HOW TO LOVE THE HOME YOU LIVE IN

We get it – there are days where you just don’t love the home you live in. Worse, there may be days where you don’t eve like it. Maybe you think it’s too small, or it doesn’t look like the homes in fancy magazines.

But we have a secret – you don’t have to have a perfect home to love the one you live in. If you’re looking for ways to find a new appreciation for the place where you hang your hat, read on.

KEEP IT TIDY

It doesn’t matter how awesome your house is – if it’s a mess, it’ll make anybody feel blue. That goes double for a house you’re struggling to love. One of the first things you can do to warm up to your home is to keep it tidy. Eliminate clutter that has been piling up, donate unused items to charity, and give every room a thorough cleaning. It’s kind of amazing how good a clean house can make you feel.

STOP COMPARING

Yes, your cousin’s 3,500 square foot house in the country is amazing. And it can be tempting to see everything that she has that you don’t. But the key to happiness in any situation in life is to stop comparing what you have to what others have. Besides, think about how much more time your cousin has to spend cleaning such a large home! Less time cleaning equals more time for the fun things in life.

FIND NEW USES FOR OLD THINGS

Maybe your house is giving you a serious case of the blahs. You’ve been looking at the same art on the walls for ages. You haven’t moved the furniture since you moved in five years ago. Now is the time for a change. But, instead of going shopping for new items, take a little “shopping” trip through your own home. When items live in the same place forever, they begin to blend into the background. Switch things up and move art, furniture, pillows and more from one room to another. It can really spice up the energy in your house and remind you of belongings you cherish that you had forgotten about.

CONSIDER THE BIGGER PICTURE

Sometimes you need to remind yourself why you chose your home in the first place. Is it close to work, giving you a wonderfully short commute? Is the backyard huge, with lots of space for the kids to play? Do you live within walking distance of your best friend? Is there a park or a café nearby that you love? Do you have really great neighbors? There are many reasons beyond the physical structure that can make your home a great place to live. Remember those things when you start to feel negative.

PRACTICE GRATITUDE

It’s true in life and it’s true when looking for ways to appreciate your home – practice gratitude. We have so many conveniences and beautiful things in our home that we take for granted, like that cozy quilt you inherited from grandma or the antique chest of drawers from your father’s aunt. Take time to express gratitude for the things you have. You’ll soon find that you’re falling in love with your home all over again.

5 Key Decorating Tips to Make Any Room Better

I hate to break it to you, but designers don’t follow a secret rule book. There are no hard and fast laws governing what we do. We are creative types by nature and love to imagine, dream and explore, following our intuition. That said, there are some rough principles that guide us to ensure a great result every time. They are just tried and true things that work. And these aren’t tricks or skills that take years to master. Anyone can do them from day one. Consider this a foundation for developing your own quirky, creative, rule-breaking intuition.

1. Pick the paint color last.

There are thousands of paint colors with various tints, tones and shades. And each one looks different from home to home, because light sources vary, meaning what looks good in your current home might not in your new one. You want the color that best complements your upholstery, artwork, rug and whatever else. You can pick that color only if your stuff is actually inside your home.

2. Give your furniture some breathing room. Resist overcrowding a room. Gracious living means space to maneuver with ease. This is really great news if you are working with a tight budget. You don’t need to fill up a space with lots of furniture. Spend more of your budget on fewer but better-quality pieces, and your room will look better than if it’s stuffed to the gills with flea market finds. The high-backed chairs shown here, for example, stand out because they don’t have to fight for attention.

3. Hang artwork at the right height. Galleries and museums hang artwork so that the midline (center) of each piece is 57 inches to 60 inches from the floor. (The average human eye level is 57 inches.) And you should do the same.In a room like this, where the ceilings soar, there might be a tendency to hang the art higher. But remember: It needs to relate to human scale, not the structure’s scale.

If you’re not sure, take a picture. It’s remarkable how much a photo can reveal. Print it out or use Photoshop or an app to draw on the photo. This can give you a sense of whether a larger or smaller piece of art is needed or a tall plant might be best to fill a vacant spot.

4. Know how to arrange furniture on a rug. There are basically three ways you can arrange furniture on your rug.

All on: The rug is large enough to place all of the furniture legs on top of it. This creates a more luxurious feel. For this, bigger is better. Just be sure to leave at least 12 to 18 inches of floor surface on all four sides of the rug’s borders.

All off: If you have a small room, keeping all legs off the rug is a great cost-effective choice. You don’t want to pick too small a rug, though, or it may look insignificant, like an afterthought. The rug should appear as though it could touch the front legs of each of the seating pieces. This approach is best suited when you’re layering a pattern over a larger solid or textured rug.

Front on: Put just the front feet of all your seating pieces on the rug to tie the arrangement together visually and create a well-defined space while lending a feeling of openness.

6. Create a focal point.

There are leading roles and supporting cast members in any production. The same holds true in design. Choose your star and make it the focal point to anchor a room. Allow other items to take a secondary role. Don’t ask everything to have a leading role; it will just result in visual noise.

Your focal point might be a dramatic hood in the kitchen, a mantel and art piece in the living room or a headboard in the bedroom. Whatever it is, choose something that will draw attention. In this room the fireplace and the lighting work together as a collective focal point, bringing your eye right to the center of the composition and anchoring it there.

ORGANIC ORGANIZING

Organic

— denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole.

