If it’s time for new floors but you don’t want to deal with the time or expense of refinishing them, why not paint them? It’s affordable, adds character to the space, and gives you the freedom to bring in some color. Though for all the reasons to jump in…it’s entirely possible to make a big mess. However, there’s a really simple solution available at your local home improvement store. That solution is to use the right paint for the job.
Brian and Tanika have always loved dogs, and both had four-legged best friends when they were children. Their problem is that, even though they’re dog people, they’d prefer that people couldn’t tell by looking at them, by seeing the dog hair on their pant legs, sofa cushions, or anywhere, frankly. That’s tough at the moment, because their new pup, Tanzie, has a serious shedding problem.
Although newly engaged couple Cecila and Jesse are good about splitting their chores, they have two distinctly different approaches to keeping their house clean. She admits that she’s the messy one and is more likely to throw things into a slightly chaotic heap during the week before tackling it over the weekend. Jesse, though, likes to organize as he goes along, making sure that their place is reasonably tidy at the end of each day.
When you’re a busy parent with young kids, sometimes it feels like the easiest way to clean the house is to burn it to the ground and just start over. That’s not exactly the most feasible solution – especially on a weekly basis. Clare is a mom who’s constantly on the go, so she’s looking for easy ways to keep her home slightly more organized.
Homeowners: Laura and Brandon Piety, Los Angeles Milestone: Bought their first home and launched a new business Makeover: Make the backyard more inviting for entertaining It’s been a big couple years for Laura and Brandon Piety. Last year, they checked a huge dream off their life list: buying a home in Los Angeles, where they’ve lived for the past six years. This is in addition to having recently completed another huge life list item, launching their new media business, Noble.
After five years of long-distance, New Yorkers Ariel and Dillon are co-habitating for the first time. The couple is always on the move, whether they’re shopping Brooklyn farmers’ markets on the weekends or escaping the city for slow weekends on the Jersey Shore. And life is about to get even more hectic: They’re moving!
Meaghan and Eric’s family defines busy: Meaghan runs McNamara Design, a firm that specializes in interiors, installations, and furniture upcycling, as well as a daycare. The Maryland couple also has two little ones — with a third on the way in September! Amidst this “organized chaos,” as Meaghan calls it, her and Eric’s master bedroom is an oasis of peace.
Win: Your Complete Dream Bed Set From: Au Lit Fine Linens Value: $1,380 There are a lot of debates out there around bed linens. Percale vs. sateen; low thread count vs. high thread count; goose down vs. down-mimicking; Egyptian cotton vs. American cotton… It’s enough to keep you up at night. Au Lit Fine Linens is here to help, and with 35 years of experience changing the way people sleep and improving the quality of their lives, we’re happy to take their word for it.
Name: Kate and Sara; cats Jaspurr and Blondie; dogs Sophie and Brutus Location: Durham, NC Size: 1,600 square feet For Kate and Sara, finding a home in the super-competitive Durham market was like running a marathon of sprints: They had to be ready to jump on new listings immediately and get offers together fast. How fast? When they finally toured their dream home after a two-month search, the place fetched 40 viewings in 36 hours!
You’ve just moved. You’re excited! You’ve taken the online quiz to find out if you’re a chesterfield or a mid-century modern. (Turns out you’re a camel back. Twist!) But hold up. At the risk of going too Mom and Dad on you, let’s talk this as a moment to make smart decisions that keep the home in good working order. These purchases are all utilitarian, which sure, are not as fun to think about as furniture and decoration.
Former New Yorkers Pablo, a photographer, and Sophie, a designer, are loving life in Los Angeles: sunshine, new chapters of their creative careers and, of course, new digs. All that action makes for hectic days, though. Between being in business for themselves and making their new house feel like home, the couple needs a bedroom that feels like a real respite. The centerpiece of their restful retreat? A dreamy new mattress suited to their summery new temps.
One of the most fun parts about working at Apartment Therapy is flipping through all those pictures of real families’ beautiful homes. The downside is that we don’t always get to see the (literally) dirty truth. The toddler’s pasta sauce on the floor. The paw prints. The playdough. But psst…all these homes are full of that stuff! So, we called up some of our House Tour alumni and asked what their challenges are to keep clean floors, and how they deal with them.
Call it a party, a gathering, a group hang, a whatever: Having people over makes us (and our homes) happy. Do it in the summer, though, and everything just comes alive. Something about the glow of string lights and the background noise of sizzling skewers makes all of summer’s sweat and steam so worth it. Memorial Day (yep, it’s here) is exactly the excuse to put in the little bit of effort of setting up the outdoor space so the rest of the season is nothing but chill time.
2017 is the year of greenery. It’s everywhere: in color trends, on pinboards and in the real-life homes we feature on Apartment Therapy. If you’re not a plant person, bringing this trend into your home can seem intimidating, but there’s one way to make it work that’s so simple, even the most greenery-challenged person can do it. Seriously. All you need is one potted plant and one essential product from the Command™ Brand toolkit.
