Decorating

Every home is a work in progress — maybe you think you’re done decorating and then you see something really great that you just can’t pass up, or you’re really happy with your look for a long time until you suddenly decide it’s time to change everything up. Or maybe your style is something that slowly evolves over the years, as your taste and your particular needs change.

Here’s a story that might make you more than a little jealous: Alain Meyer, who works at an advertising agency in Paris, was bored one day at work. He heard some of his co-workers talking about studio apartments, and decided to do a little hunting online. He happened to find one that he really liked — a trim 30 square meters (323 square feet), in the sixth arrondisement, where he grew up. So he bought it. Just like that.

Amazon is looking to make ordering a little more magical. The online retail giant just announced the Dash Wand, a gadget that combines scanner functionality with their Alexa voice assistant to create a truly useful—and practically magical—experience. When Amazon first released Dash buttons—those single product, one touch reordering modules—they drew a ton of mixed reviews.

You're going to love the rattan sofa we found.

Good news for vintage and farmhouse lovers everywhere!

Bring on the small, yet powerful, toilets that allow you to save space and still sit down in style. Oh, and yes, you will also save lots of water as well! When I started doing this list nearly ten years ago, this was a novel category. It is no longer. Our reader favorites continue to be these brands: Toto, Duravit and Kohler, and while there’s still debate about the higher prices for these toilets and problems with “streaking” they seem to be generally winning people over.

Make the most of each and every inch with these savvy ideas.

What was once the look of college crash pads is basically now high design. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.

This spring, we brought back our Small/Cool contest for the first time since 2016. Now we have one more update, and it's a big one...

One of the trickiest things about decorating a new space is picking out colors. So I’ve selected ten rooms that get color right, in hopes that one of them will catch your eye. Get ready for some serious inspiration. Above: the soft blues and greys of this space, from Woman Magazine, get just the right dose of warmth from a Beni Ourain rug and a pair of wooden side tables. This joyful combination of colors reads as less than riotous because it’s set against a white background.

Does your home feature a long, narrow living room, kitchen, hallway, bedroom or some other space? There are some decorating tricks and tips that can really help balance out a long and narrow space and make your room feel more visually balanced (and more comfortable to be in). Try one or more of these tips today. It’s not that you always have to match the shape or style of room you have when you’re looking for furniture.

A few weeks ago we asked where your small appliances live — the counter or the cabinet. One of those small appliances is the microwave, which many think can only live on a counter, but that’s not the case. The microwave has plenty of placement options.Here are a few we found, with visual examples. Are there any placements we forgot?

Sometimes the simplest pieces of furniture are what you need the most.

It's the perfect tool for small spaces!

We fill our rooms with furniture, throw pillows, blankets, books, art, light fixtures, hardware, and miscellaneous decorative objects. That’s a whole lot of look, but the perfect rug can bring it all together… TOP ROW: Natalie and Kevin’s Perfect Parkdale Perch: This poppy rug manages to unite not just the other bright colors (the pillows, the bottles) but the neutral elements (orange-y wood floors, cream walls, charcoal couch) as well.

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.

From our editors' radars straight to your own home.

Sometimes moving a chair, shifting a sofa, or re-orienting a bed is enough to give your home a whole new lease on life.

Do you have a cramped, small, hard-to-move in bathroom? Do you feel slightly claustrophobic every morning when getting ready for work? If you rent or don’t have the funds for a huge wall-moving renovation that will literally give you more space, try one of these six ideas that could improve the feel, at least. Some changes are big, and some are small, but all will go toward creating a more spacious feeling space — perhaps you’ll find something you can try this weekend?

According to real estate experts.

Ch-ch-changes!

I seriously considered adding a plethora of vintage chairs to my dining table during my last move. However, I found that only having a two-person table didn’t quite have the same effect. If you have a large seating table, adding a hodge-podge of mismatched chairs can have a fun and quirky effect.Chances are, the lone vintage chair at the thrift store is much cheaper than buying a brand new dining chair at a home furnishings store.

