Home Projects

Brianna printed her custom, watercolor-inspired artwork at Society6 and covered it with three "generous" coats of clear whiteboard paint. After five days of curing, she had her end result—"a giant surface for impromptu brainstorming, writing down weekly and monthly goals, taking notes while pacing on conference calls, or sketching website wireframes."

Rant over.

Sometimes living small means paying up.

Some crafty renovation moves and other tricks that'll make a tiny shower or tub seem double its size.

Here are the moments when these eight designers knew their environments had leveled up.

If you think you have termites, don’t skip straight to burning down your house for the insurance money. Take these steps before resorting to fire.

Not to mention balanced.

It's going, going, but not quite gone.

You don’t need to be a D.I.Y. pro or color expert to know that picking a paint hue is easier said than done. With dozens of brands and ever-so-slightly nuanced shades to choose from, the whole process can be confusing, time-consuming, and headache-inducing. But even if you know all the questions to ask yourself when narrowing down your paint chips, you might forget to factor in the finish. Deciding between matte and gloss may seem like an afterthought, but in reality?

Start with trendy rattan to make these eight DIY creations that will look way-too-perfect in your summertime, beach-inspired decor.

Think your decorating work is done? There’s a spot you may very well be missing—your interior doors.

It is really very simple to hang curtains across a room or a doorway if you have the right ingredients. We do it constantly in order to divide rooms or create soft walls that allow light to pass through, while maintaining privacy.The pic at top is from an apartment we did for HGTV last year. You can see the one room studio is divided by long curtains that came from Anthropology.

This pantry goes from cluttered to clean.

I can attest to the challenge of refinishing a vintage stereo entertainment cabinet. They’re undoubtedly beautiful, but also big, heavy, packed with difficult to disassemble, pre-miniaturization era electronics, and usually require a great deal of stripping and refinishing to bring them back to glory.

Leather furniture can last for decades if properly taken care of. Prolong the life of your piece by using this simple, all-natural leather conditioner. Vinegar Linseed oil Essential oil (optional) Jar with a lid or spray bottle Microfiber cloth Wipe down your furniture to be sure it is dust-free in preparation for the conditioning treatment. 2. Mix 1 part vinegar with 2 parts linseed oil in a jar with a lid. Close the lid and shake vigorously.

We’ve all experienced it at one point: fruit flies, first a few then an infestation surrounding your fruit bowl. They’re pesky little critters, but we’ve found the best way to rid your kitchen of them. Here are our quick instructions for making a fruit fly trap with just a few simple materials. Vinegar, fruit or wine (apple cider vinegar works especially well) Glass or jar Sheet of paper Tape Find a suitable glass or jar.

IKEA says: Whether for a walk-in wardrobe, hallway solution or a business, ELVARLI storage system provides open storage that’s easy to get just right, while looking nice. ELVARLI storage system is the result of some innovative development at IKEA to create flexible, beautiful and lightweight storage. ELVARLI storage system is elegantly designed with attention to small details like seamless joints and invisible fittings.

IKEA’s description: The herringbone pattern has a beautifully pleasing geometry to the eye. In BARKABODA countertop the pattern in dark brown wood adds true elegance to the kitchen. The countertop is made durable with a layer of solid wood that covers a particleboard core. This technique not only gives a genuine expression of solid wood, but is a good environmental choice as it’s resource-efficient.

Years ago when I decided to paint the floors in my small summer house, most people were shocked (including my parents). Bare wood floors were so chic and such a staple of 90’s style, that painting them over and covering them up seemed sacrilegious. I didn’t think so anymore. See how they turned out… The floors were cheap, solid oak floors, in great need of refinishing.

Lemon balm can struggle indoors, but with enough attention it will thrive. Follow these dos and don'ts to start your indoor herb garden.

Kristin’s The Amazing Staircase is not only one of our favourite AT posts of all time, it’s a glowing example of utilizing limited space efficiently. Staircases are often overlooked for their storage space potential, but the interior architecture feature can often be converted by using the space ontop, inside, under or over the stairs themselves.

