Home Staging

Determining your home decorating style can be difficult, especially if you have never decorated anything before. However, with a careful examination of your personality, your color and hue preferences, and geometric shapes that you find pleasant, you can quickly begin to shape your use of furniutre and decorating personality.

The home décor you choose will reflect the things that you find pleasant in other aspects of your life. If you think back to when you were in school, you probably had a favorite subject. If you preferred math, you will probably prefer to decorate with clear, concise lines that imitate geometric shapes and can be measured in real numbers. However, if math wasn’t such a pleasant experience for you but you loved art class, you may like the more abstract, flowing type of design, with intricate weavings or carvings and delicate drawings and images.

Modern furnishings tend to be quite geometric, while the neo-classical furniture style takes into account the need for a contemporary design while still being compelled to love the ornate and robust. Neo-classical integrates the two cultures into one decorating style that can please those who are torn.

Home décor also reflects your moods and coloration. For example, if you tend to be an energetic person who never sits still, is always on the go, and has a need for adventure, the colors in your home will be bright and motivating – reds and deep purples, bright blues and sunny yellows. On the other hand, if you are laid back and tend to go with the flow, your decorating style will reflect this with choices of pastels, like delicate pinks, pale blues, and mellow yellows. Still another may be artistic and introverted, causing dark colors to appear, with black trim or navy blue décor. For those who love nature, the home décor will bring nature inside, with browns and greens, as well as floral motifs and oceanic designs.

Of course, you also have to take into account the size of the areas that are being decorated. For example, dark colors can be detrimental to the perception of an already small room, making it seem as though it is going to close in on you and even causing claustrophobia. You can open up a room like this by using light colors or at least backing off a shade or two to lighten your dark tones.

When you begin to consider all the aspects of your personality and your color and design preferences, your ideas for each room in the house will quickly start to take shape in your mind. Jot down your thoughts and save them because you can’t do everything at once, and you may want to come back to that thought later.

Lynn Weissman
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/home-decorating-style-do-you-have-it-138944.html

Do you look around your house and feel unsettled? Can you relax in your home without always feeling like you have to tidy up? Are you constantly looking for items you’ve misplaced?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then it’s time to reduce the clutter in your life and get organized. If your house is on the market, reducing clutter is the first step in staging a home for sale. After all, you’re selling a product and you want it to look its best. If you’re not selling, getting organized will just make you feel better, more relaxed and content with your surroundings. It will give you the feeling of being in control of your world. Life’s events will not feel so haphazard and random.

I can honestly say, I enjoyed my last home the most when it was up for sale. Everything was so clean and I was never apprehensive about letting friends see behind closed bedroom or closet doors.

Getting organized in all areas of your life will make you a happier person. Today, let’s start with your house and see how you can reduce clutter, step by step.

Kitchen:

Countertops are valuable work areas, don’t fill them up with things you don’t use on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I hate preparing a meal in a messy kitchen.

Find a spot for everything so you’ll know where to look for it.

Organize items in your drawers and cupboards with dividers. You may want to store your utensils in a caddy instead of trying to make them fit in a tray.

Use shelf hooks to hang measuring cups, and install pull outs to get to the back of your cupboards.

The kitchen seems to be the easiest place to dump your mail, purse or other personal items. Each day, make a habit of clearing off the counters by the time you’re ready to sit down for dinner.

Get rid of items you have duplicates of, or that are rarely used. Store those once-a-year items such as canning pots or Christmas cookie tins on a shelf in the basement or the back of a cabinet.

The Dreaded Mudroom:

Line a wall with shelves with coordinating baskets to hold all your stuff. Label the baskets so that you know where to look. Neither you or your friends should enter a room that looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane.

Assign a basket to hold things you don’t want to forget as you rush out the door, such as letters to be mailed, grocery lists, library books or school packs.

Get decorative hooks to hang coats, hats, keys, purses, dog leashes, etc.

Find an easy way to keep all the shoes in one place. If you have a bench, you may want to store them underneath on a tray. The wire mesh, tiered stands also work well.

The Family Room:

Consider how the room is used by all family members and plan the best ways to organize based on this. For instance, in addition to TV watching, this may also be the area for video game play or doing crafts. Find a cupboard or storage solution for all your activities.

Just as in the mudroom, line shelves with labelled storage baskets or boxes to hide your video games, movies, magazines, etc. Go through your magazines, keeping only one or two issues. Rip out pages you want to keep and store in a separate file.

Sneaky storage containers can be hidden behind a couch or big chair. Large hampers or baskets are attractive and store toys nicely. Coffee tables or ottomans with lift tops are also great for hiding stuff.

The Bedroom

Get a laundry hamper that should be filled with that day’s laundry by the end of every day.

Store seasonal clothing in clear plastic boxes under the bed. They work even better if they have wheels.

Blank walls are perfect for shelves for all those smaller items that soon overflow from nightstands.

If the same items are being piled up each week, you need to create a permanent home for them.

In kid’s rooms, use labeled baskets, hooks or wooden cubbies, installed at their height, to store items. They’ll put their things away if it’s easy to do.

Give them a place to do what they enjoy. Create activity centers such as a craft table with storage for glue, scissors, paper, etc. If they enjoy painting; set up an easel with paints, paper and drawing books nearby so that everything is ready to go when they are, and equally easy to put away.

Make sure your children understand where things go so that they can be responsible for tidy up.

The Bathroom

Tidy your linen closet and medicine cabinet for expired or unused items.

