The 10 Best Background Movies to Have On While Entertaining at Home
Whether being projected onto a big wall during a cocktail party, or played quietly in the living room during game night, a background movie can act as a conversation starter, art, music, and entertainment all in one. Plus it’s easy to pop a disc in the DVD player or call up a title from Netflix. The only hard part, of course, is finding just the right background film.
Jun 7, 2019
99 Different Ways You Can Be a Better Neighbor
There's more than one way to create a home that feels comfortable and content—and a lot of it happens outside your own four walls.
May 28, 2019
A Guide to Taking Pictures Without Breaking the Law
If you’ve ever been asked by mall security to put your point-and-shoot camera away, you’ve probably questioned what US law governs photographers and taking pictures. The truth is, there is no single rule to live by as a photographer at any level. Whether you’re a family-historian amateur or a journalistic pro, the question of when you can and cannot take pics is a slippery slope.
May 7, 2019
Art on Theme: 9 Books of Ready-to-Frame Posters
When is a book not a book? When it’s actually a tiny little bound packet of posters. Since we’re all about pieces that pull double-duty, I thought I’d share a few ready-to-frame poster books: titles you can grab at the bookstore to keep on the coffee table, and then tear pages from as needed to fill up the walls. I was recently gifted the book Swissted, a collection of vintage rock posters re-designed by digital artist Mike Joyce.
May 4, 2019
6 Smart Ways to Save on Your Budget Honeymoon
After you factor in the printed invitations, the plated meals and the pretty peonies you just have to have, your wedding budget is likely getting higher and higher than you’d ever imagined. And you’re supposed to plan a 10-day European vacation with the leftover budget? (Again, what leftover budget?) The answer to your troubles doesn’t have to be “skip the honeymoon,” you just have to be a little creative with your post-wedding travel plans.
May 4, 2019
Need-to-Know Tips on the Proper Care and Storage of Your Sweaters
We’re coming up on sweater weather, y’all. While you’re slowly changing out your closet – pulling those cool-weather clothes out of under-bed storage and trying to sartorially navigate between the seasons – you might find your closet getting a bit tighter with all your bulky knits. The solution? Slim down your sweater collection to your most favorite and best-built pieces, then take really good care of them.
May 4, 2019
5 Objects You Can Repurpose to Organize Your Closet Beautifully
Think you need an expensive bespoke solution to organize your closet? Think again. These five household objects can pull double-duty and wrangle tough-to-store jewelry and purses (at least while you save up for that Kardashian-style closet of your dreams). When stashed vertically in a magazine rack (or four), clutches and wallets take up virtually zero space. Plus, like the spines of magazines, you can still see and grab every single one.
May 4, 2019
Fancy Bath Lighting: Inspiration and Tips for Hanging a Chandelier Over the Bathtub
There’s something really decadent about a pretty chandelier in a small powder room. It makes the bathroom look less like a bathroom, somehow, and a little more like a place where you’d want to spend a bunch of time reading and drinking and soaking away the day. Your tub might just become your favorite place in the house.
May 4, 2019
One Expert Says This is the Best Day to Start a New Habit (Hint: It’s Not Monday!)
It’s true that old habits die hard, but it seems like it’s equally impossible to start a new one. No matter the goal–if you’re trying on a consistent gym regimen, or just wanting to make the bed everyday–there is one small tip that might help you get on track. Can you guess which day of the week sets you up for success in kicking off a new good habit?
May 4, 2019
3 Ways to Get a Good Night’s Sleep (That You Haven’t Tried Yet)
You know all the conventional advice: Keep a dark room and lay off the snooze button. But for the stubborn sleepers–the ones who would sooner give up an arm than their snooze button–here are three hacks for getting a good night’s sleep that you might not have heard yet. Real talk: Your smartphone is ruining your sleep. Besides the fact that the last thing you see before bed is a bright lit screen, I have to imagine it’s also bad for your snooze habits.
