Guest Post - How to Update Your Home without Remodeling

If you’ve ever spent your day off perusing Pinterest and admiring the spacious, unique and trendy home decor projects of bloggers and interior designers, you’re not alone. Many of us are always looking for new ways to make our homes look more inviting and like something out of an episode of HGTV. A lot of those projects take time, money and effort–something that not everyone has. How can you give your home a facelift without tearing down walls or rewiring the electric? Here are some fun, unique ways to update your home–all without needing to get out the hammer and screwdriver.

Lighting

A little lighting can go a long way into transforming your space. Figure out which areas in the rooms of your home seem a little dark and then add a couple of floor lamps. You’ll instantly notice how much brighter the room feels–literally! Look for unique hanging light fixtures, as well, such as reflective chandeliers. They’ll catch the light and make the room feel much bigger. You can also replace any table lamps with new bases and shades, a simple and quick switch that will leave guests wondering what you did differently.

Curtains

If you think your room doesn’t need a curtain, you’re actually wrong. Curtains are great for adding another layer of design to a room. Even if you have a great view of the outdoors from your bedroom window, finding the right curtains to frame it will make the view even better. Consider finding blackout curtains that keep light out at night for when you’re sleeping. You can find them in all different types of patterns and colors, so they’re perfect for adding something a little extra to your decor!

Photos

Creating a gallery wall is a great way to add something extra to your decor. There are so many ways that you can arrange photos–trailing along your staircase, lined up symmetrically on the wall behind your couch or even down the hallway. Some people even print all their photos in grayscale to make the gallery even more cohesive. Play around with frame sizes and shapes, and don’t forget to find some unique personalized picture frames to show off the family’s hobbies and interests!

Brighter, Not Darker

When giving your home a facelift, focus on brighter colors and not darker hues. If you do bring in any jewel tones, use them as accents in the pillows and other smaller decor pieces, such as clocks. Brighter colors tend to make rooms feel bigger, especially off-whites and pale grays. Walls that are too dark will make the space feel closed in. If you still decide to go with a dark wall color, make sure you have lots of bright pieces to contrast!

Ditch the Bulk

Leave the clunky furniture of the early 2000s. Instead, focus on finding smaller, more functional pieces, such as storage ottomans in place of coffee tables and mixed metal end tables. A trendy combination lately has been wood and metal, so finding pieces with wooden table tops and metal legs will really help open the place up. This is especially good if you want your home to feel more open-concept but don’t want to knock down walls. 

Cabinets and Knobs

Don’t want to pay for new cabinets? Replace the doorknobs and slap on a new coat of paint! You’ll be surprised at how quickly your kitchen will look completely different when you switch out brass knobs for glass ones and white cabinets for black ones. Visit your local hardware store to get an idea for what you like. Forewarning: There will be a lot of options to choose from, but that’s okay! Purchase a couple of each type to figure out what you think will look best in your home and then go back and get the rest. Make sure you pay attention to where the knobs are placed on your kitchen drawers, though. You don’t want to purchase horizontal handles when there’s only one hole drilled in the center of your cabinet door!

Accents

Sometimes you just need a new set of couch pillows and other accent decor items to make your home feel fresh and new! Consider switching out the blankets you have with some new ones, such as a personalized picture blanket to spread across the back of the couch with your latest family portrait on it. You could also consider adding some smaller detail pieces, such as a miniature globe or even a set of porcelain bookends. Even rearranging the kids’ karate trophies can make the space feel fresher.

Outdoor Furniture

Don’t neglect the outside! If you’ve been avoiding having cookouts and outdoor parties because you cringe every time you look at your backyard, now’s the time to change it. Spend the day giving some TLC to your backyard. Plant fresh flowers and greenery, install some string lights and bring in some new outdoor furniture. Make your outdoor space feel much more inviting by adding pavers and even an outdoor rug. Consider adding a fire pit or hammock, too!

If you’re adding greenery, make sure you go to your local nursery prior to purchasing any plants. You want to make sure to add plants that will thrive in your local environment, especially depending on the season. If you’re not big into watering your yard unless absolutely necessary, they can also help you find great greenery that needs minimal maintenance but will bring new life to either your yard or in your home.

Not every home project needs the fanfare of busting through walls or tearing down backsplash. You can still make your home feel fresh and new by switching out smaller accent pieces and plugging in some new light fixtures. Even if all that seems too hectic for your schedule, sometimes even a fresh coat of paint to the walls, rearranging the furniture and doing a deep clean of your living spaces can make a huge difference in how your home feels.

Author Bio: Ashley Peterson is the Director of Marketing at GiftsForYouNow. Her favorite part of her job is connecting others with sentimental and personalized gifts that foster lifelong memories. Ashley is also a mother of 2 and enjoys spending time with her family exploring the outdoors.