Grilling is one of the great joys of summer. If you live in an apartment with an especially small outdoor space — or none at all — you may be worried that this particular joy is denied to you, but never fear. Below you will find our absolutely biggest roundup – 17! – of grills big and small, portable and iconic, but ALL charcoal (or wood). Enjoy and tell us your faves. This is our reader favorite.

Bedside storage is a must-have in any bedroom. But what to do when you don’t have the space—or budget—for a brand new nightstand? Fret not friends; we did some digging and it turns out there are several alternatives to traditional bedside tables that still offer more than enough room for all of your nighttime essentials. From compact consoles to small side tables and more, here are six bedside storage solutions that aren’t actually nightstands.

This clever pair shares budget-friendly, out-of-the-box projects that even DIY-newcomers can complete with ease.

In my neighborhood, it’s common for residents to set out piles of unwanted items with friendly “free” signs, meaning that you never know when you’ll head out for a walk or to run an errand and come back with something interesting and useful. After seeing these amazing luggage transformations, I’m majorly hoping that one of my neighbors will toss an unneeded suitcase or two to the curb. Looking to work some DIY magic of your own?

If you’re following along, you may have caught us drooling over Arlyn Hernandez’s makeovers. Arlyn is Emily Henderson’s editorial director and the proud occupant of not one but two beautifully designed rooms in a 100-year-old Los Angeles Mediterranean-style apartment building.

The year was 1995, and there was a ficus tree that lived in the corner of our living room, beside the couch. The tree had a wicker basket over the base with shredded moss covering the soil. The leaves were a deep green, splattered with soft yellow variegation. My mom never watered it, but it never died. I thought, at the ripe age of six, that if I did not touch the tree as my mom demanded, it would grant me a wish. Unfortunately, the ficus was not a magical fairytale tree.

Sometimes you see something you just need in your space, no matter what. You know there will be a downside, but it’s just too perfect. For me, it was the window-style fixed shower panels. I started seeing this look last summer when we were renovating the bizarre and so-ugly bathroom in our Victorian home. Honestly, anything was an upgrade from the teeny, low-ceilinged, stained-beyond-all-hope stall shower that came with the house that I might have just gone with the first shower I saw.

Emily Henderson’s editorial director, Arlyn Hernandez, just revealed her “Bright and Happy” (rental) living room Makeover Takeover over on the site, and it’s packed with design inspiration and great advice for renters and homeowners alike. The living room “before” was so relatable: quality pieces that didn’t fit the new living space.

These Instagram accounts sell vintage or refurbished furniture and many ship to buyers across the United States.

The enclosed porch on Ashley‘s 1905 home did not live up to expectations: a low ceiling and burgundy walls and floors turned the space into a “sad little box,” she says. “It felt disconnected from the rest of the house,” especially after doing extensive renovations. “I know how much some updates would transform this room,” she says. So over the course of six weeks, she transformed this dark and dreary porch into a pastel, botanical laundry room.

The blinds in my room? Sure, I hung them. The shelves in the kitchen? Of course I put those up. The gallery wall in the hallway? Yes, that was definitely my doing.(Lies!)My dad thinks I did all of this handiwork with the power drill he bought me, but I can’t bear to tell him that I actually have no idea how to use the thing. I’ve been hiring people for years to hang things in my apartment while the power drill collects dust somewhere under my bed.

We have looked into framing many an odd sized image, and more often than not a custom framing job really breaks the bank. Here is a little tutorial on “custom” framing your own images for far less than a professional framer. standard frame, larger than your image paint (if desired) custom cut mat acid-free artist’s tape acid-free paper 1. Select and paint your frame. We chose a frame in raw wood (saved a few bucks there) and opted to paint it matte green with acrylic paint.

Every well-run home is teeming with tricks and shortcuts to keep it humming along. We’re sharing our best quick tips — for cleaning, organizing and repairing stuff at home — to save you time and money. Click through for today’s helpful hint, and links to tons more… Use a WALNUT! Just rub a shelled walnut on the damaged area, and watch in amazement as the dings, scrapes and scratches all begin to darken and disappear.

See this "coffin of a kitchen" open up.