May 4, 2019
10 Clever Hidden Storage Solutions You’ll Wish You Had at Home
Run–don’t walk–to your nearest contractor, cabinet maker or handy family member and ask–nay, beg–to have one of these seriously smart solutions built into the storage around your home.
May 4, 2019
Clever Laundry Tricks You Should Learn Now (Before You Need Them!)
Preparation is the key to success. The next time your favorite sweater shrinks or you smear sauce on your sleeve at dinner, instead of furiously Googling for a solution, you’ll remain cool, calm and collected because you committed these five in-a-pinch laundry hacks to memory. No garment steamer? No problem. If your clothes are just a bit more wrinkled than you’d like them to be, don’t break out the iron, just use your dryer (if you’re lucky enough to have one at home).
May 4, 2019
15 Secret Shortcuts of People With Amazing Memory
Your brain is a pretty powerful thing, and yet, you can’t seem to remember where you left your keys last night. There’s a lot to be said for having a routine and keeping things in the same place every time (can you say “landing strip”?). But sometimes, you just need a good, solid memory trick.
May 4, 2019
The Best Board Games You’ve Probably Never Played Before
Have you heard of Eurogames before? It’s a subgenre of board games classified by two major features: their attention to design and theme, and focus on serious strategy. Competetive folks, take note: Put away the Scrabble set and try on one of these board games for size. Besides the great artwork and complex mechanics, another defining feature of Eurogames is that nobody is ever knocked out of the game (looking at you, Monopoly).
May 4, 2019
16 Impossibly Adorable Children Dressed Better than the Adults at Weddings
I sense that I’m in the minority here, but I’m quite fond of seeing children at weddings. The smaller the better. Because even if they cry during the ceremony or interrupt the first dance, you at least get some really adorable pictures of tiny children in formal wear. So… even? If you’re planning a wedding, you can use these pictures as inspiration for flower girl and ring bearer outfits.
May 3, 2019
17 Amazing Mid-Century Modern Wedding Details
If you’ve dipped a toe into wedding planning, you know that the wedding industry likes to talk about deciding on a “theme” for your big day. But before you start having flashbacks to your Under-the-Sea high school prom, you should know that wedding themes are a bit more sophisticated. It’s about leaning on a few details from a style or era that can set the tone for the entire bash.
May 3, 2019
In the Zone: Try These 5 Tiny Cleaning & Organizing Tasks to Instantly Lift Your Mood
Here’s a dirty little secret of the most chill people you know: They get overwhelmed and frazzled, just like you, but the difference is that they’ve cultivated a personal set of tricks that help them cool down when things get tough.
May 3, 2019
Is Climbing the Stairs Every Day Actually a Good Workout?
The mind is a powerful thing. Instead of agonizing and cursing your way up the 64 dreadful, tiring stairs to your walk-up apartment, you jovially tell yourself that you’re getting a great workout. That you’re in way better shape because you climb these flights to get back home every night. It makes the trek up and down each day–actually, a few times a day–way more bearable. But is it true? Trying to convert steps climbed to miles walked or run is an inexact science.
May 3, 2019
How These 10 Beautiful Weddings Came in Under $10,000
Planning a wedding can bring about conflicting emotions. On the one hand, your romantic side finds warmth in the idea of being surrounded by the people you love, on a truly beautiful day that appeals to all your stylistic sensibilities. But your practical side remains firmly rooted in the grit, reminding you that it’s just one night of your life and not worth taking out a loan the size of a luxury vehicle. But you can have both. And these ten couples will prove it to you.
May 3, 2019
9 Wedding Favors Your Guests Will Actually Want to Grab
Let’s pour one out right now for all the personalized matchbooks and mesh-wrapped Jordan almonds of the world. They get left behind on wedding reception tables and probably tossed in the trash at the end of the night. Not what you had in mind for your gift to your guests, huh? Here are nine better ideas for wedding favors that your guests will love to take with them. The most important thing when choosing wedding favors is this: Know your guests!
