Walls & Floors Decorating

You have a new tile floor, and it’s gleaming and gorgeous. Or maybe you have a 70-year-old checkerboard floor that could use some TLC. Either way, this list of tips can help you maintain your floor for years to come.  This may be common sense, but dirt can easily scratch tile surfaces so it’s important to keep your floor clean by regularly sweeping or vacuuming it. A little preventative manintenance goes a long way. Mop once a week.

You can render room features invisible or make them stand out with strategic painting choices. These projects — in varying degrees — all match either architectural features or decor to the wall color around them. Ask yourself as you look at them: what does your eye float across, and where does it stop and linger? TOP ROW: 1. Painting trim and other architectural details is a classic way to unify a room, and makes it less jarring to walk into.

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.

It’s a wall painting trend that comes and goes: The half-painted wall. (Or, like the famous “Is the glass half full or half empty?” question, you could also consider these half unpainted walls). Whichever way you look at it, only painting half of a wall isn’t putting in half the design effort; it’s creating bold style with well-placed color. These rooms showcase just how beautiful and sophisticated this painting idea can be.

The bathroom I share with my husband smells constantly like old urine. He says that it’s because he’s tall, and his pee therefore hits the water in the bowl with enough velocity that some must splash out and escape his notice (especially during middle-of-the-night bathroom trips). Have other people encountered and solved this problem? It is driving me crazy.

Nothing is a bigger style bummer than dingy wall-to-wall carpeting. Don’t get me wrong—I love that cushy, soft feeling underfoot as much as the next girl. But when carpeting starts to look worse for wear, it becomes a bit of a design dilemma, especially if you’re in a rental and can’t just rip it up. First things first, spring for a professional carpet cleaning or ask your landlord for one.

You’ve seen them, I know you have. The sad, mirrored walls, or maybe sliding closet doors, the ones that were intended to be signs of disco-era extravagance but that can now read a a little sad and tawdry. They’re all over a certain kind of ’70s and ’80s condo. I always thought that mirrored walls were just plain bad. I thought that until I started doing research for this post, and discovered that actually, mirrored walls can look very nice.

Caution: These stylish spaces may send you running for the nearest paint store.

Happy New Year! During the month of January, one assignment at a time, you are going to get your home in great shape. The effort put in over the next few weeks will pay you back with interest over the course of the year ahead. Each assignment you complete will absolutely add to the momentum of positive change that lasts long after the Cure wraps up. Now, you got that little pep talk because it’s the first weekend of the Cure, time to hit the gas and speed forward.

Gallery walls fill a void in our heart we didn’t know we had: the need to show off all of our artwork, all of the time. But after a decade exploding with galleries, it’s time for something a little more streamlined. Enter the gallery grid, where themed artwork is hung in a grid—think of it as a gallery wall, sans clutter. The result adds a pleasing sense of order to your living spaces.

As small space living gets more and more popular, the tiny houses and micro homes have become sleeker, smarter and well, taller. This skinny micro home was designed by Dutch firm Ana Rocha Architecture and was given the extra appropriate name, The Slim Fit. It looks sort of like a sexy Lincoln Log and offers 538 square feet of living space, spread out across three floors. The exterior is covered Ayous hardwood, which was laid out vertically emphasizing the length of the building.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a story with a simple yet shocking premise: “To make their home interiors look better on Instagram and amass more followers, millennials and social-media mavens are painting their walls white.” What do you think of that? What do we think of that?

White walls seem to be a designer secret weapon: they open up rooms of all sizes (make small rooms seem larger, large rooms appear…even airier) and look incredibly crisp and cool; plus, it’s easy to match your room’s decor to the snowy hue (because, well, white goes with everything). You know what other color is just as easy to work with (even if you might not think so at first glance)? Hint: It’s the complete opposite of white.

Color lovers who area also renters (and can’t paint your walls), rejoice! You CAN have a colorful home even if wall paint is against the rules. Interior designer Rachelle Padgett didn’t let the no-wall-color constraints of her small rental apartment get her down. Instead, she got creative. And the tricks she used to add more hues to her home could easily be translated to any home.