3 Ways to Make Your Pool Unique

With the weather warming up, many people are starting to think about ways to improve their outdoor spaces and to ensure they can get as much use out of them as possible. When you’re looking to update your outdoor space, a great place to start is your pool. Whether you have an existing pool or are considering adding one to your yard, making it unique can really transform your outdoor space. Check out the coolest ways to make your pool unique.

Go with a unique shape

If you’re building a new pool or due for a full remodel of your existing one, consider a less conventional shape. There are plenty of shapes to choose from—for example, some people choose kidney-shaped pools for a little bit of style. Consider how large you want your pool to be and the space you have to work with. Talk to a contractor if you have questions about whether your desired shape will work with your yard and budget.

Change the pool color

Use different products that can change the color of your water without compromising the pH and composition. Pick a color to keep all season long, or switch colors for different events. There are endless possibilities—you may even become known as the house with the rainbow pool or the house with the coolest pool parties.

Choose a theme

Use a theme for your pool and pool area for a fun and unique twist on a traditional pool. For example, if you choose to make your pool area mermaid-themed, you can use mermaid tile to create a mosaic in your pool interior and purchase mermaid-themed chairs and towels. The lighting can even factor into your theme. Don’t be afraid to really steer into your theme—it can transform your whole backyard.

You can make many updates to your pool in order to make it unique. Now is a perfect time to get creative and really personalize your outdoor area.

Guest Post - 9 Tips for Making a Smaller Space More Liveable

There are many reasons people decide to live in a smaller space, like an apartment or a mobile home, over a traditional home. Some might be looking to save money, others might desire to live in a prime location where a stick-built home is out of their budget, certain folks may no longer need as much space as they used to, and the list goes on. 

While there are many perks of moving to a smaller space, designing tighter living quarters can present unique challenges that require creative thinking and thoughtful planning in order to make the most of your space.

Here are nine tips for making a smaller space more liveable, and how to help it feel like home.

1. Use the walls when you have limited floor space.

Add visual interest with art and decor in your home by taking advantage of the blank canvas of your walls. Even if you don’t have much square footage in your home, strategically hanging photographs or shelving can help draw the eye upward and give the illusion of more space without the clutter. When hanging curtains over your window, a popular interior design trick is to hang simple or vertically striped curtains a few inches higher than the frame.

2. Add more greenery to spruce up your space.

Studies have shown that adding greenery to indoor spaces can brighten people’s moods, inspire feelings of comfort, and potentially even help purify the air. When designing your small space, consider adding hanging succulents from the ceiling or placing small plants on wall shelving to add a calming pop of color and freshness to the air.

Here are a few plants that are quite durable in the indoors:

• Asparagus Fern

• Succulents

• Fiddle Leaf Fig

• Yucca

• Air Plant

• Rubber Plant

3. Get strategic with storage solutions.

Smaller spaces like mobile homes are the perfect candidate for clever storage solutions. Find ways to build storage into your living space, with solutions like wall shelving or closed cabinetry, and explore multipurpose furniture (think: a coffee table that opens up to a snack tray, or an ottoman that has a removable top for storing books or blankets) to keep clutter to a minimum.

4. Open the space up with light colors.

Using lighter colors on your walls and floors can help the sunlight better reflect through the rooms, giving the illusion of a more spacious environment. If you aren’t able to change your flooring, a cream-colored carpet can instantly open up a room. While stark white walls can sometimes feel clinical, choosing light paint colors with warm tones can bring both brightness and dimension to your small space.

5. Brighten the walls with strategically placed mirrors and light fixtures.

Just as light colors can help light bounce better off the walls, hanging mirrors on the walls in dark corners of your home can trick the eye into thinking they’re filled with light. Multiple light fixtures placed around the room also help to provide depth to your home by casting light and shadows throughout each room.

6. Tuck away additional seating and dining furniture when guests aren’t around.

If you’re not always serving dinner for six or hosting a game night for four, you don’t always need to have your accent furniture or tableware out on full display in your home. Folding chairs, table leaves, and place settings can be tucked away quite easily and can keep your space feeling more open for everyday living.

7. Create defined spaces to separate living activities.

When your home has a small footprint, especially if it’s an open space like a studio apartment, it can be easy for each room to spill into the next, making the whole place feel cramped. One way to give each space in your home a true purpose is by using furniture to define it: A bookshelf can serve as a divider and privacy screen to separate a bedroom space from a living space just as easily as the strategic placement of a couch can divide the dining area from the living room.

8. Be mindful of proportions.

A small bedroom would probably have a hard time handling a California king bed on a four-post frame, just as a 200-square-foot living room wouldn’t comfortably fit a 12-piece sectional. When designing your small place, consider the proportions of each room, and select furniture that fills the space without overpowering it. You and any guests you invite over will feel much more comfortable this way.

