Carrie McBride

Do you have a little wall in your home? Usually two or three feet wide, they’re often the transition space between two rooms and they’re often not used for much of anything. Here are six examples of smart and stylish ways to use them in your home to add more function and more beauty. A small wall becomes a spot to store mail and papers, display cards, and hold other accessories.

Homes are made up of so many pieces from furniture basics to personal touches so how do you make a place feel like home when you’re starting from scratch and with little scratch to spend? Here are five strategies to help furnish your home when you’re just starting out… You’ll be surprised what people will offer you. It may not be just your style, but it can be a placeholder until you can afford something better.

The corners of our homes often go overlooked and underutilized, but, especially if you’re short on space, stake a claim on this space with some corner shelves. It’s an idea you can truly use anywhere in your home to gain storage or to put some of your collections or art on display. Here are a trove of inspiration photos from different rooms around the home showing off how serviceable and attractive corner shelves can be.

One of the enduring debates among our readers is whether to transition a child from their crib to a toddler-size bed or go straight to a twin bed (or bigger). It’s a decision most parents will make at one time or another, and there is a multitude of competing factors to consider. This debate has come up time and again on Apartment Therapy, with hundreds of comments on the topic.

Sheepskins are everywhere these days and why not? They add warmth and texture and can be played off as either luxe or laid back. They can be used in any room of the home, for the best effect – fling it somewhere. Across hard shell chair backs in the kitchen/dining area as in Eva’s Sense of Clarity home.

Jenny Lind cribs and beds are a classic in children’s rooms (even modern ones) and we’ve seen a host of them on Apartment Therapy. Jenny Lind is often mistaken to be a company or a brand, but it’s neither. It’s simply a style of furniture distinguished by turned posts or what we call spindles. So, just who was Jenny Lind and why is our furniture still named after her?

Because style doesn't have to cost a fortune.

All the small space goodness from last month inspired me to make some tweaks and additions to make my small Brooklyn kitchen more serviceable and user-friendly (especially since I am its primary user). The changes are affordable, renter-friendly and, hopefully, helpful to some of you simmering and sautéing away in your own small kitchens. 1. Over-the-Stove Cutting Board: small kitchens are a challenge not just for storing things but for actually cooking.

An amazing thing happened in June 2008 — an IKEA opened two miles from my home. Oh, and my son was born. Before this a trip to IKEA meant descending into the bowels of Port Authority in Manhattan, boarding a standing room only shuttle bus to a New Jersey IKEA and then deciding whether to spend more money than you spent on purchases to arrange home delivery of your items or to limit yourself to what you could wrangle home on the bus and subway. It was a dark time.

NOTE: We’re updating our gallery today, Cyber Monday, to reflect the latest deals. Welcome to the unofficial-official start to holiday shopping. Whether you decide to brave the stores in person or stick to deal hunting online, Black Friday through Cyber Monday are prime days for savings. Whether you’re looking to find a great gift or are just shopping for a gift for your home (or yourself!), Target has some serious deals going on.

NOTE: We’re updating our gallery today, Cyber Monday, to reflect the latest deals. Welcome to the unofficial-official start to holiday shopping. Whether you brave the stores in person or online, Black Friday through Cyber Monday are prime days for savings. We’ve been hunting through Wayfair on the lookout for the best deals on the best stuff, so we’ll be updating this post with our picks for your gift list and your home, so you won’t have to look far to snag a steal.

When you ask parents what not to buy for a nursery, a changing table rises to the top of the list. “Official” changing tables don’t repurpose well into non-baby furniture so many parents choose alternatives to traditional changing tables, primarily dressers or desks that are at a comfortable height and deep enough to accommodate a changing pad.

The KURA loft bed has earned its cred and its staying power. It’s cheap, ideal for small homes and, as you’ll see in these twenty examples, offers endless opportunities for customization. Paint, wood, fabric: choose your medium and make your KURA your own with a simple color upgrade or a full-on hack. 1. Wood slats cover this KURA to totally transform the look and lend it a tree house feel. (IKEAHackers) 2.

Creating a gallery wall is a great way to display a myriad collection of art, framed or otherwise, and more and more I’m seeing them popping up in nurseries and children’s rooms. Installing one can be a bit of an art as you balance different sizes and mediums, but they also allow a ton of creativity. The example above is a mega (awesome) gallery wall, but don’t be intimidated by it. Choose a smaller wall or partial wall to fill with the art you’ve been collecting.

A home without art is a home without heart. So cheesy, but so true. Photography is my favorite medium and although it can be expensive to buy or make prints and have them framed, a good photograph can be the main event of a room, the star of the show, the point of visual convergence. Many of the homes we’ve been lucky enough to tour feature wonderful and memorable photographs. Here are twenty of my favorites, in a nice, big, full-bodied slideshow for you to peruse.

Some of us have a little birdhouse in our soul and others hang them in the nursery. They’re inexpensive, completely customizable and what could better symbolize the “nesting stage” than a birdhouse? If you really wanted to start from scratch you could build your own birdhouses, but they are also readily available (and inexpensive) at craft stores like Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, etc. Decorate with paint, washi tape, or decoupaged paper or fabric.

Are you a Mary Blair fan? Best known for her influence in early Disney animation (including concept paintings for some of Disney’s most beloved films like Peter Pan, Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland), her work is marked by vibrant color and sweet, but not immature portrayals of children. She also illustrated five Golden Books which are true treasures. Let’s take a look at some of her art used in children’s rooms and options for adding some yourself.

Being awoken by the sun is actually good for you, but there are times when darkening a room aids in sleep especially for napping children, shift workers or others with non traditional sleep schedules and for blocking artificial night time light such as from a streetlamp. Blackout curtains also are energy saving (keeping heat from escaping in the winter and the hot sun from heating up your room in the summer) and help block or muffle outdoor noise.

Picture ledges are a whole lot more versatile than you realized.