Monique & Stu’s Bright Happy Family Home in Melbourne Even if you love your place and your stuff, there are times when your home can feel stagnant. It all too easily becomes a place of routine, or it just feels like there’s something that’s not functioning quite right. If your home needs a burst of energy, here are five easy things that you can do to give it some zest. The Pineapple Housewife’s Happy Home Use scents.

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?

The kitchen is often the hub of a home, but it can also tend to feel like a stark, cold space (tile floors and an abundance of stainless steel appliances will do that). Luckily, there are some design tricks to warm up the room, while still keeping this area devoted to cooking and eating clean and healthy. With a few design details and accents that add personality, you can inject the entire room with warmth.

There are few souls in the world who have wall-to-wall carpet topping their dream decor list. It’s often the stuff of McMansions and is commonly viewed as the epitome of dated decor, but it’s also the reality for countless American homes. And if you’re a renter, there’s not a whole lot you can do to change it. So how to deal?Before we get started, we need to set a few things straight. Not all wall-to-wall carpet is created equal.

Whether you’re into deep, rich wall colors or not, going for a dark color in the bedroom may seem scary — after all, no one wants to feel like they’re sleeping in a cave! But with dark grays, rich browns, tantalizing jewel tones and even a “shocking” cobalt blue, the proof in these stylish bedrooms from our house tours is convincing.

Baking has never been easier.

You might not be able to change a lot of things in your small kitchen, but you can do the next best thing: give the illusion of larger, more open, space. Breathe better, and move about with ease, with these six suggestions: Low Contrast Color: Keep everything in the same color family, with minor variation. Light colors, or all white helps too. In the kitchen above, the cabinets and appliances blend in with the walls, and things feel more spacious than they actually are.

They're the perfect way to spook up your entryway.

Bye bye, bare walls!

It’s no secret that IKEA offers an affordable, off-the-shelf alternative to a custom kitchen. With the flexibility to mix and match finishes and styles, the Swedish store is a go-to source for renovators, but it’s also ubiquitous. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to personalize an IKEA kitchen, and we need look no further than the Apartment Therapy house tour archives for ideas.

It's simply stunning.

Art is, and probably will forever be, an integral part of decorating and making a home. What’s not vital? Making the same art displaying mistakes that many of us have probably made at least once in our home-decorating histories. These are some of the most common art-displaying mistakes that can be avoided. Some people cringe when they see a picture frame crooked. Me?

Hunker down with a beautiful puzzle and to find your new favorite artist. 

After a really hectic week, we always look forward to taking the stress off with a long soak in the tub. Our bathtub is clawfoot and charming, but here’s the challenge. The overflow valve is placed so low that the water starts to drain out before the bathtub is anywhere near full. We scoured the web for solutions to this that we’ll share, as well as our own happy solution. Hint: you can make your tub “deeper” without renovating.

Cats who live in apartments face one very serious threat: boredom. Here are a few ideas for how to make your apartment a veritable kitty playground.

And no, we're not talking about the 57" on center rule either.

Nothing makes or breaks a room quite like lighting. It changes the mood, sets the ambiance, and can help define spaces like living and dining rooms or nooks and kitchens, particularly in open-concept layouts. Plus, why settle for bad lighting when the fun, functional options out there are endless? If you think about it, your bedroom can become a whole different space when you customize it with the perfect reading lamp for staying up to finish that novel.

The eclectic array of home, garden and everything-in-between finds you’re bound to score at these flea markets will leave you as high as their elevations. Where: Chandler, Arizona When to visit: Monthly; next up is July 14-17, 10 am to 5 pm Why it’s worth the stop: The whole town of Chandler is buzzing about the city’s newest flea market show.

Curtains have never looked so chic.

According to Rebecca Atwood, who has a new collection with Pottery Barn!

