The Latest: May 3, 2019

I think when most people move into a new home, decorating the guest room probably isn’t their first priority—but that wasn’t so in this case. Emily, owner of Cheerfully Made, recently moved with her family into a big, four-bedroom in the small town of Almonte, Ontario, and while the extra space was amazing and the house was in great shape, it was stuck in a time warp. And what was the first room Emily attacked? The guest room.

When Henry purchased his one-bedroom co-op in a former tenement building in Manhattan’s East Village, it was in bad shape. Really, really, really bad shape. The entire apartment was falling apart, and the kitchen was, in a word, ‘destroyed’. Never had a space been more ripe for a makeover. Luckily, Sweeten was there to help Henry revitalize his space, and he didn’t just stop at the kitchen.

This ‘before’ bathroom might be the ugliest befores I’ve ever seen — and it’s certainly one of the strangest. Years ago, the person responsible for retrofitting a bathroom into this one-bedroom apartment in a former tenement building made a very unusual choice: in order to fit a bathtub into a very narrow space, they shoehorned it in lengthwise, so that you had to climb in from the short end. It was awkward, to say the least.

We recently purchased our first home, a 1950s ranch in Clifton, New Jersey, that needed updating to the main bath and kitchen. The existing bathroom was, quite frankly, hideous and couldn’t be salvaged. We used a contractor for all of the work and I based my design off an inspiration photo I had seen on the Internet. The black tiles (made by Lungaro) were purchased at Standard Tile in Totowa, NJ (who are fantastic to deal with!

Lead paint is nasty stuff. If you live in a home built before 1978, it’s very likely that layers of lead paint lurk on the windowsills, trim around the doorway, or walls. Not knowing if you have it in your home is scary — especially if you are pregnant or have children — so it’s worth finding out. Inexpensive kits are widely available, and testing is easy, so fork over the $10, be the responsible human you are, and put your mind to ease.

The front entrance can be a tricky space to make over. It usually is not very big, has limited options, and needs to be really functional. And if you have an open-concept home, you have to make sure the entry works with the look of the whole space. Lidy and Joel from Hello Lidy had already tackled most of their open-plan, split-level house and were not happy with the view of their dated front entrance from their newly made-over living room.

Common wisdom says that when it comes to bathroom suites, newer, more streamlined, and whiter is better. The bathroom is often the first room homeowners want to gut, but this isn’t the only option. If you’re lucky enough to have a suite of retro bathware in good nick, whether it be pink, mint green, or even avocado, maybe think twice about ripping it out. Read on for some swoon-worthy retro bathrooms.

If you got a sweet deal on a fixer-upper that was built before 1978, chances are you’re going come across lead paint somewhere in the house. Beautifully painted window trim that tests positive for lead paint isn’t necessarily the end of the world — but it quickly becomes a problem when the paint starts to deteriorate and chips or flakes away. So if you happen to have a flaky window sill you’re suspicious of, give it a quick test and don’t fear the results.

When Alex moved into his cozy and bright uptown New Orleans rental apartment, he was faced with great architectural bones—beautiful wood floors, big windows, two fireplaces and more. What wasn’t so hot? The builder beige colored walls mixed with other colors that did really work together and made the place seem darker than it needed to be.

It’s hard not to romanticize the meet-cute between Sofia and her now stunning bar. Just an average, overlooked workbench is collecting dust all on its lonesome, until it finally found that special someone who came along and claimed it. From Sofia: I found this workbench under mounds of dusty boxes in the cellar at my mum’s house.

College living is chock full of design challenges (small spaces, random roommates, a general sense of impermanence) so I’m always impressed when people commit to living their best dorm lives. Roxanne came up with a pretty ingenious way to carve out a workstation for her daughter, seemingly out of nowhere. From Roxanne: My daughter needed a study area in her tiny dorm room. With no floor space available I had to get creative. Working with only 2 feet of wall space, I added a fold down desk.

Cabinet hardware is a little detail that can have a big impact on the look of your kitchen or bathroom. The good news is that these days there are quite a few retailers offering modern, minimally styled pieces in a variety of budgets. Here are seven of our favorites. Superfront makes a line of pulls and knobs designed for IKEA cabinets, but they would be equally nice on other cabinets as well. (Blogger Maiju Saw used them in her kitchen.

I thought I’d already found the best example of a BILLY hack already —these built-ins from Gwen of Makerista, which we posted early last year. Then this project came to my attention, and I’ve made room in my heart for two loves instead of just one. Kristina of Ich Designer created a series of these sliding doors for her BILLY bookcases. They move on casters with the help of a u-shaped channel she affixed to the front of the shelves. IKEA bar pulls complete the job.