We get it: A full-home cleaning is a big, exhausting project. But if you want to level up your life, you don’t have to do it all at once. It’s amazing what a difference little tweaks can make, tweaks like committing to a proper set of clothes hangers or setting up a bathroom that’s easy to keep clean. Here are four low-investment fixes that will bring surprisingly high-yield results to our continual quest to uplevel our lives.
It’s a lovely idea to have a dedicated home office to keep work and life things separate. But it’s rarely a reality. What that means is that our “offices” often have to be carved out of another common space like the living room. When that’s the setup, you can make it work by creating a separate space so that “office stuff” has a defined space to live in. Make the space creative and inspiring, and the whole thing will work.
A couple weeks ago, we met Julie, Victor, and Teo. The three of them live in an apartment that has great bones — light-filled rooms with beautiful ceiling beams. The problem was that their living room had both nothing and everything. The everything part was courtesy of Teo: His arrival was “the best thing ever,” Julie told us. “It seems like every day we accumulate more things and, in a small space, you really feel it.
Summer’s basically here, and with it the eternal question: “Can I make money on my empty place while I’m away?” There are legalities to consider, of course, but if everything in that department is good to go, then the question should really be: “Why not?” We worked with Booking.com to analyze the more than 1 million apartments, beach homes, and houseboats listed on their site (yes, they list short-term vacation rentals, too!
Name: T.V. Carpio, Cato Herring, their daughter and three cats Location: Burbank, CA Size: 2,138 square feet Years lived in: 1.5 years It wasn’t until T.V. became pregnant that she and Cato decided to become home owners. At first they assumed they wouldn’t need a real estate agent, thinking they’d find plenty of listings online on their own.
We’re helping Julie and her family freshen up their living room. The project involves de-cluttering her space — a special challenge when you have a one-year-old — and adding some travel-inspired pops of color and personality. We’ve set her up with three style experts, who will each build on what Julie has while adding some fresh inspiration from the TargetStyle Global Collection. Which brings us to design blogger Stacey Blake, editor of Design Addict Mom.
We’re helping Julie and her family freshen up their living room. The project involves de-cluttering her space — a special challenge when you have a one-year-old — and adding some travel-inspired pops of color and personality. We’ve set her up with three style experts, who will each build on what Julie has while adding some fresh inspiration from the TargetStyle Global Collection.
We’re helping Julie and her family freshen up their living room. The project involves de-cluttering her space — a special challenge when you have a one-year-old — and adding some travel-inspired pops of color and personality. We’ve set her up with three style experts, who will each build on what Julie has while adding some fresh inspiration from the TargetStyle Global Collection.
Say hello to Julie, a mom who is trying to balance…everything, really. But the part that we can help her with is making her already gorgeous, light-filled apartment reflect her wanderlusty family, including husband Victor and one-year-old son Teo. Although she loves the character and existing beauty of the space itself, she wishes it would reflect her personality and interests — like her love for world travel — without being too eclectic or chaotic.
When you’re selecting a new set of sheets, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Thread count, right? Fine. However, a luxurious thread count is a moot figure if those threads have been over-processed, pulled from questionable sources, or manufactured in a way that roughs up the planet. There’s a better way to get better sheets and it comes from Coyuchi, the pioneer of organic bedding and towels.
Name: Adam, Audrey, and Jules (age 2.5) Location: Eagle Rock, Los Angeles Size: 1,012 square feet Years lived in: Owned 14 months When Adam and Audrey were looking for a good starter home, they wanted a ready-to-go renovation with a few perks (AC and a yard) that their Los Feliz rental didn’t have. Even though they’d been priced out of their neighborhood and nearby Silver Lake, they still wanted an area that was cool, plus safe and family-friendly: Eagle Rock fit the bill.
Name: Nicole, Sean and Warren Bednarz, Betty the dog Location: Oak Forest — Houston, Texas Size: 1,600 square feet Years lived in: Owned 1 year When the Bednarz family relocated from Austin to Houston so that Nicole and Sean could open a brewery, they were looking for a good bargain that didn’t need major work — a tall order in a new city.
Hardwood floors are so easy to keep clean. That is, as long as your floors never come into contact with paw prints, soccer cleats, tracked-in mud, spills, or humans in general. If your hardwoods do come in contact with, you know, life, our friends at Bona® have made a gentle but powerful deep cleaner that’s designed for quick year-round cleaning whenever you can find a minute in between dog walks, picking cereal up off the floor, and/or just living your real life.
Sectionals are the MVPs of the furniture game: They’re a lazy lounge area or a stylish party spot depending on what you need at that minute. But because of their versatility and the sheer number of sizes and configurations available, finding the right one can be overwhelming. Three easy questions will help you narrow down the choices. Use painter’s tape on your floor to create an outline of the sectional you’re considering and play with table/ottoman arrangements around that.