We’re all winners. Congratulations to all the winners! We’d like to thank everyone who entered for sharing their homes with all of us and proving that SMALL is COOL. Thanks as well to our four fabulous judges, Kara, Michael, Jamie and Brad for choosing these winners.* And a big thank you to DWR for sponsoring the whole shebang.1st PlaceQuotes from the Judges on London Urchin’s entry:Kara:“I love this apartment because of its simple elegance.

Part bargain seeking and part treasure hunting, shopping at your local thrift store is a great way to save money and find unique items that are otherwise unavailable in the current retail market. I’ve rounded up some tips for navigating the realm of thrifting and please leave your favorite tips in the comments!

When I started reading Apartment Therapy years ago, the hook for me was the house tours. Seeing “real” spaces that felt creative, personal, and above all, attainable taught me that a beautiful home means much more than high-end furniture. As a way of revisiting those roots, here are ten house tours from the AT vaults. 2005, coming right up!

One of our favorite ways to add a little excitement to an interior is by mixing old and new pieces. Nowhere is this more true than in the dining room, where an old-fashioned table and modern chairs make an especially attractive pair. Here are eight of our favorite examples. Above: An antique table and modern shell chairs mix in the dining room of a Madrid home spotted on Planete Deco.

Get your money's worth out of your sofa with this designer-approved style.

Certain colors get a bad rap for being blah, harsh, and hard to work with, especially in small interiors where natural light is hard to come by. But I, and a handful of designers polled here, would argue that it’s about the mix, and “ugly” colors too can sing in the right surroundings. So if you’ve written off one or more of the shades that made this list, you might want to reconsider.

While we may love our kitchens 364 days out of the year (and we don’t mean to sound un-thankful), there’s nothing like the biggest feast of 2016 to suddenly make them seem utterly inadequate. There’s not nearly enough counter space, our tiny sinks fit approximately two dishes, and we consider ourselves lucky if our minuscule ovens have enough room to roast a turkey.

You might ooh and aah over Jonah & Jodie’s “Enchanted Cottage” In Laurel Canyon, but then despair at phrases like “custom leathered finish” and “hand-chiseled limestone floors”. While I can’t find you a cheap “poured concrete bathtub that opens out to the koi pond”, there are ways to get the look… Akurum Kitchen Cabinets in Lidi White, IKEA, $28-$391 Stockholm Candelabra, IKEA, $29.

When it comes to setting up a home, we never forget our first spaces. From our first apartments in college, to our first solo space, to our first time moving in with a significant other, we set out excited, inexperienced and ready to take on each empty space and make it our own. Here are a few first homes from our house tours. TOP ROW: 1. Mara Alex’s First Home as a Married Couple: Mara purchased her first house solo, and it became her first home as a newlywed as well. 2.

It might be time for white marble to step down from its throne.

No rental home is perfect. Perhaps your landlord prohibits you from putting holes in the walls or altering the space in any way, so you feel like all your #housegoals are impossible to achieve. At Apartment Therapy, nothing is impossible! We gathered the best posts of 2017 highlighting how simple changes here and there can really make your home shine, and perhaps make you fall in love again.

As Nancy pointed out recently, there are some kitchen design choices that never go out of style — retro SMEG fridges and farmhouse sinks fall firmly in this category. If they’ve been considered stylish and practical for decades, chances are they’ll still be popular a couple decades from now.

Get ready to gawk at these stunning spaces. We love browsing pretty pictures and getting inspired to try something new and these homes do it really, really right. Prepare to mop up your drool while you click through this list of our best eye candy.

Living well in close quarters requires, among other things, efficient furniture placement. These studios, one-bedroom apartments, and one house show how you can make your home’s spatial quirks and shortcomings work in your favor.Studio apartments offer the obvious challenge of making one space function as several. In slightly larger apartments, the living room often works overtime as an office area, dining room, and entryway.

Making a big commitment like colorful walls can be a bit daunting, so spend some time getting cozy with these stunning examples of paint jobs in every color of the rainbow. As you can see, some of these spaces choose to use major color only as an accent; others go whole hog. Many offset their swath of color choice with white trim to really show off the punchy hue while a few brave souls combine their color with…gasp…more color!