There’s nothing better than cooking with something you’ve grown and harvested with your own hands. But not everyone is blessed with the space for a vegetable garden or even a vertical garden on a balcony or terrace. That’s okay! You can still pretend to be Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated and harvest the heck out of a window full of herbs in your kitchen.  Here’s how.Some herbs thrive indoors, and some don’t.

On their own, the colors beige and gray aren’t especially groundbreaking. But combine them and bam—you’ve got a color that’s as versatile as your basic neutral, but miles more nuanced. Greige, a warmed-up gray, adds serious depth to a room and makes a great backdrop, no matter whether your style is traditional, modern, or somewhere in-between.

Even if you're dealing with a very small laundry space, there are ways you can fit in all the functionality of a much larger room. All it takes is a little ingenuity.

It’s a simple truth: The eye tires of seeing the same thing over and over. That’s why trends come and go—first, a detail, color, shape, or form feels fresh and new because you’ve never seen it before. Then you’re seeing it at the mall and your aunt’s house, and finally, like with skinny jeans, you’re just… done. It’s a natural evolution, sure.

When Stasia bought her flat in 2016, she liked the kitchen—it was “big and bright and airy,” she says, and certainly on-trend. But it also “felt bland,” with “bleached white walls and cupboards that made it feel cold and clinical. I didn’t want to feel like I was cooking in a science lab.” When she decided to renovate, she was aiming for “industrial yet cozy, somewhere [she] could relax with a glass of wine.

What’s cooler than an exposed brick wall? An exposed, weathered, white brick wall!If you’ve been pining for that distressed, vintage look, read on—and don’t fret. It’s totally DIY-able and costs next to nothing… as long as you’ve got plenty of time. When my husband and I uncovered the original brick in the apartment over the former stable behind our Victorian, I knew I wanted to go with a random, weathered white look for our newest Airbnb.

If I admire one home design advancement, it just might be the advent of soft-close. You never realize how annoying slamming toilet lids and cabinet doors are until you experience the calm relief of closing those things quietly. This invention is so ubiquitous now that you can even get refrigerators with soft-close drawers—which, frankly, is a little gimmicky… but I still like mine.What if you have cabinets that date back to the time before this common upgrade?

Maybe you need a power snake to clear your drains after a heavy rain. Or a weed whacker in early spring. There’s always that one tool you need desperately for one job, but it isn’t anything you’d really want to buy—or worse, store. If you’re lucky, you know someone who knows someone who might lend you a tool for a weekend. But in our wondrous sharing economy, there’s another solution: tool libraries.

It’s hard to resist the siren call of exposing hidden brick. When you know it’s tucked away under drywall or plaster, just begging to make a big statement, you’ve just got to do it… right?It sounds so easy when you tell friends your plans: “Yeah, we’ll just tear out the plaster and expose the brick. It’ll be amazing.” And if it were a TV show and you could fast forward to the finished product, it would totally be amazing.

White doesn’t have to mean trite. Paired with a joyful neon color scheme, a white room can be an honest delight. Gill gave her girls’ “small and dark” room a colorful makeover to make the space feel entirely modern—and still kid-appropriate. “It is a shared room for our two daughters, and while we were desperate to lighten and brighten the space, we also wanted to ensure it appealed to both a 6-year-old and a 6-year-old,” Gill says.

Ah, Reddit. You can always be trusted for unfiltered opinions (and a lot of snark). When Redditor tomandjerry0 posted a question about the home trends we’ll regret in 20 years in the ever-popular r/HomeImprovement subreddit, some 2,400 posts came in fast and furious. Setting aside the topic of PEX, some consistent themes and hot topics emerged. (Shiplap, for one, still had enough defenders that it didn’t quite make the list).Another DIY that should be a DIY-don’t?

Every week, our resident “plant doctor” Hilton Carter, takes us behind the scenes into his own home jungle to answer questions about plant care and tips. But we thought it could be fun to, er, grow the series: sending him into real homes where the plants aren’t always quite so healthy. Today we’re launching House Calls with the Plant Doctor.First up is Aaron Nachmann, who is our director of ad operations here at Apartment Therapy.

