ceilings a more human scale.
Article provided by Right@Home.