Sectionals are the MVPs of the furniture game: They’re a lazy lounge area or a stylish party spot depending on what you need at that minute. But because of their versatility and the sheer number of sizes and configurations available, finding the right one can be overwhelming. Three easy questions will help you narrow down the choices. Use painter’s tape on your floor to create an outline of the sectional you’re considering and play with table/ottoman arrangements around that.
What’s the worst part about being a dog owner? Only every single minute you’re not with them. It’s a bummer that there are times in the day when you want cuddles and can’t have them, but it downright sucks when you just want to know everything’s OK and can’t get that. Well newsflash: It’s 2017 and there’s smart tech for your pet’s health and safety. (As for cuddles…not quite yet.
True style is all about personalization, and personalization is all about details. It’s like how that perfect little piece from Etsy turns a space into your space. And when it comes to the bathroom, what’s on the shelf is just as customizable as the room itself. Function of Beauty makes bespoke shampoos and conditioners that are as much “you” as your favorite piece of decor.
While we’ve gotten to know Joanna Gaines and her style over the past few years from HGTV’s Fixer Upper, she’s been at it since 2003 when she and her husband Chip opened their Magnolia Market boutique in Waco, TX. A few years later and two hours up I-35, Loloi Rugs opened in Dallas with the humble vision of designing the world’s most original rugs.
Prize: A $2,000 Blu Dot Gift Certificate From: Blu Dot Value: $2,000 Modern design is so sexy with its clean lines and economy of materials. But when things get too clean or too economic, it can get a little stuffy. Sure, we want a sofa to make a strong statement, but we also want it to invite us to plop down and get comfy. Blu Dot gets it, as seen in their cool modern furniture with a playful wink.
Whether you’re working with a huge living room or the nook of a studio, choosing the right way to situate your rug and your furniture can be tricky: too close and everything looks cramped; too spread out and the whole rhythm of the room is off. There are several strategies you can use to create a happy relationship between rug and sofa. Find the one that makes the most sense for your space and collection for a comfortable rug-to-sofa ratio.
House hunting is a universally stressful, often emotional time. Even when it all works out in the end there’s going to be some drama along the way. We want to know what your house hunting drama was. What’s your story about finding and buying your own home? What challenges came up for you in your search? We’re looking specifically for homeowners who worked with an accredited Realtor and who found that it was helpful in navigating the often-tricky house hunt!
Whether you’re working with a huge living room or the nook of a studio, choosing the right way to situate your rug and your furniture can be tricky: too close and everything looks cramped; too spread out and the whole rhythm of the room is off. There are several strategies you can use to create a happy relationship between rug and sofa. Find the one that makes the most sense for your space and collection for a comfortable rug-to-sofa ratio.
Prize: One CrossWave All-In-One Multi-Surface Cleaner From: Bissell Value: $249.99 Maybe 2016 turned out to be a messy year. But hey, there’s a brand new one right around the corner! Bissell is helping to kick it off with a clean start by giving two readers a CrossWave All-In-One Multi-Surface Cleaner. It’s basically a combined vacuum and mop that lets you deep clean all your floors (and rugs) in one quick swoosh.
Everyone wants to throw the hottest holiday party — just not literally. But between the oven crammed with deliciousness, the party guests filling your living room, and the heat cranked up against the snow outside, things can get toasty this time of year. Never fear: Whether you’re serving a feast for 12 or ringing in the New Year with 30 of your nearest and dearest, we’ve got one simple trick for keeping your house the perfect temp.
If you live in a small space, don’t want to deal with a big tree, or just want something really spectacular this season, this deconstructed wall tree is for you. To make it, all you need are LED fairy lights, a few ornaments, evergreen garlands, and Command™ Decorating and Light Clips. Let’s forget the Fraser fir and get creative this Christmas!
You’ve sent out the Facebook invitation. You’ve come up with a theme. Now you have to actually host the holiday party. Eek! Hold on, though. You can boil any party down to three manageable ingredients. Broken down like this, good party architecture is nowhere near as overwhelming as when taken as a whole. Just scale each component according to the size, length, and vibe you’re going for. To illustrate our premise, we created an elegant, modern holiday in black-and-white.
If you’re anything like us, this is the time of year when your inner crafter comes out of hibernation. Without fail, every surface is suddenly covered in stickers, grosgrain ribbon, baker’s twine and 12 different varieties of pretty paper. This year, we finally figured out a way to sort through the random supplies, decorate an out-of-the-way corner, and elevate our gift-wrap game in one go.
Name: Joe Location: Santa Monica, California Size: 1,200 square feet Years lived in: 4 years Joe Rothstein, a speech pathologist, decided he was ready to become a homeowner in 2010. He wanted to live in a neighborhood of Los Angeles County that was close to his clients — and, oh yeah, close to the beach. He found a 1,200–square foot home in Santa Monica that didn’t feel right at first, but would go on to become the home that, with a little help, he’d put up a fight for.