— characterized by continuous or natural development.

Some people are born organizers…others of us struggle with the concept our whole lives…many of us fall someplace in-between the two. When it comes to keeping our homes organized, we often fall prey to the beautiful, matching organization systems at The Container Store or localTarget gracing shelves and weekly advertisements during January. As if failing at our other resolutions wasn’t enough, now we see how much we are failing at keeping our home organized, too!

Whether you’re moving into a new home, or preparing your home to sell, becoming organized might be at the top of your list, but if you’re not a natural-born organizer, the task you’re taking on might be daunting.

Rather than trying to implement all of the numerous ideas floating around the Internet or gathering dust in a folder you started last January, consider allowing your home organization to come more, well, naturally. That is, make it match organically how you live rather than changing how you live to match it.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Use your trashcan — natural born organizers think nothing of throwing things away that they don’t need. Those of us on the less organized side worry that we might toss something important or even trivial (sales bills and coupons) that we might want to retrieve. Instead of tossing everything … have a trash bin handy near the place you sort mail and start by just tossing those items you consider to be junk mail.
• While you’re at it…put a wastebasket in every room so that throwing things away is easier while you’re thinking about it.
• Use storage tubs — while you may long for those beautiful cubbies with shoes snuggly nestled in matched pairs, if your kids are anything like mine, a large plastic tub holding all of their shoes may be the best you can hope for. So start there! Give each child (and you and your spouse) your own storage bin for all of your shoes, backpack and other daily necessities.
• Use hooks liberally — have coat hooks near the garage door so coats are easy to grab on the way out and easy to hang on the way in. Have more hooks above the coat hooks for hats or caps. Hang hooks on the sides of closets for belts and scarves. If your family has trouble hanging towels in regular towel bars, just use hooks in the bathroom for the towels.
• Place a charity box in the laundry room. Whenever you launder items that family has outgrown or no longer wear, put them in the box. When the box is full, you can make a trip to your favorite charity or use one of the collection bins in a nearby parking lot.

If your home is on the market, give each family member a storage bin with a lid…whenever the house is being shown (or before they leave for school each day) have the collect everything loose and put it in the bin and place it in their closet. Now your home will be ready in a snap.

FALL FILTER FIXES

Okay, some home maintenance items just don’t make the urgent list.

Changing your furnace filter doesn’t often make the cut. As we head into autumn, take a moment to check your furnace filter to get it ready for a winter workout.

Why your filter is important

A filter protects the blower on your furnace from dirt and debris. Its basic function is to keep the dirt from the air out of your furnace, but specialty filters can reduce airborne dust, remove allergens and pet hair, and improve air quality.

The filter’s location at the air in-take means that particle removal happens before air is heated and forced through your home’s vents. Since the air from your vents is clean, you may not notice that your furnace isn’t running efficiently, but a clogged it can lessen the life of your furnace. The extra wear and tear that pulling air through a dirty filter causes may lead to inadequate airflow, overheating and even complete shutdown of the system.

Ideally, you should check your filter once a month. If your system involves just a furnace, then check the filter monthly during the cold season and again in the fall just prior to cool weather returning. If you have a complete HVAC system, the filter affects your air conditioner as well. A dirty filter in the warm season can cause the air conditioner’s cooling coils to freeze up, stressing the AC system.

Here’s what to do

Experts suggest checking the filter every month and changing it at least every three. Check your owner’s manual for information on the filter’s location and the best size and type of filter to use. Determine if you have a disposable filter or a reusable filter. A disposable filter typically has a cardboard frame while a reusable one is made of plastic or metal.

• Disposable:
  —Turn off the furnace system. This means shutting it off at the fuse box, the circuit breaker or a furnace cutoff switch.
  —Remove the cover from the filter holder.
  —Remove the filter from it’s housing either inside the furnace or at the return air vent. The existing filter probably has a marker indicating the correct position to install the filter so that the airflow goes toward the furnace. Make a note of this so you can correctly install the new filter.
  —On the new filter, look for the markings that indicate the airflow direction and match them up to the correct flow direction toward your furnace.
  —Replace the cover.
• Reusable:
  —Turn off the furnace system. This means shutting it off at the fuse box, the circuit breaker or a furnace cutoff switch.
  —Remove the blower door or locate the filter in the return air vent.
  —Use either your regular vacuum or a wet/dry vacuum to remove dust from the filter. Vacuum the area around where the filter goes as well.
  —Wash the filter. You can do this outdoors using a garden hose or indoors in the bathtub or shower (although this is messier). Be sure to spray the water in the reverse direction of the airflow at the end to make certain no dust particles are left on the inside of the filter.
  —Allow the filter to dry completely before you reinstall it.
  —Check the filter for indicators of which direction should face the furnace and reinstall the filter, insuring that loops or clips are in their proper position.

If this seems like a lot to do, or if your furnace filter location is awkward, consider hiring a certified HVAC service to check, change or clean your filters for you.

If you’re planning to sell your home, keeping your furnace in great working condition contributes to its resale value.

7 Secret House Cleaning Tips From the Pros

Cleaning your house is a chore that takes you hours to complete. So you call a cleaning professional to do the task for you and BAM! They zoom right through the task. Ever wonder how? Us too. So we got the inside scoop — and some top-secret tricks — on their process.

Andrea Davis of the Huffington Post gives us 7 tips from the pros here!  7 Secret House Cleaning Tips From the Pros