Store similar items in small baskets in your drawers. For instance, a make-up basket, first-aid, hair products, etc.

Where you’re not using baskets, use acrylic separators to keep items in place.

Place a roll of paper towels, a container of treated cleaning wipes and toilet cleaner in every bathroom for quick clean-ups.

Lauren Kline
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/get-organized-and-feel-great-748098.html

We all know that buying or selling a home can be a time consuming process. Although there are thousands of people looking to buy homes, it can be a tricky process finding the right person interested in your home. With hundreds of thousands of homes for sale in the United States, there is always some form of competition.

If you’re looking to sell your home fast, you’ll need to attract as much attention as possible. A real estate agent can help, although he can only do so much. He can show your home and help to get it out there to buyers, although he can’t make it sell. If you want to sell it fast, you’ll need to do some work yourself. If you put the effort into selling your home fast, chances are that you will.

The quickest way to sell a home is by staging it. Staged homes literally invite the buyer in, making him feel right at home. Staged homes are also appealing both inside and out, and are more or less ready to be moved into immediately. They don’t sit on the market for long at all, yet they bring a top dollar sell. If you are familiar with staged homes – you should know that they are among the fastest selling homes on the market.

If you don’t want to use a real estate agent, it’s still quite possible to sell your home – and sell it fast. You’ll need to do everything yourself, which involves getting your home out there to the market and showing it to potential buyers. You can always list your home in local newspapers, magazines, and put a “for sale by owner” sign in the yard. This way, you are letting buyers know that your home is for sale. Some buyers prefer homes that are for sale by the owner, as they don’t have to pay a real estate agent or deal with one directly.

When you sell your home, you should always make sure that the exterior is clean, the lawn is trim, and the interior is in superb condition. If you plan to live there until it is sold, you’ll want to make sure that you have the interior staged as best as you can. You want to give the buyer a great feeling, so he’ll stay and won’t leave. If your home is visually appealing both inside and out, a buyer will want to see more.

Once a buyer wants to see more of your home, chances are you have found the individual who will buy it. You should never make the buyer feel pressured, but instead make him feel that you are interested in his thoughts and opinions. If you show a buyer that you care – you will go a long way in establishing trust – which will help you sell your home.

Mark G. Estates
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/home-selling-advice-94679.html

As you page through home decorating magazines, stroll past furniture store windows, and search for decorating ideas the internet, what actually inspires you to take action? When do you say, “That’s the look I want”? What gets your attention and sticks in your mind until you must have the object of your attraction?

Product designers count on the latest introduction of colors to first catch your eye. A color you’ve never seen before or one resurrected from years ago may to your inspiration to redecorate. Colors are carefully planned to change throughout year. If this season’s colors didn’t grab you, perhaps the next array will do it. Eventually some hue in the seasonal rainbow will speak to you and you’re off to the paint or furniture store.

Just as with the inevitable changes in fashion’s hemlines and the width of men’s ties, some colors keep reappearing every few years. The avocado green of thirty years ago is back with a different descriptive name, so it’s now a fresh addition to a new color pallet for another generation.

Forms can also inspire. The alluring shape of a camelback sofa or the classic simplicity of a modern chair will set your mind to planning a whole new look for your room. May as well update those end tables and replace those tired lamps. Suddenly that lovely form that attracted you, that single impetus for change, has created a room transformation.

The shape of the beveled glass atop a dining table, the meandering curve of a sectional sofa, the off-beat lampshades on a chandelier are all examples of forms that attract and inspire a new way to see your home space.

A pattern will commonly inspire decorating action. The striking area rug festooned with a fabulous floral pattern inspires a new color scheme and becomes the centerpiece of the room. A richly colored rug with swirls cut deeply into the pile creates a pattern and flow to plan your room around.

The leopard print on a bedspread fabric may inspire you to create a bedroom jungle retreat. Spotting a drapery fabric covered with bouquets of blooming roses on chintz inspires an English cottage makeover. Patterns create pictures that inspire.

Art inspires the soul, but can also create a focus for your room’s décor. Begin with a focal point piece of art, something you love such as the picturesque Venetian scene that reminds you of your travels. The colorful gondolas and buildings reflected in the canals inspire your color choices. Naturally you are drawn to Italianate carved wood furniture, rich tapestry fabrics and Venetian glass to accessorize your artistic inspiration.

We are certainly not immune to design trends. What makes a look so trend worthy is its ability to inspire our own home decorating. Consider the Southwestern design trend of a few years ago. Did you furnish your living room with weathered wooden tables, mammoth overstuffed upholstery, and accessorize with striped Navajo blankets and dried animal bones? That popular look inspired the trend to adopt the desert lifestyle.

Inspiration for your home decorating does not just appear in the predictable publication and mediums. Music, movies, cultures and travel can get your creative juices flowing.

Be open to ideas that appear in unexpected places to liven up your home’s decor.

Sarah Crosset
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/home-decorating-what-inspires-you-714900.html

i’ve been designing dresses since i was a little kid, now i am at a stage where i have to think about the future etc. I want to persue something in the fashion designing area, but the only skills i have is able to draw good ideas of clothes on paper, but the thing is i would really like it if i had skills to make a garment. Sadly i do not have the skills, so please help me if you know any courses in London that teaches skills and techniques in fashion designing.

If you love fashion, you should check out this site! It has tons of cute outfits for every occasion for FREE!!

http://www.freewebs.com/fashionstyling4u/