May 3, 2019
The Anatomy of a Perfect Wedding Welcome Bag
At face value, a wedding is about a couple who’ve decided to spend their lives together. But anyone who’s on the other side of wedding planning will tell you that a wedding is actually all about your guests. It’s about creating a special day to share your love with the friends and family you care about the most. Or a whole weekend, if you have a destination wedding or most of your guest list coming in from out of town.
May 3, 2019
The Lazy Girl’s “Clueless” Closet: Keep An Outfit Album on Your Phone
If you were born between, say, 1975 and 1990, there’s no doubt that (a) you think “Clueless” is a classic and (b) you’ve definitely dreamed about Cher Horowitz’s super high-tech (for the nineties, at least) digital closet. Being able to browse your outfit options with a quick finger-swipe is as close as it gets to heaven for some of us, and you can actually get pretty damn close to Cher’s “Clueless” closet right now with just your smartphone.
May 3, 2019
The Ultimate Guide to Moving in Together & Combining Stuff with Your Significant Other
Moving in together is a huge step in your relationship. You’ll soon learn how to share a home together, but also how to kindly and confidently share your true feelings, like when your sweet and lovely partner asks what you really think about that old, worn-out chair of theirs.
May 3, 2019
How Gallery Walls are Like Cats (And Why Your Home Probably Needs One)
There's no such thing as an awkward space in the post-gallery wall world, because you can arrange a collage of frames to skillfully attack the proportions of any sized wall.
May 3, 2019
The Eclectic Art in this Toronto Home Deserves Another Look (And It Might Teach You a Lesson About Your Home)
One of the compromises Justin, a multi-disciplinary artist, had to make when he moved in with Meg was this: she can color-code the books on the bookshelves, but he gets to choose all the artwork. It worked out well, because judging by their house tour interview, they both love the place they call home in Toronto. The art steals the show, though. And I think it deserves another look (or a first look, if you missed their tour).
May 3, 2019
15 Relaxed Restaurant Weddings That Will Make You Want to Have One (Plus Some Great Advice for When You Do)
I don’t think you choose to have a restaurant wedding as much as a restaurant wedding chooses you. You have to be a laid-back couple who are after a relaxed affair. The type of wedding planners where “great food” is the most important item on the list of what you want for your big day, and second is “not really having to decorate.” If that sounds like you, there are some big pros to hosting your wedding reception at one of your city’s finest eateries.
May 3, 2019
Three Trendy Alternative Bridal Looks (And How to Pull Them Off)
It seemed like only recently, the limited options in the wedding dress world were all fitted, strapless balls of white chiffon. Thankfully, designers have caught up to what real brides want: Dresses that look and feel more like the things they wear every day. (Your favorite stores might even have started bridal collections.) These three different bridal trends are rooted in reality. And as for how to pull them off, here’s the secret: There is no secret.
May 3, 2019
Zero Cost Ways to Make Your Open Kitchen Shelves Look Better
Open kitchen shelving is a charming little minx. She’ll talk you into bringing her home, swaying you with the promise of beautiful displays of glassware and ceramics. “It’s bohemian and cool,” she’ll say. But after too long, she gets comfortable and starts to look, well, messy. The secret to keeping the spark alive in your open-shelf romance? Working hard every day to make sure that your shelves and the things on them are well-styled.
May 3, 2019
Second Lives: Clever Reinventions of Things that Were Destined to Be Reincarnated
I’ve got to tell you: if you didn’t believe in reincarnation before, you will now. These five projects are so brilliant, it will leave you wondering if those things weren’t destined for their new use all along. It’s one thing to recycle, it’s quite another to reinvent. Peeking through Tom & Allison’s Amazing DIY House of Reclaimed & Unusual Objects is like an I-Spy game of recycling brilliance.
