Personalize Your Space

Follows these tips to bring a customized touch to your home!

Monograms: An inexpensive way to personalize any room. Add them to bed linens, towels or a cozy blanket left draped over a chair. Many stores offer a monogram service for a fee when you buy their products.

Family heirlooms: Why keep your grandmother’s keepsakes in an old trunk in the attic? Display old photos and collectibles on console tables and walls throughout your home. Even if it’s an odd piece, like the barn door from your great uncle’s dairy farm, there are creative ways to incorporate it— possibly in your backyard garden? By displaying heirlooms, you’re adding an instant conversation piece and making something old new.

Frame-ables: Give accomplishments their due. Showcase things you’re proud of by putting them in frames. Word to the wise: don’t clump pictures together. Give each picture its own frame. Then, arrange the frames in an odd numbered grouping. Odd numbers give more visual appeal than an even numbered set.

Photos: Get creative with a photo editing software. By playing with the crop and saturation, you have the opportunity to create mini-works of art.

Art: All rooms can benefit from a well-placed piece of artwork. A small painting will look strange as the focal point on a large wall, so consider the size of your space first! Use a painting as a focal point or to bring together all the colors in the room. The best part is, art doesn’t have to cost a bundle to be an original. It just has to mean something to you. Plenty of DIY sites can show you ways to create your own. But if making art isn’t your thing, you just want to appreciate it, then acquaint yourself with budget-friendly options.

Budgeting a Redesign

Decorating a room can be fun and invigorating. It can bring you a fresh look to your home and express your unique style. But, it can also be expensive and with anything that requires financial budgeting, comes headaches. But buying new living room furniture or putting up new paint does not have to cause you stress. If you approach it with a clear plan in mind, the budgeting of the project should be fairly easy.

First things first, design your dream room. Set all financial burdens aside and plan the room as if it didn’t cost a thing. This way you can have fun and get out your creative side. Include practical stuff that needs to be fixed, upgraded and purchased. Next, determine your real budget and start be brutally honest with yourself about what you can and can’t afford. If you really don’t have enough money to make all the necessary changes to make you happy, then set the project aside for awhile until you do rather than maxing out your credit card.

Before you start making an itemized list of things you will change, do your research. Go online, open catalogs, hit the stores. Shop around and get to know how much things cost and what you can get for the money. Use an online furniture discounter, like us at Zara Living, to look for lower costs. In stores, you will see a lot of markup. Now, if you’ll need to hire anyone to help you with the redesign work, shop around for labor prices as well.

Sit with your itemized list of costs, your dream list and your budget in front of you. Think about what you can afford and what can be changed into something a little less expensive. After you’ve gone through it all and come to some conclusions, draft up a plan for the project. People work better with a clearly laid out plan and instructions. Especially if you have to assign tasks to others. Now you will have a way to make sure things get done on time so the project doesn’t drag on longer than it should.
Spend big money on the big room items. The things that will make guests say “wow.” And scrimp where you can on the smaller cosmetic changes. For the wow pieces, look online for a great furniture supplier. For smaller items and décor, check out secondhand stores, estate sales and discount retailers. It may be like looking for a needle in a haystack but when you do find something it is usually a great steal.

Decorating For Your Zodiac Sign

You know what we love about interior decorating? We love that you can design a room to reflect your unique personality and change it based on your mood. Decorating a room is like getting dressed. You can design in a way that expresses who you are and how you feel. We came across this fun article the other day about decorating based on your zodiac sign and it got us thinking and creating….

• Aries – You are into gadgets, like a large screen TV, and clean, clutter free spaces. Try pops of bold color, like a red sofa. Keep the space clear of excess clutter by storing things away.
• Taurus – You like worldly things and lush living spaces. Try decorating in all white. A white sofa, a white coffee table, white carpet. Add pops of gold or brass to add elegance.
• Gemini – You like art that functions as a statement piece. Modern design appeals to you too. Try a contemporary sofa that focuses on clean lines.
• Cancer – You are all about family values. Perhaps dedicate a wall to family photos. You also love the color blue, for the ocean. Turquoise or sea blue wall colors or used in decorating will make you feel right at home.
• Leo – Bold and passionate, find a great yellow or orange color that speaks to you and decorate in that. To bring out your party side, make sure to have board games on hand and leave out a prominent wine rack.
• Virgo – Use warm woods and natural hues for a refined country look. Stock up on stylish storage chests.
• Libra – Try fun pops of light blue and orange for a modern, fun look.
• Scorpio – Since your sign is all about transformation, you’re great at taking flea market finds and turning them into beautiful pieces of furniture.
• Sagittarius – You are all about world travel and having fun so your room should reflect that. Display your treasures from all across the globe and invest in some beanbag chairs for fun entertaining.
• Capricorn – All about regality and uniformity, your room shouldn’t look too soft. Invest in some firm leather couches with armrests and a sturdy oak table. Add an Oriental rug for that special touch.
• Aquarius – You love gadgets and gizmos so your home should contain plenty of those. You will feel right at home.
• Pisces – A dreamer, your home should feel whimsical and soft.

Feng Shui Your Room For Better Rest

So you are thinking about rearranging your bedroom to make it more of a peaceful place. Have you ever thought about applying some feng shui tips to your room? Feng Shui is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years ago in China. Its purpose is to reveal how to balance the energies of any given space to assure the health and good fortune for people inhabiting it. If you believe in it, it has some pretty cool ideas to make the energy of a room flow better. Let’s see how a little arranging of your bedroom furniture can make an impact on the feeling of your bedroom.

The first important thing to do is to position your bed correctly. The ideal placement of your bed allows you to see the bedroom door while laying in it. According to feng shui, being able to view the door, even while sleeping, allows you to feel more safe and at ease. The foot of the bed shouldn’t point at the door. According to feng shui, this is called the “coffin” position and puts your bed in the main flow of traffic, which is not relaxing. The head of the bed should be placed against a wall as opposed to under a window or away from the wall. If it is against a window it is thought that the chi of a room will be able to enter and leave the room quickly, causing unrestful sleep.

Another important thing to keep in mind is to have your bedroom act only as a place to sleep. Television, computers or exercise gear are believed to distract you from sleep and take up energy. If you have to have a TV in your bedroom, consider buying an entertainment center or armoir that matches the feel of your room. That way you can close the doors to the TV when not in use.

Following these few tips should help you have a more relaxing environment in your bedroom.