Boldly patterned tile is starting to pop up in all sorts of unexpected places - including outdoors.

White is arguably the most versatile of paint colors, especially when it comes to that which surrounds us—walls. Would you agree? Although I love a pop of bold color (or a dramatic dark, or a well-considered neutral…), even I have to agree that white can be seen as one-size-fits-all, serving as a backdrop for spaces overflowing with interest and personality. It seems that no matter the style, from classic and cozy to clean and contemporary, white just works.

Sometime a few decades back, it seems that designers cottoned onto the fact that mirrors are (er, make that can be) fantastic for interiors. They reflect light, thus making a space look brighter and larger. There’s also a certain shiny-glam factor to them, owing to the fact that traditionally, glass is an expensive finish to splash about. That all being said, there can definitely be too much of a good thing, especially when mirrors are concerned.

Growing up, the walls of my parents’ living room den were narrow, dark wood panels. No matter the time of day, the place felt like a cave. But though I finally persuaded them to paint them to match the rest of the house a few years ago (and it really did brighten the place up), after seeing these stylish spaces, I’m starting to rethink the wood paneling look. It’s definitely distinctive. It adds texture to a space and it certainly ups the warmth factor.

Though it may not be your dream material, black and white tiles can be a very affordable choice when you need new flooring in your kitchen. Need proof? These eight rooms look fantastic with black and white floors. From simple spaces to bold, accessorized rooms, let these kitchens and their checkered floors inspire your own home. As you look through these examples, pay attention to the tile size and layout orientation; you’ll see a surprising variety of looks in these rooms.

A blank wall can be an inspiring canvas waiting to painted with your style—or it can be a stop-you-in-your-tracks source of indecision. Let’s push past the wondering and see how various ideas work. Inside this post: the same empty wall filled with a variety of design elements, from paint to pattern to art and more. See how different decor choices affect the look and feel of a room.

There’s no denying that exposed brick walls always command attention. But what if you want to further enhance your beautiful brick? We’ve got wall decor ideas to help your enviable architectural detail command even more attention. Adding a subtle wash of white paint to a brick wall’s surface makes for a complex texture. The beautiful wall above seen in Rachel & Adam’s Cozy, Classic Clinton Hill Brownstone.

Michael Reeves via Dering Hall We all know that mirrors are fantastic for making a space appear larger than it is. It goes like this: available light + reflective surface(s) = much more light = greater sense of space. The problem is that a mirrored wall can sometimes feel vaguely commercial, or even cliche, if the application is off. Here are seven mirrored walls that are anything but, and that pack a big (spatial) punch as well. The lead image is of a Michael Reeves-designed home in London.

We’ve always said that art is one of the most important elements in a room, one of the things that helps it feel complete. But this, like a lot of other decorating mantras, is more of a suggestion than a commandment, and as with a lot of other rules there are plenty of exceptions. Case in point: these eight rooms with no art (or very minimal art) and almost completely bare walls. Instead of seeming boring or incomplete these rooms read as balanced and delightfully minimal.

Living in a home with beige walls that have to stay beige, for whatever reason? Beige walls do not have to mean boring. In fact, beige can look downright delightful when complemented by the right furnishings. If you’re struggling with a beige wall you don’t love, here are some decor ideas you can try to help make your space go from beige to bold. But before you start: know your beige. Really study your beige in many lights to determine what its undertone is.

My friend’s newly purchased apartment includes a short interior staircase and I suggested she paint the stair rails the same color as the (blue) wall behind them. Will she do it? She’s thinking about it. There are many good reasons to try this painting technique; here are seven along with pictures to illustrate the strategy. 1.

Here’s a fun way to get a little zip in your life — why not paint stripes in your home office? Architecturally, this was once a big closet. And though there’s a skylight above, the room has no window on the world to speak of, so this is a perfect opportunity for some uplift in the decorating department. By adding stripes here, we’re making this space special in a private way, like opening a small jewel box.