May 3, 2019
The Best Things to Buy at IKEA for your DIY Wedding
There’s no match for the ingenuity of a creative bride with a tiny budget. That’s when you get brilliant solutions, like the ten included in this post that use common IKEA marketplace finds to create beautiful DIY wedding details. These tiny plastic frames are a bargain and can be used all over the wedding to share messages (like in the shot at top from IKEA via My Little Secrets, or above without a paper insert in a wedding from Ruffled) or, you know, photos.
May 3, 2019
10 Sweet & Simple Courthouse Weddings (That Still Have Tons of Style)
If the stress of wedding planning is enough to make your head explode, you and your beloved might just be the ideal candidates for a short, sweet and itty-bitty city hall wedding. There’s a long list of “pros”: Courthouse weddings are affordable, they come together quickly, and they can still be just as drop dead gorgeous as the bigger bashes. They’re more personal, too.
May 3, 2019
The Bedtime Rules & Rituals that Happy Couples Swear By
The bedroom is a sacred space for a relationship, but it’s about more than just a good mattress, tranquil wall color and comfortable sheets. You need also to keep consistent bedtime habits with your partner–the kind that almost dare you not to go to bed in total bliss. Here are four bedtime rules & rituals that happy couples swear by: Going to bed together is a sacred time, and a great opportunity for couples to connect and download their days.
May 3, 2019
Insanely Cool, Laid-Back Wedding Ideas You Should Steal for Your Next Party
When some bride out there in the wedding world puts together a small army of crazy talented vendors to create a picnic wedding or a BBQ wedding, there are bound to be some stellar ideas that come out of it. And you can absolutely steal–er, borrow–some of those ideas to really impress at your next get-together. Above from photographer Michaela Rae: What’s cooler than a cooler for serving drinks? A DIY beer bar made from wood and painted cinderblocks.
May 3, 2019
7 Other Places to Use Cafe Curtains (Besides the Kitchen)
If you ask me, the café of the home shouldn’t have the monopoly on cafe curtains. Those short-tier curtains that cover the bottom half of windows are perfect for more than just the kitchen. Cafe curtains perfectly balance privacy and luminosity, letting plenty of light in while keeping inquisitive eyes out. And the best part? You can get them up quickly (without holes in the walls) with nothing more than a tension rod, curtain clips and a light piece of fabric.
May 3, 2019
5 Creative Art-Hanging Ideas from an Artist’s Converted Loft
Even though “having too much art” is so not a problem, it can definitely feel like one sometimes. So what’s a savvy apartment dweller to do when they’ve run out of wall space for their private collection? The home of one New Orleans-based artist might offer some ideas.
May 3, 2019
7 Different Ways to Design a Simple Garden Walkway
You can give your yard a little love with a simple DIY garden path.
May 3, 2019
10 Fun & Carefree Weddings You Wish You’d Been Invited To
Let’s face it–some weddings can be, well, boring (especially if you’re not the dancing type). You’re probably happy to be there, just to support the couple as they commit their lives to each other forever. But sometime between the rubbery chicken dinner and the encore performance of the Cha Cha Slide, you’re bound to be sitting there thinking to yourself, “This wedding would be so much better if there was a bounce house.” And you know what?
May 3, 2019
Ashley & Ca’Ron’s Simple and Sweet Elopement
Bride & Groom: Ashley & Ca’Ron Wedding Date: June 12, 2014 Venue: Maison La Vigne Bed & Breakfast in Hapeville, Georgia Number of guests: 6 “Don’t be afraid to go small.” That’s bride Ashley’s best piece of advice for future couples looking to tie the knot with a sweet and simple ceremony.
May 3, 2019
5 Fresh Ways to Shake Up the Look of a Bathtub/Shower Combo
Ah, the tubber combo. It’s ubiquitous in bathrooms all over the world. And because it’s so common, it can very easily fall into the boring side of washroom architecture. If you have one and you hate it, you don’t have to demo the whole thing and start anew. You can just make some smart, sleek modifications and enjoy a fresh-feeling, semi-renovated spa-like space.