9. Limit overall clutter, and go easy on the knick-knacks.

Unfortunately, small spaces don’t hide clutter in the way that larger spaces might be able to. Keep the clutter in your home to a minimum, and try not to fill every empty corner with numerous tiny knick-knacks. This will allow you to create a much more powerful visual impact in your space, and help you avoid wasting your time dusting shelves full of small decorative objects.

Small Space, Happy Home

From bright colors to calming greenery, to multipurpose furniture, and more, there are many ways to make a smaller space more liveable. With a little bit of planning and some strategic choices, it’s easy to make your place still feel like home.

Author Bio: Suzanne Felber of Lifestylist, focuses on many things but above all else, we focus on creating perfectly curated and beautiful spaces - from manufactured homes to food, beauty, and beyond.

Guest Post - How to Style your Kitchen with Glass Door Kitchen Cabinets

We all understand how kitchen cabinet doors can change the entire persona of the kitchen making it look aesthetically pleasing and pretty. Kitchen Cabinet doors with glass in an increasingly popular trend which makes up for significantly fancier kitchens in the modern contemporary homes.

Kitchen cabinets door glass has a lot to offer to the owners. Some of benefits of having a glass cabinetry are: 

• Help you flaunt your fancy collection and put on a great, stylish show. 

• They work really well in small kitchens giving kitchens an expansive look. Having glass kitchen cabinets make the small space look bigger

• They enhanced the visibility of the kitchen and brought in more light and brighter appeal to the kitchen. 

• It gives you a sense of increased space. 

• Glass door kitchen cabinets break the monotony and present aesthetically pleasing settings in your kitchen. 

• Having a glass door kitchen cabinets accentuate all the elements of the kitchen giving it a classic, modern look.

Even though choosing a glass door kitchen cabinets are a bit more work and require more effort in maintaining, the charming appeal of it provides a lot many of us fall over it designing. 

Some of the problems faced by Glass Kitchen Cabinetry are: 

• Difficult to maintain, cleaning wise 

• Can expose the clutter inside the cabinets 

• Expensive in installation 

While going for glass door kitchen cabinets, there are varied options in types of glass. Below are some of the options available you can choose from, based on your liking and what suits your home and kitchen decor: 

Transparent or Clear Glass Cabinets Kitchen cabinet door glass is the most popular style in modern appeal homes and people often choose clear glass doors which provide unobstructed view inside the cabinets. Plain, transparent glass doors are a classic option which is a safe bet for most of the home makers and is widely available. They work very well for super organized kitchen cabinets or if you want to display your family heirlooms. If you have beautiful cookware and china sets which you want to flaunt, use the transparent glass cabinets and you can add lights inside the cabinets to enhance the beauty. Cleaning this glass door can be a bit of a task because even the tiniest of smudges or fingerprints on the door can look ugly and untidy.

Frosted Glass Cabinets People who are not very sure to put everything out on display in their kitchen can opt for frosted glass cabinets. It minimizes the clutter which might be inside the cabinet and can put up a pretty glass to hide it. The frosted glass gives away the sleek and cool appeal to the kitchen. You can achieve the translucent quality of this glass with sand or grit elements. The best thing about frosted glass is that you get to attain the modern feel of glass cabinets but at the same time, don't have to worry too much about organizing and arranging everything perfectly inside Frosted glass is produced through a process of sandblasting giving it a dream-like translucent feel and look.

Stained Glass Cabinets This one is one of the most elegant choices when we talk about the types. You can choose various colors and designs in this type and based on it, it may be obscure or not. This type of glass door cabinetry goes well with traditional or vintage themed kitchens. 

Seeded Glass Cabinets This particular type of glass has a gas trapped inside its surface which gives a bubbly appearance to the most transparent look of the glass. It is a kind of textured glass which shows the interior of the cabinets clearly. The rustic and vintage themed kitchens go really well with this type of glass door kitchen cabinets. The homemakers who are attracted to clear glass can opt for this option. This design style and type of the glass cabinets dates back to colonial times and has an old fashioned and hand crafted appeal which suits really well in cottage, shaker and traditional kitchens. The bubbles or dots in this type of glass can be tiny, large or whatever size you intend to have, depending on what contents inside the cabinets you wish to showcase.

Textured Glass Cabinets Textured glass cabinets are embossed with intricate detailing making up for a stunning design style. They are embossed to create bumps or ridges making it perfect beveling. They offer a wide variety to choose from- ribbed,grooved , beveled,wavy, pebbled, fluted or otherwise patterned. They have a unique appearance and can have an opaque effect on hiding what's inside the cabinets. This type of cabinets shine well in modern contemporary homes.The woodwork on these particular glass cabinets is an important part of the design which can bring a varied look to the kitchen cabinets. 