Humans love their cats. From their boopers to their toe beans, cats bring joy to apartment-dwellers everywhere with a gigantic personality that fits comfortably in an urban-sized (read: teeny) apartment. But cats are still animals, which means they can claw, bite, knock over, and damage your #apartmentgoals.

My mom is always happy to see me. But the last time I visited, she was also a little nervous; I was about to tear up the house and disrupt her space for several days while keeping the plan shrouded in secrecy—all for a surprise Mother’s Day room makeover. As I’ve gotten older, I find Mother’s Day feels woefully inadequate. The person who raised you and sacrificed for you, for the better part of two decades (and beyond), deserves more than a text or card.

Shopping for rugs with a tight budget can be difficult. Here are some ideas to score one that doesn't look cheap.

Got a bathroom or kitchen with an outdated colour palette? That burnt umber and avocado green tiling not floating your boat in the kitchen or bathroom any longer? Tiling around kitchen backsplash, floor tiles non-sink countertops, fireplace tiles and wall tiles all can be repainted even if they have a shiny finish (continually and regularly wet tiling require an epoxy formula). You might want to consider repainting those eyesore tiles rather than replacing them.

Attention, all you renters out there: this is an easy, affordable, and ultra-stylish way to upgrade your dingy rental floors. We have been meaning to do something like this ourselves for quite some time, and seeing this project by Orlando Soria on Design*Sponge totally got us all jazzed up to copy her.

Chances are, you’ve seen one while visiting a friend’s apartment; or maybe you even have one yourself. But either way, I’m willing to bet that no matter how familiar you are with Murphy beds, you don’t know the story behind how they got their name. And it might just might surprise you.But let’s back up for a minute, shall we?

Name: StaceyLocation: Union Square, NYC Designer Patrick J. Hamilton sent in Before & After images of his client’s bedroom — and included one of the most thorough list of resources (and links!

Yesterday, our friend Abbey posted this pic on her Facebook page along with the following text, “I need help changing this light bulb. Seriously. Anyone?” She went on to explain“It doesn’t pull out, there’s no way (that I can figure out) to get the bulb through the fixture, it’s totally attached to the ceiling…????” We can totally empathize with Abbey and her frustration with home repairs.

While renovating our bathroom, we got an annoying amount of paint on the window. The glass is textured so even though we had prepped the window with painters tape it still leaked [we were also a bit clumsy in other places]. The textured glass meant a razor blade wasn’t very effective so we got creative!Materials:Razor BladeNail Polish RemoverMicrofiber ClothCotton TipsGlass Cleaner 1. Scrape as much paint off the glass as you can with the razor blade.2.

We just moved into a new place and even though we’re renting, we wanted to swap out the pendant above the dining table for a nice upgrade we can take with us when we go. I was going to call an electrician until a friend mentioned that I ought to be able to handle it myself. So I did, and was a lot simpler than I expected!Materials:ScrewdriverWirecutters/strippers (or if you’re handy, a pair of scissors) 1. Turn off Electricity!2.

It’s rare to find two-prong outlets in homes these days. Landlords and home owners have slowly switched over to three-prong outlets as more and more devices and appliances need them to power up. Occasionally though, you move into a place that doesn’t have a three-prong outlet where you need one, so how do you remedy the situation? You switch out your two-prong for a three-prong, but there’s a lot to consider before you start rewiring your apartment.

Fresh flowers are a fleeting pleasure no matter how you slice it, but we think they bring so much life and color to a room that they’re absolutely worth the effort and expense. A few simple tricks borrowed from the pros will help you keep flowers around a good long while. So go ahead, buy yourself a Valentine bouquet!

Using a watering can instead of a hose is a good way to save water when you’re watering plants. We’ve gathered up a list of the best eco-friendly watering cans, from those made with recycled materials to Nicolas Le Moigne’s cool design for a spout that attaches to a reused water bottle. There’s also a DIY project to turn a laundry bottle into a sprinkling can. Details after the jump.Shown above, from left to right:1.