May 3, 2019
Insanely Creative Things People Have Made from IKEA Bed Slats
What can you make from IKEA’s most utilitarian offering, you ask? Well what can’t you make? The SULTAN LADE bed slats are a $10 take home add-on that make IKEA’s platform beds feasible without a boxspring, but they’re also simply just a bunch of raw pieces of lumber stapled together to a polyester cord.
May 3, 2019
The Laissez-Faire Way to Work a Gallery Wall: Layer Your Artwork, Literally
You see it more often with artwork that’s leaning – either on the floor or on a picture ledge. But this post serves as permission to get a little crazy with the frames you hang on the wall, too. Let your artwork overlap to create a dense, rich and laid-back gallery wall.
May 3, 2019
10 Seemingly Unimportant Things You Really Ought to Take Pictures Of, Every Time
When photos happened on film, you had to be very deliberate about when and where you snapped pictures. But now with a camera app at your fingertips, you’re able to digitally fill entire photo albums with some really boring things. And you should, actually. We’ve put together a list of everyday things you should be documenting with photographs in order to stay organized and sane, and to maintain a perfect record of parking spots and great haircuts alike.
May 3, 2019
15 Smart Bedroom Styling Tips I’ve Learned From House Tours
Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. In this case, you’re turning to our smart and stylish house tour homes for guidance on how to style a chic and serene bedroom. Take these tips home to create a space you’re proud to show off (and if you want to tell your friends where you got the idea, that’s fine too). Above: A great way to style a bed in front of a window is to create a visual arc from the floor all the way up to the end of the curtain rod.
May 3, 2019
Spend a Little to Make More: Inexpensive Curb Appeal Upgrades That Will Improve Your Home’s Value
Planning on selling soon? I’m sure you know that kitchens and bathrooms are a great target for your makeover dollars, but they also are the most expensive places to renovate. If you have just a little cash but want to make a major impact, step outside and check out the view from the curb. A fresh coat of paint will go a long way. If you want your property to pop out on the block, go for a bright, eye-catching color that’s a little out of the norm.
May 3, 2019
5 Bad Bed Habits Keeping You From A Happier, Healthier Life
If you think getting eight hours is going to solve all your sleep problems, I have some bad news for you. Getting enough sleep is one half of the battle. The other half is getting good sleep. It’s time to refresh your bedtime and wake-up routine and banish these bad bed habits for good. I’ve had tremendous success controlling my sleep with this tidbit: A person’s sleep cycle is, on average, 90 minutes.
May 3, 2019
The Property Brothers’ Real Estate Secrets (and the Strangest Thing You’ll Find in Their Toolbelts)
Twin brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott—also known as HGTV’s Property Brothers to anyone with a cable subscription—make a great team. As a realtor and a licensed contractor, respectively, they’ve been buying and flipping houses on and off camera for more than a decade. But their latest project, “Brother vs.
May 3, 2019
(A)social Media: Avoid These 5 Modern Friendship Pitfalls
It’s never been easier to connect with people than it is right now. Social networks reach across the globe in seconds, and there’s a video phone in every person’s pocket, as if we’re all living in an episode of Star Trek. But for all the things that modern technology has done to make it easier to make and stay friends, there are just as many pitfalls to friendship in the digital era. How many friends do you have? A few hundred? A few thousand?
May 3, 2019
Birthday Gifts You Can Give to Absolutely Anyone on Your List
Nobody wants to show up empty handed when they’re invited to celebrate a birthday, but if you don’t know the person all too well, buying a gift can be sort of a minefield. What not to give: Tired gifts like decorative soap, picture frames or candles. Instead, put one of these five presents on your list. Each one is common enough to be a crowd-pleaser, but can be easily dressed up with a pretty or personal touch.
May 3, 2019