Black and white and gold is a striking color combination, and nowhere is that more true than in the bathroom. Gold fixtures in the bathroom is a look we’re seeing more and more of, and paired with a black and white color scheme, they add a pleasing bit of drama to a humble space. Above: A black ceiling, black door, and encaustic tile floor add delicious drama to a bathroom spotted on Desire to Inspire. A black bathroom with white and gold accents from Godrich Interiors.

If you’re looking for an easy and rewarding “in” to buying and selling online, there is no better option than Craigslist. Far easier than eBay, Craigslist offers more regionally relevant listings for the sharp-eyed shopper, and as a student with an uncompromising taste in good (and often expensive) design, Craigslist was one of the few venues available to me for furnishing my apartment.

And it’s making me rethink pink!

Simple silhouettes, minimal hardware, and pared-down color palettes. Let’s face it, most design enthusiasts can spot a modern piece from a mile away. (Psst… we broke down the difference between minimalist, modern, and contemporary, if you’re not up to date!) In 2018, almost every store has a slew of furniture and accessories that are inspired by mid-century modern classics—and for good reason. The style is contemporary, timeless, and looks good in virtually any space.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been skiing, or snowboarding, or so much as stepped foot on a snow-covered mountain range. But I’ve seen “Force Majeure” and have taken a virtual tour of Aerin Lauder’s Aspen home, which basically qualifies me as a pseudo expert on the après-ski aesthetic. To get the look (without actually hitting the slopes), here are some cozy ways to work ski style into your apartment that won’t look totally out of place.

And it's a fall dream!

What you do to your walls can have a HUGE impact on the look, feel and mood of your home. So start with how you’d like the room to feel — what kind of vibe you’d like it to rock — and use this guide to give you ideas for the kind of treatment that would work for your walls. Go for polka dots! Paint the on or use vinyl wall decal stickers to get the look. Go for a medium-hue gray. Amherst Grey by Benjamin Moore really sets just the right tone in the room below.

For me, maybe?

Perhaps you’ve been playing it safe, decor-wise, your whole life, and are ready to do something wild. Or perhaps you have a room that you feel is finished, but you’re still just a little bit bored with it. Either way, here are five different pieces that will take your space to the next level, that will have your friends (and yourself) convinced that you are a person of taste, refinement and aesthetic derring-do.

This is a guaranteed solution for any home — any size!

It’s easy enough to get Art Nouveau and Art Deco confused, probably owing to the fact that they both start with ‘art’. But Art Nouveau and Art Deco are actually two very distinct design movements, with very distinct looks, that appeared around the turn of the 20th century. After perusing this brief disambiguation, you may not be an expert on design history — but you can casually drop these two descriptors into conversations, and your friends are sure to be impressed.

Are you looking for ways to trim a little furniture weight around the house? Get rid of a few pieces that you thought you might need but could totally live without to have more room (and less stuff to haul around next moving day?) Examine the five furniture types we mention in this post to see if you and your home could live without them!

This is the real thing and I love it – an Eames LCW from Herman MillerLately, I’ve been seeing more not-so-bad knock offs of some classic designs.

It’s a common misconception that small spaces can’t handle large furnishings. One large piece can do a lot to make a small room inviting, anchored, and even feel bigger! Take the sofa, for instance. Arranging a small sofa in a tight space with a couple of other chairs can make a space feel over-full, with little spots of furniture all over the place (not to mention all of those legs!).

Does your bathroom have a pedestal sink? I definitely feel your short-on-storage pain. Here’s how to make the most of your small bathroom, with examples from our House Tours: 1. Add furniture. If your bathroom has a layout that allows for a freestanding piece of furniture, count your lucky stars and get to shopping. 2. Utilize the top of your toilet. If your tank has a flat top, use it for some practical and pretty open storage. 3. Any flat surface is fair game.