Leaded Glass Cabinets It has an artisanal quality which gives an elegant and traditional look to the cabinetry. You can have numerous designing options in this type of glass cabinets and can also go for colored or stained glass doors for the stunning result. You can add lights inside the cabinets for portraying different color hues. They are arranged in attractive patterns and are framed in stylish metals. They have old world charm or transitional kitchens which give traditional luxury to your homes.

Mullion Glass Cabinets This type of glass cabinets bring up the artistic flair in your kitchens. Promising a perfect classic contemporary look,they bring out the elegance with its embellished designs available in varied choices. You can have a personal touch in mullion glass cabinets and can customize according to the look and feel of your kitchens and homes. 

After going through the types of glass which can be used to bring different effect and appeal to the kitchen cabinets, here are some other ways to style your kitchen with Kitchen Cabinets Door Glass 

Pick the right Color palette While choosing for glass door kitchen cabinets, you need to be sure about choosing the right color palette. Having an all white kitchen is a classic example where you can add subtle splashes of grey, pink or warm tones by adding a glass door kitchen cabinets. You can go for dual tones as well while adding glass cabinetry. This makes the kitchen look cohesive and pretty. Adding warm earthy tones to your glass cabinetry makes your kitchen look crisp, clean and sleek. 

Balance all the elements  The overall look of your kitchen changes if you could create balance with all the elements with your glass cabinetry. Since glass cabinets showcase all the contents inside the cabinets, it becomes important to arrange and organize everything inside in a balanced manner. Too many large items on one side and small ones on the other side would look cluttered and would disrupt the balance. You have to think of glass door cabinets as a decorative option. You have to make sure that all your items, cookware, fancy china and other pans are stacked and placed in a proper manner creating perfect balance.

Make it functional  While having glass door kitchen cabinets seem more like a decorative and luxury element, they need to be made truly functional. You can place everyday utensils and cookware within your reach and can flaunt your expensive china on the top cabinets showing off your stylish collection.

Things that can enhance your glass door kitchen cabinets

Muntins Cabinets A little innovation and creativity can go a long way when it comes to change the way your kitchen looks. Adding muntin patterns to customize the design of your cabinetry can spring upon the new look and feel in your kitchen. You can go with a classic look which is forever stylish or can choose a particular design complimenting the interior detailing of your kitchen and home decor.

Sliding Glass Door Cabinets Just to add a little zing to your normal cabinetry in your boring kitchen, you can add the sliding glass door to the kitchen cabinets to give it an old warm feel. Also, some homeowners really like the idea of sliding doors as it seems more functional to them. You can add seeded glass to such doors for giving it old world charm in your vintage themed kitchen. 

Tall Glass Cabinets If you like to go away from contemporary designing, you can opt for high sealing tall glass cabinets in your kitchen. This suits really well if you have a great collection of items and prized possessions to put on a display. You can add all the items in an organized manner in your glass cabinets, add lights to enhance the beauty and create a splendid appeal of your kitchen and home. 

Mirrored Glass Cabinets If you are somebody who likes having glass kitchen cabinets but at the same time, want to conceal the items inside, you can experiment with mirrored glass cabinets. This kind of cabinetry brings in a lot of light effect and gives your kitchen an expansive appeal.

Arched Glass Cabinets This one brings in a lot of sophistication to your kitchens. While everything else in your kitchen is in straight lines, an accent finish to the glass cabinets adds a great character to the kitchen. You can go with dark stained wood  like texture for such cabinets which look like a piece of furniture and blend seamlessly with other decor elements of the home.  

I have seen that the homemakers go in quite a deep research phase when it comes to revamping their kitchen. The journey is prolonged because of the endless options that are presented which sometimes can be an overwhelming thing for people. The general rule to follow here is to understand your home decor and interior, understand your limitations and budget and then based on your preference and liking, you can chalk out the plan for portraying the perfect character to your kitchen and kitchen cabinets. 

Since there are so many options to choose from ranging from classic, contemporary or modern, you can list it down to what you want and then just go ahead with it. And while making your way through the glass door kitchen cabinet, you need to understand the exact purpose of choosing it. Glass itself adds the element of the art in your kitchen creating a unique design pattern which flaunts the stylish appeal to your home. 

I hope these points help you out with all your queries pertaining to glass cabinetry in your kitchen and you can make up your mind with the perfect choice. 

Author Bio 

Walton  is an eminent blogger and a homemaker who has been writing on home decor and interior’s functionality for quite some years now. He has been responsible in formulating and carrying out an online offline campaign for well recognized home decor companies, explaining the installation guides and latest trends and fashion in the setting up homes, that assists the other homeowners and remodelers make revamping decisions. The particular blog is written in order to help our small kitchen home owners on how to make the most of small space with the perfect kitchen cabinets. I hope that this would help them make stylish and functional changes.