Just as the markets started crashing in September of 2008, Lisa Hoffman and her husband bought their first house in Oakland, California. Thankfully, they weren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves, dig in, and do most of the work themselves—all on a very tight budget. The photo above is the sad-looking living room prior to their renovation. (Check out that wallpaper!

To anyone else, Adriana’s dark blue bedroom might seem complete—styled perfectly, designed for her particular taste, not a thing left to do! But the closet door was an eyesore that she just couldn’t overlook; it was tall and so bright-white and just didn’t seem to fit in with the design of the rest of the bedroom.

One of the easiest ways to live a green lifestyle is to simply buy only what you need. This is especially true when it comes to painting your spaces. Sure, it’s nice to have a small amount for touch-ups down the road, but that doesn’t mean you want rogue half gallons (or even whole!) sitting in your garage taking up space! Eliminate the waste and buy the correct amount to begin with. Here’s how:MaterialsToolsMeasuring TapeCalculator 1.

Hutches are weird things. They take up a great deal of space, and although they display your collectibles well, unless the vibe of the piece really fits your home, they feel monolithic and out of place. So when Brooke’s friend passed along a hutch from her Grandmother, she set out to make it her own and all we have to say is, “Wow!”Brooke over at The Crafting Chicks really did a bang up job on this transformation.

Q: What is the best solution to stop wasting water while waiting for hot water to reach the kitchen? My kitchen sink and dishwasher are a long way from the hot water heater. What is the best solution to stop wasting water while waiting for hot water to reach the kitchen: a tankless water heater under the kitchen sink, an on-demand recirculating system, or something else?Sent by SandraEditor: Here’s what our friends at Green Home Guide have to say:Answered by Alex Georgiou, Recurve Inc.

Who among us hasn’t spent hours hunched over an IKEA instruction booklet, arguing with their partner over what goes where? It’s basically a rite of passage, whether you rent or own a home. Then again, there are those of us who are handier than others, and can not only master complicated IKEA set-ups like a pro, but also take things to the next level with creative IKEA hacks. Those people are the true heroes, who deserve to be celebrated for their achievements.

Being a huge fan of visual display in stores and galleries, I make sure to try and always come up with unique display ideas for my own home. Sometimes I have a secret competition with myself to do things for the lowest price possible — this display was no exception!I saw this post a while back and became enamored by the interesting use of pant hangers. I wanted to create the same look without building a structural platform for the hangers.

I started making these eco planters for gifts a year ago and haven’t stopped. They are simple, stylish and downright lovable. Each pot is unique and has an organic, handmade feel. It is not an instant gratification project and you will have to commit, but the results are well worth it. I like to make about six at a time.

The laundry area in my new home is much more compact than it was in my old rental, resulting in the purchase of a stackable washer/dryer unit. One thing I’ve encountered that I didn’t with the traditional side-by-side units is a persistent vibration during the spin cycle of the washer. After some research, I learned a few new things about proper care of my appliances that I thought were worth of sharing. 1.

I’ve always admired vintage makeup compacts, but found it rather sad that refills weren’t available and chalked these fancy little accessories up as a lost cause. Sure you could possibly use one as a fancy pill case or just use the built-in mirror, but it’s just not the same. Then, randomly, my friend forwards this “how to” my way!Vixen Vintage worked out the details on how to turn loose powder into a perfectly pressed cake, ready for a night on the town.

With only 75 square feet to work with these homeowners decided to go up with their renovation rather than out. Using light colors and simple lines has transformed this room incredibly. Check out the beautiful before and after here.With thoughtful design and an ability to take advantage of light incredibly well, the folks over at Design with ADD have make a dramatic impact on their tiny kitchen.Here are their thoughts on the design: Because we opted not to move the 75 sq. ft.

When it comes to sprucing up the outdoors, it can be hard to rationalize spending big bucks on designer products. After all, things will get used and abused, walked on, sat on, and beat up by the elements. That’s why I love this transformation so much. It gives a big designer look for very little cash!This entryway has been spruced up with some simple black paint. It now coats the front door and has been stenciled onto an inexpensive indoor/outdoor rug from the local hardware store.